So… ICE will know both your location and face every time you get in your car? Yeah, I’m sure this won’t result in a genocide. ^/s

Is there a solution to this whole government censorship problem? I don’t know networking, but it seems like the centralized systems get the central nodes shut down and the decentralized systems are too easily tracked and/or too inefficient. Reticulum looked interesting, but it was still pretty traceable, and appears to only really be for messaging apps since you have to know where you’re sending to already. Your motion idea has some merit to it, but I was kinda hoping for something more on the software side.

Hate it, but I honestly think this will pass. Most people won’t even notice as Windows already requires an email, so this will probably just add some sort of take a picture of your face thing. The concerning issue is when this leads websites to be able to request the identity of users. Huge chunks of the internet will basically die for anyone who cares about privacy. Linux users can ignore a lot of this, but linux will remain in the minority on all devices, and when most websites plus government websites start using it to access papers and such things… yeah then even linux users will have to figure out a work around maybe scrapers or something… It’s dystopian.

When I was young I was really into Star Trek, and viewed the Prime-Directive as a good approach to foreign policy. As I got older and more into politics, I advocated isolationism. People countered that we should all help each other, and for a time I found that a compelling argument.

Now I see good intentions corrupted – sudden withdraw of help causing massive damage. I see a government that does whatever it wants around the world with nothing but apathy from its citizenry – facilitation of genocides and support of authoritarianism. I see the rounding up and abuse immigrants on one side and the use of immigrants to fill labor needs rather than fund proper training on the other. I see globalization used to cut workers wages under the guise of mutual dependence maintaining peace.

There is certainly value to helping others and maintaining peace, but generally, I think Americans need to push our government towards minding its own business.

I still think universities and academic societies should be hosting instances and funding them with dedicated endowments. It’d also provide a great way to request more money from people who feel a reciprocal obligation due to using the instance.

Right! Plus, it’d be an ideal route to solicit donations to the university - people are more attached to their social media than sports ball teams. Not hosting lemmy and mastadon instances is practically throwing away money!

While I don’t disagree with the transparency Mozilla is advocates, I think it fails to address the underlying problem then tries to compensate by picking and choosing winners (which arguably is the same as the underlying problem). The underlying problem is the ad-incentivized watchtime algorithm, which isn’t a technical issue but a financing one.

I’ve been an advocate of endowments for a long time, but this is just another area where they’d be ideal. They supply a small steady income to support a relatively cheap product. As the website grows you can either do temporary ads to grow the endowment or ask for donations. Either way, it’s not that hard to fund operations this small. Add in federated systems like lemmy and each individual operation is even smaller and cheaper.

Heck, universities who are already accustom to dealing with endowments would be ideal places to host lemmy instances. I can definitely imagine offering to donate 10k to an endowment dedicated to hosting a lemmy and mastadon instance with open to registration to students, staff, and alumni. Maybe coordinate with the computer science and IT folks. Allow some percentage of the endowment income to go to “salary overhead” while the rest just funds the server. Point out that the university would essentially be creating the perfect route to solicit donations and they might do it themselves… Honestly, I’m probably gonna flesh this idea out and email the people at my university because it’s just too perfect of a solution.

There was a similar post recently about Cambridge leaving twitter, and it got me thinking that universities are really the ideal organizations to host lemmy servers. They have a vested interest in truth and community building. They have a decent enough sense of free speech to stay federated with most other instances. They have pre-existing communities on topic ranging from clubs to technical subjects. Users can confirm their identities by association with the universities, which will keep things civil. Obviously I don’t think they should be the only instances - anonymity has it’s place and value - but I really think universities should be hosting instances.

They probably will, but I think the intentional violators are intending to make a spectacle out of it. I suspect California Voters will have it repealed in short order, but in the mean time the world should probably ruthlessly mock and isolate them.

Ads were always a terrible way to fund the internet.

Not to rant, but some things are so cheap or so important (or both) that it’s foolish not to operate off an endowment system. The internet, journalism, science – the information foundation of the modern world has to be independent for a stable society. Like, yeah, capitalism bad and establishing an initial investment is asking a lot of people’s finances, but surely operating independently is worth it?

It is either puppies or genocide, no in-between

puppy genocide?

I love the level of disdain the linux community has for this kinda bootlicking.