For the life of me I will never understand why we would want to gut our military. Talk softly and carry a big stick. You don’t have to agree with the engagements that we have been in to understand why we need a strong military for defense and to make sure the world knows it. This can be squared WITH veteran and other social safety net programs. No reason not to have both.
I am using an OPNsense Qotom MiniPC as a firewall/router. I have three Zyxel Wireless APs that I flashed with OpenWRT. I also have two Zyxel switches (8 and 24 port) that I also flashed with OpenWRT. And lastly, I have two Netgear R7000s, also with OpenWRT, that are glorified smart switches. I am very happy with my setup. It works like a champ!
I appreciate your and and your opinion. I feel that it is important that I stress that anything that I type is not meant as an attack and is merely discussion. I love discussion it brings me a greater understanding everytime I am invited to participate. To the point, what you said in your post is something that I find to be untrue and is the point of what I am trying to say.
Firstly, no matter where you go people vote you off the island if you disagree with group think. I have seen it happen a number of times. There are specific issues that will get you ousted much more quickly to be true, but those issues aren’t necessarily core tenets of whatever the group philosophy is.
Secondly, as long as I have been alive I have found people who due to groupthink will always take the group’s ideas as a point of fact, creating the situations I am talking about. I am trying to say that the way that we do politics, separating things into large groups creates more harm than good.
I am not left because my ideas are left wing. I am left wing because you tell me I’m left wing. Then I identify as such, then connect with like minded people. Then group think takes hold and an equilibrium is reached wherein each idea is given a value.
Those in the group that disagree on principle risk being removed from the group or having to stay silent while often harmful ideas are espoused. Because at least our group isn’t that other one.
This last point is the danger, because, suppose it is true that the group we are discussing is truly better than their opponents. That doesn’t then give them immunity from making incorrect choices and espousing dangerous and harmful ideas and tactics. Those arguing for and enacting those can just say, “At least we aren’t those guys. They are evil!!” And then commit atrocities in the name of goodness. Because, “Hey, at least we aren’t those people.”
It really is a bit more nuanced than that.
Classifications like those just feel kind of arbitrary. Like I get associating with like minded people, but my point was that trying to classify everything in these neat little bottles don’t work. You can make enemies if you don’t check all the opinion boxes no matter where you turn.
For example, I would agree with your military assessment as being left, except that military is never something that should be utilized domestically, unless as a very last resort facing an armed rebellion. Otherwise, its for defense and on the rare occasion offense, but should remain strong, very strong. I would much more readily agree with my conservative acquaintances on this issue and have in the number of conversations I have had as an older fellow.
And I’m not an economist nor a lawyer so any thing that I could really offer as far as corporate regulation would be very general things like, “monopolies bad”. So it would be difficult for me to really collate some kind of list of laws I think we should have, which speaks to the point that most people aren’t experts and just pretend to know the inner workings of systems they have no training in.
I would agree that I fall left of center, but only because it averages out that way. I have some very “conservative” opinions that are dwarfed by the “progressive” opinions that I have. Like, you cant take a bunch of opinions someone has and go, “You are just like those guys!” That will inevitably be proven wrong.
Regardless, I appreciate your response.
What if I want no taxes for the lower class lower taxes for the middle class and small business but much higher taxes on the upper class and large corporations, a very strong military, less but stronger corporate regulation with more teeth, to fund public works and social services with the taxes we bring in, a free and equal society with no hierarchical systems or bigotry, freedom of speech and strong privacy laws with certain restrictions on speech (calls to violence, etc…), very strong unions, a near complete elimination of wall street, and a fair justice system that doesn’t target minorities as prey? Also, guns are fine for self defense in my opinion. Which side do I fall on?
Edit: So if you will read my posts below I talk about how going against groupthink just makes you enemies of the group. Then the group started down voting me down below. I’m really not worried about fake internet points. I just want to make sure that everyone that downvoted me is well aware that my point is well and truly proven. A difference of opinion is not welcome. Even, and especially, if that opinion is, “Stop letting the group think for you. Examine each issue as a separate issue and make fair and reasoned decisions.”
I can agree with you on principal. Just as long as you aren’t distributing things like this I don’t really see an issue. Not the tool, the distributor / platform. I also agree that these articles are meant to ensure that those technology can be held behind locked doors. I fully support the idea of making AI something that is self-hostable.
That being said there are people in this thread that see nothing wrong with distributing lewd pictures of real people (drawn, ai generated, or even hacked and stolen). That is the only thing that I was addressing.
Do you need their permission to distribute that art?
Alright, I’ll bite. To start, this is a real person that we are talking about. A real person who did not consent. Does that mean anything to you? The fact that there is a very real person that exists in very real life that has had this happen to them?
Otherwise, I agree. Nothing wrong with the male libido.
It works perfectly well. I find the ui bit clunky personally, but functionally it works very well. I don’t have much time to read anymore though, so I rarely use it to be honest.
Thank you for recommending Innertune. Checking it out now.
What I have installed:
From Obtanium:
From FDroid (really droidify from various repositories)
The list is massive and I’m on mobile and hate tiny keyboards. I can finish the list later if you/y’all are interested. The only thing that I actively use that is not FOSS on my phone is Google Messages, which I guess is a bit hypocritical, but its too good. Just the ability to react to messages makes it worth it for me.
I also highly recommend Grayjay. It is the best (IMHO) YouTube replacement. It is cross service, like I have odysee, nebula, youtube, and various peertube instances added as sources.
As far as what apps to watch out for, someone mentioned Simple Mobile Tools. Otherwise, I would stay away from apps that are not being updated anymore or are otherwise way too old.
Could you imagine trying to play guitar in a space suit, lol?
That’s interesting. I wouldn’t have thought that.
None of these things exist so real life evolutionary biology doesn’t really have a place in this discussion, lol. Although you are correct.
Besides, since they are fictional you could just come up with some reason. Dolphins for instance have no legs, but still have the vestiges of them in the form of very small unconnected bones where their legs would be. They also have a dorsal fin on their backside and tiny little arms. So it stands to reason that, conceivably, wings could have evolved separately in a similar (note ‘a similar’ not ‘the same’) way to a dolphin’s dorsal fin.
You could jump from this concept (marrying real world evolutionary biology and fiction) and explain orc, trolls, etc… as ape descended life much the same as humans. Maybe merfolk evolved in the same way animals in the cetacea infraorder evolved from otter-like creatures. Maybe they have small unconnected bones for legs in much the same way that dolphins do.
There is a story in this, I can feel it.
I am using Grayjay. It has a number of different services that you can use, including Peertube, YouTube, Odyssey, Twitch, Nebula and more. The only thing that it is missing IMO is an auto-enqueue feature. It has the best UI of any of these apps that I have tried.
Newpipe is good as well.
Fair enough. I can be incorrect. Still doesn’t say he planning on shutting down the internet, but I wouldn’t put it past him if it would serve his best interest. It doesn’t seem he even really understands what the internet is and how it works.
In all fairness, I do think there is something to be said for rampant military spending. Big defense contractors could be doing what they do for a fraction of the cost. The doesn’t mean eliminating the military. I’m not even sure who’s down voting me either. I’m like, “We should have both a military and a safety net” and everyone gets mad for different reasons I guess. One because I want a military and the other because I think homelessness shouldn’t exist. We have the resources. For example, in my downtown area there are a slew of "abandoned’ buildings still in good repair. Why aren’t we using those buildings for housing?