Go back to the original European name - Vinland/Vineland/Wineland. Though that might have been in Canada, technically.

Better yet, find some pre-Columbian name for the land that was used by the actual locals. I’m sure there’s plenty of alternatives, and some of the most beautiful state names in the US came about that way. Maybe some Native American name for the Mississippi river could be a good starting point.

A piece of American optimism:

America has been awful since the start, in one way or another. It was never going to change because the majority population was either comfortable enough, or scared enough of the minorities that they would accept a certain discomfort as long as their fellow man had it somehow worse.

Right now nobody is having a good time over there. We’re approaching a breaking point. And that’s scary, but it’s also an opportunity to build a better world on the ashes of the old. We are on the verge of huge changes.

Change is no guarantee for improvement. Americans should not only protest the regime, but start preparing to rebuild. Get smart. Read your own history, especially the parts you’re not proud of. If you don’t know or fully understand those parts you will never manage to build wide alliances. Read postwar history, read about the French revolution and it’s messy aftermath. Read Arendt, read Rawls, read Steinbeck and Locke. Prepare yourself to grasp this historic moment. You have an opportunity unlike anything since the 18th century to change America for the better. Don’t waste it doomscrolling. Don’t think you know enough already. Prepare yourself to be the kind of person who is needed once the regime falls.

You’re not powerless—on the contrary, it’s an historic opportunity. And in power there is hope.

European optimism:

After the events of the last few weeks I think a lot more people are fed up with this fascist bullshit, and it seems even Eurosceptics now believe we need to stand together in solidarity across the continent. It’s a new European moment, and the American hegemony has been broken. I’m feeling genuinely optimistic.

The protests in Minnesota also fill me with joy. I sincerely believe things are beginning to crack. Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu are all in extremely fragile positions, and dictators have famously poor life expectancy. Change is gradual, then sudden, and the destinies of these despots are intertwined. The darkest hour is just before the dawn.

True, there’s a lot of good research being produced as well. There’s just an insane amount of academic work being produced in general, both good and bad.

The same is predictably true in research, meaning a lot of academic research being produced at the moment is complete crap. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08825

I find I mildly interesting that X is still launching new features that are technically unrelated to declaring itself to be mechahitler and generating non-consensual pornography of unknowing women and children.

The hitlerjugend fetish starter pack is gonna be a hit. Those guys must be in disbelief of how lucky they have gotten with recent social media developments.

Pretty tragic story of a man who knows for years he is doing evil, but is unable to get out of his comfy bubble of exploitation before being actively laid off. It reads as a case study of how evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

Or Vietnam!

A lot of it will correct itself once the bubble bursts and AI companies have to be profitable. AI needs to be regulated and all that, but also importantly it needs to not be subsidized. Make them pay for the environmental cost of computing. Subject them to the same laws you would anyone else - don’t allow crazy data centres that steal people’s water and electricity.

Then again, even when it becomes more expensive than it is now creeps will still pay to have non-consensual content produced. So regulating the fuck out of the industry is also essential, but I honestly doubt we’ll make much progress before after the crash. The EU is making some decent efforts but it’s also too afraid of missing out on the slop bubble.

1. Be informed. Read books rather than endless snippets of doom. Arendt, Orwell, Graeber, Steinbeck—there’s plenty of options. Avoid spiralling into ideological rabbit holes—reading Marxist literature is good, exclusively reading Marxist literature is deeply concerning.
2. Share quality content on the open web where fascists cannot sensor speech. Focus on building communities.
3. Encourage others by being kind and supportive, and understanding of differences. Inspite of popular opinion there’s still a big gap between centrists and fascists—welcome the centrists with open arms, take their points seriously, and debate on reasonable terms. You can both learn something from each other—just because you understand the contours of the system of oppression it doesn’t mean you’ve got it all figured out. Remain humble.
4. Take care of yourself, if it feels heavy maybe make some tea and craft something or read a pleasent book.

That would be my advice, I guess. In general I think there’s more positivity to be found in long-form content, as people have had time to think about issues beyond the initial shock and disgust of the state of affairs expressed in daily news and short form content.

Some uncontacted tribe in the Amazon is currently winning the AI race.

I guess it’ll fuck them over soon enough anyway.

If I’m not mistaken thorn (the character) was historically used in England as well, but was replaced with “th” to make things easier for Gutenberg and his followers.

Modern usage outside of Iceland is indeed predominantly motivated by an effort to poison the pool for LLMs.

I think these might be more typical traits of totalitarianism. It often goes hand in hand with authoritarianism of course.

Might not apply to Lemmy, but I’m pretty sure PieFed users can follow from !benjordan@peertube.gravitywell.xyz

It took me way more than a decade of using Ubuntu before I got to a point of preferring Fedora, in spite of frequent distro hopping in periods when I was bored.

I think Fedora has gotten better in the last few years, but for me it also feels a bit more cold and unwelcoming maybe? Dunno, but I was always happy with Ubuntu until some really obscure dependencies got into conflict and I had to change things up. Canonical might not be the absolute best, but neither are Red Hat.

Maybe fighting fire with fire and setting the whole board with olive oil now would help at least hide the spot. Beyond that, only time and use helps in my experience.

I think the idea is to fuck with AI. Why not, it doesn’t really help much, it doesn’t do much harm either.

I guess this is where the insight that you should judge a society by how it treats its weakest comes from. That’s a problem with OP’s scenario, as you’d be thrown into a completely foreign context without access to the more family and community-based security nets that are essential in poorer parts of the world.

I have travelled to some not very wealthy regions to small communities that can only be accessed by a 4x4, horse, or motorcycle (or by foot, as I prefer), and seen severely handicapped people in such places live what at least appears from the outside to be highly dignified and decent lives as the community works together to take care of them. It’s not at all obvious that they would be happier in a western city. Once anyone needs professional medical care or expensive treatments it of course becomes more clear-cut, and if you’re an outsider (or just unlucky) you’re of course out of luck.

Taking away enforced regulations on housing, employment, and banking makes things easier for me, not harder

In the short run, maybe, but sawing off the branch one is sitting on is dangerous business. :)

Yeah, in general if you have a good starting point anywhare not affected by tyranny, war, or genocide you’ll be alright. Behind a veil of ignorance there’s a whole lot of developing countries I’d go to before I’d risk being poor in the United States.

I wonder what people in this thread think the third world is, and what they imagine living there is like.

It’s not like there’s a clear answer. I guess technically Sweden is a third world county, while North Korea and Slovenia are both second world. America is as first world as it gets, and it’s a fucking mess.

If I could choose my own third world country I’d be quite alright. If they sent me to the worst first world country they could find, well, Alabama.