And somewhere between 30-50% of the US believe him.

Laws only apply if you get caught.

I’m old enough to remember when that wasn’t the norm people were used to. It’s hot, and people have either forgotten or never knew differently.

You need to cite specific people, because right now, your post reads like the screed from an Alex Jones’s rant. Vaguely gesturing towards some shadow organization isn’t useful information, and it can lead to being manipulated by people who know how to weaponize that vaguery. You can’t act against the unknown.

There’s certainly bad actors at work, but they operate out in the open. Everybody who hovers in Trump’s orbit, everybody who worked on P2025, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, fundigelical churches, every billionaire…

If they currently have money or power (often both), they’re almost definitely part of the current problem.

Incel means more than the state of not being in a relationship, these days. Some very sad and terrible people turned it into a subculture that revolves around imaginary grievances directed at women.

It makes me sad that some of the “nerdy” people in these spaces would join with the very people that would gladly throw them under the bus or use them as minority fodder, but as I’ve seen with experts in science, high intelligence in one area doesn’t mean you are capable of critical thinking.

ETA: to be clear, I’m not saying we should ignore scientists and experts, just that specialized expertise ≠ general expertise.

You need to think of the kind of people that are interested in nerdy computing topics. Regular people that just want to make something nice to share with the world, sure, but also incels, toxic masculinity proponents, etc.

They’re mostly able to hide, because like you point out, computer science and related topics are mostly apolitical; when you make scary changes, however, those same latter people can’t help themselves but to blame the villainous “They.”

Good question! I feel like Plasma generally crams more into the UI than Gnome. Context menus, global menus, desktop icons, the system tray, etc., there’s so much space being utilized. When you have limited screen real estate, having more at your fingertips matters (for the way I do things). Additionally, you can set the power button to open the shutdown overlay, which I don’t think is something Gnome has; it’s a button within easy reach on my laptop, so that functionality makes sense.

Some people have said that gesture support is also better on Plasma, and while I don’t tend to need it currently, it’s something I might want someday. So while I agree that Gnome seems like it should be more suited, I find it’s actually the opposite for the way I do things!

Cool, and you’re entitled to your opinion. I still prefer the workflow of Gnome on my desktop (and Plasma on my laptop).

I promise I’m not being pedantic. Which claim? I made at least two.

Signal is likely fine for a use case like that. Don’t feel like you need to switch if you don’t have a good reason. Signal is a great balance between stupid-easy useability and E2EE messaging, and people who actually need that extra mile of privacy should know better than to use Signal.

Evidence for what?

Signal collects your IP address and the last IP address you sent a message to. They store that info to maintain their services. They also store your phone number, either of which can be tied back to your identity (in the US, don’t @ me, friends from across the pond).

The only thing these reveal is that you use Signal, which is currently still legal. Also, even if a judge ordered Signal to collect outgoing messages for your user, the content of your messages would already be encrypted. So unless your use of the service could be construed as illegal (or perhaps who you’re talking to), then it’s probably still safe to use.

However, all that said, I still agree that SimpleX is a better choice for activism. No phone numbers or other useful identifiers, uses a series of nodes rather than a central server, expiring contact-adding codes, etc… it’s simply better, if you need privacy against external threats.

And there’s no reason you can’t have both on your phone for different kinds of groups!

It also costs $0 to love yourself and give yourself grace in spite of your shortcomings.

And this whole endeavor will probably result in catching 0.01% more violent criminals and cost 1000% more money.

But at least we’ll all be safe from those dangerous 4yo immigrants! /s

Yeah! “Treating” it like it’s clean!

I don’t have any advice, but you might want to include what device you’re using, to save you and the smarties some time getting to the heart of the problem more quickly.

Given that it’s almost exclusively the wealthy that own yachts, I’ll take some unexpected nautical allies.

“When you can’t win fairly, stack the deck.” —The GOP modus operandi

The answer is, “Because fuck you. I’m not sick, so it’s obviously not that big of a problem. Also, I could lose my seat in Congress.”

Survivorship Bias and malignant self-interest practically defines modern Conservatism.