The key people from the Trump administration and their key supporters need to be jailed for their complete disregard of the constitution and laws. If you can’t stop them your justice system is broken. Any regular citizen doing a tiny percentage of what these criminals do would already be jailed for life. Enforce the laws and the constitution. Put those criminals where they belong.

Well, they massively expanded jail space everywhere, as well as funding for ICE. Of course they’re going after much more people than just “illegal immigrants”. That’s just the low-hanging fruit for them (still anti-constitutional). Fascists will always move on to other groups of people because they constantly need to find new enemies, not realizing that they themselves are the only ones causing actual harm. They will also turn on each other if someone blames another one of “treason” or “aiding the enemy” or whatever. It’s a purely destructive cult-like force and if you can’t stop it it will cost millions of lives over a couple of years.

A pigeon is strictly better than Trump because they don’t destroy the environment, societal and scientific progress, or other people. Now that I’ve thought about it 1 second more, it’s not even a fair comparison. Because Trump existing means active harm and destruction in many areas.

Well, the point in time where it was maybe possible to defend against Trump and his cronies normally or legally is already over. Now they have gathered too much power and also already pretty much operate above the law. The Supreme Court is on their side I guess, not on the side of the constitution or the laws anymore. So it’ll only get worse from now on, and quickly. Only regime-approved media will soon be left over, i.e. media distributing the regime’s propaganda even further. And they will soon throw all of their opponents into concentration camps, not just “illegal immigrants”. That’s just the low-hanging fruit they needed for initially starting building concentration camps and expanding other jail space and their ICE army massively. Technically they would only need jail space for themselves and all supporters of this fascist regime, but they will jail all others they can get their hands on instead.

You will have an actual fight on your hands if you want to revert all this. Either just from the inside, or both from the inside and the outside once they start waging war on former allies like Canada or Denmark (Greenland). You should probably create local communities of people who are ready to help each other vs. ICE raids. Create logistical and resource problems for them. Make it hard and costly for them to destroy people’s lives. If you let them kidnap too many people, you will not have enough people for resistance anymore.

Yes. Unfortunately, these systems are also a great gift for any upcoming fascist regime (like the Trump junta currently) which will not only happily continue using the existing infrastructure but also extend it like mad.

Maybe humanity’s greatest weaknesses overall: the lack of foresight and the lack of wisdom learned from historic precedents (e.g. Nazi Germany? Forgotten by now). Everything’s always about short-term goals, ignoring any long-term disadvantages. See also: climate disaster.

In other words: Users of proprietary OS like Windows have so little control over their own devices that it’s newsworthy when the vendor allows you to uninstall 2-3 bundled things out of many more. But only in some countries! It’s pathetic.

Yes, but that somehow doesn’t change anything ever. They do horrible thing A, world is shocked about A, then they do horrible thing B, world is shocked about A+B, then they do horrible thing C, world is shocked about B+C (A has already been forgotten by that point). And so on. We don’t really have proper checks & balances in place against malicious politicians with too much power and too many loyalists in key positions. So they can do whatever and get away with a ton. I mean I thought there should be checks and balances working to correct this in any modern democracy but then again checks & balances also fail regularly in other areas, e.g. in anti-corruption or in pro data protection. Everything’s conveniently broken in some way and can be exploited. The key people from the Trump administration and/or Heritage Foundation should already be behind bars for lifetime.

That’s only true up to a certain size. If Ground News ever grows big, they’ll still retain enough of a user base regardless of what they’re doing. Compare it to e.g. Meta, Google, MS services. Or even X. Many people just never leave once they feel at home there. Meta could do even more disgusting stuff and people would still use WhatsApp, Instagram, and the likes.

It’s going to get a lot worse because now they know that they are able to deport/jail literally anyone without facing any resistance. If a case gets too big on the media, they can shift responsibility around in a circle, e.g. USA says it can’t do anything, El Salvador has to do something. And El Salvador says sorry can’t do anything. And so nothing is done, both USA and El Salvador get what they want and the justice system and the victims can’t do anything.

This will soon become routine because they will expand their list of “unwanted” persons constantly. First “gang members” and “criminals”, then sexual and other non-criminal minorities, then non-criminal political opposition, then potentially everyone who’s not super loyal to the fascist administration (aka cult).

What worries me is how fast it descends into madness. Any innocent American citizen should probably sooner, rather than later, be prepared to fight for themselves and their loved ones against injustice, because there might be no one left in the system doing it for them when the system itself has become unjust and/or dysfunctional. I hope that you somehow manage to turn the wheel around but when looking at the speed of Project 2025 and the Trump administration becoming increasingly more vile, I don’t think there’s much time left. Fascism is growing at insane speed, fueled by disinformation/propaganda and fake news on the web and social media, and backed by obscenely rich oligarchs who never really liked the previous government and laws anyway.

And this is all happening in a time when humanity should work together, rather than continue fighting among themselves. Instead, humanity chose the worst path forward possible, the path which accelerates the problems and has no solutions at all. So now we don’t have anything against climate change and this will cause massive problems and completely new wars world-wide over land, food, water. And it’s not far out. If you’re young today, you’ll probably live to experience it. It’s probably the right time to prepare for the worst and adjust to a pre-apocalyptic mindset. Because we’re definitely not solving this if we can’t even solve fascism in Western democracies in 2025.

“AI” is good for pattern matching, generating boiler plate / template code and text, and generating images. Maybe also translation. That’s about it. And it’s of course often flawed/inaccurate so it needs human oversight. Everything else is like a sales scam. A very profitable one.

BNC Feed-Through Adapters (with Terminators if needed)

I’m kidding, I’m kidding!

For anyone too young, this was how you made gaming LAN parties in the early 90s when there was Doom, Doom 2, Duke3D and Quake 1 to play. It’s a switch- and hub-less network connection where every PC is literally connected to all others in one line which is fed through each PC. Making your connection extremely sh!tty if you were on one end or someone between you and the other guy had a terrible PC or had to reboot. Well, actually it was generally sh!tty. This problem went away completely when switches (even just hubs) became commonly available / cheap for consumers.

I do miss LAN parties though. Online gaming is also great but it’s just not the same.

It’s the other way around.

The mental illness is not “paranoia about Trump’s doings”, paranoia about Trump is normal when you’re a decent human being who is thinking clearly and fact-based, because then you should absolutely be paranoid about an unhinged, mentally unstable, dangerous fascist taking power in the US. If that doesn’t bother you, I’m sorry, but you’re probably simply uneducated. See old Nazi Germany for “prior art” on this one.

What could be considered a “mental illness” is what causes people to believe or support Trump, or the current Republicans, or the MAGA movement, or the current right-wing extremism in general. This is likely an issue of either low education, low intelligence or naive belief in various forms of internet propaganda. Or multiple of those issues combined. So it’s not really “illness” but rather a misinformed and/or radicalized person. Similar to what cultists become in real cults. Fascism is very cult-like in general. There’s usually a supreme leader and a doctrine (usually based on falsehoods) to live by, and everyone who doesn’t do that is considered an “enemy” or at least inferior. What you read on the internet and especially social media or “alternative news sites” is already often weaponized and might be able to radicalize you or lead you away from the fact-based truth. There’s TONS of disinformation, sometimes harmless, sometimes funny, but sometimes not. Sometimes it’s dangerous, especially if you’re not able to spot what’s likely true or not. If you aren’t able to filter out disinformation, propaganda, lies, half-truths, weird memes, i.e. if you are unable to stick to reputable sources, peer-reviewed science, and so on, then you WILL fall for at least some amounts of misinformation and you MIGHT even become part of a cult (e.g. MAGA movement, conspiracy believers, anti-vaxxers, QAnon, radical right-wing extremism, …). And again, it’s all weaponized and that is useful for various involved parties for various reasons. For example, Putin wants misinformation on social media because with it he can destabilize Western democracies, because common citizens fall for this stuff and lose faith in their own governments. The end result helps Russia, because Western democracies will then do less and be less united against Russian attacks. Billionaires like Musk or Zuckerberg want misinformation on social media because with it they can better control the narrative and extract more money from the users because polarizing and extreme content gives them more interactions and thus money. Billionaires also want less governmental regulation, which is why Musk already demolished several regulating bodies in the US. Autocratic fascists like Trump also want misinformation on social media because with it they can control the narrative better. What these involved parties all don’t want is the actual truth, so they are usually anti-science, anti-education, anti independent journalism, and so on. It’s better for them if the common people are uneducated and uninformed, and follow the newly created doctrine. It’s easy to tell that they want to create their own fake version of the truth, and control the narrative in that way.

I use several, depending on use case:

• Tor Browser for general and anonymous web browsing (e.g. reading news, looking up stuff, and so on)
• Mullvad Browser as a clear web alternative for general use
• Librewolf for generally logging into sites with personally identifiable accounts (e.g. to buy stuff)
• Ungoogled Chromium for those few sites which only work with a Chromium-based browser, or other specific cases
• On Android (GrapheneOS): Tor Browser and Vanadium All regular browsers have some hardening applied and uBlock Origin installed.

Since you only mentioned 25% gaming, I’d recommend against a gaming-centric distro like Bazzite. Instead, use a generalist desktop distro.

Since you mentioned that you’re rather new-ish, I’d recommend against Arch-based distros like CachyOS. Instead, check out e.g. Fedora, Mint, OpenSuSE. (Probably in that order of priority)

These aren’t hard recommendations, so you can do whatever and probably be fine either way, but it still doesn’t fit that well.

There are lots of great live bands but maybe these were most memorable for various reasons: Magma (just hypnotic), Lazuli (very entertaining live band every single time), The Pineapple Thief (great prog rock with incredible drummer), The Musical Box (playing and re-acting old Genesis. Too young to see the originals but just in time to see the remakes), Le Silo (super high energy duo or trio, don’t even remember, but man that was wild), Aranis (they don’t exist anymore unfortunately)

I don’t view it as badly. He’s probably overly defensive and paranoid and interprets some forms of criticism as attacks. But I do not see this as an argument against his competence or contributions to the project, or against using GrapheneOS altogether, at all. In fact, I even kind of like having someone paranoid as the head of a security-focused OS. Seems like a useful synergy to me. Also, AFAIK the GrapheneOS project now also has others posting about the project, not just him alone. I think this was also a result of his “miscommunication” in the past. Furthermore, the project is too important (there are almost zero high-security and high-privacy mobile OSes!) to escalate this into a problem. And furthermore again, there might also be parties involved who are ACTUALLY interested in attacking GrapheneOS and weakening its popularity, for their own gains. And so when your successful and also high-quality project is under regular attacks from various angles, you might get more paranoid and misinterpret some valid criticism as a result. Combine that with Rossman’s over-dramatic nature and high reach, and someone paranoid like Daniel might take it the wrong way. And then communication spirals out of control into various escalations. At least that’s how I interpret it.

Around 2.5-3 days. On a LAN party in 2003 or so. 2 nights without sleep. Lots of caffeine. It was fun at first but really started feeling terrible after the 2nd night.

He’s mostly correct about lots of things, but not about everything (for example, he hated on everything GrapheneOS just because its lead dev is a bit socially awkward). Plus he’s overly dramatic and verbose which can be annoying. Sometimes you must be to get abstract or complicated points across better, but I still feel he’s too aggressive in that regard. I also like what he’s trying to achieve with FUTO in general. Overall, he’s a great and valuable activist who has almost all of his eggs in the right baskets.

Basically yes. There is nothing really new or different from the modern right-wing extremist ideology to the old Nazi ideology. The fundamentals are the same, always. They always go after minorities (first demonizing them, then jailing, deporting or killing them), they always strive for authoritarian leadership, they always combat science and education because science/education (or rather the universally accepted truth/facts) is kind of fundamentally incompatible with right-wing extremist beliefs (which are based on fear, feeling, outdated traditionalist values, fundamentalist Christian religious values, and a big load of plain bullsh!t). And of course they’re going after everything that’s inclusive or social because all they know is fear, hate, division and destruction. It’s basically a cult which eventually wages war on everyone who thinks differently. They will always start with the ones who can defend themselves the least well and then move on to bigger targets (e.g. first illegal immigrants, then all immigrants, then people of color, then religious minorities, then political minorities, and so on). Eventually, they will demonize everyone who doesn’t think their exact way or is in the political opposition etc…, in an effort to divide people.

It’s like a cult and it needs to be stopped. Don’t fall for the trap that it’s somehow different today. The only thing different is that they now have the internet to rapidly spread propaganda and misinformation everywhere (and all lesser educated or young parts of the population are likely to at least partially fall for this stuff), and that Western countries have stronger constitutions which will not crumble as easily as e.g. the Weimar Republic before Nazi Germany happened, because that constitution had a big loophole to exploit. But they might still find exploits or fill enough key positions with loyal fascists that they might be able to effectively sidestep the constitution, in effect installing a fascist, authoritarian government that can do what it wants, hunt who it wants, and be immune to legal repercussions. Don’t underestimate them, they are very good at manipulation, lies, division and in general causing mayhem. They thrive from chaos, because from chaos they can then also create a powerful executive force to “restore law and order”. Also they do not care about what you think about them or their actions. They will move quickly and mercilessly to achieve their goals, and so any opposition to them must also be quick, decisive and resolute, and not hesitate.

They also currently gather immense wealth behind them currently because super-rich people/companies like riding on that bandwagon because it will grant them even more power and influence in the short to medium term (this was also true in old Nazi Germany btw), because there are no pesky or costly regulations limiting them anymore, so they will gain short-term economic benefits from siding with the extremists, and as we all know, in capitalism, money is everything, and morals don’t matter. Elon Musk in particular is particularly clever and ruthless because he essentially managed to buy parts of the government, meaning he will make the government favor his own companies and plans. It’s kind of unprecedented corruption I think, but of course it’s a dream for any super-rich commercial entity. No regulations, no fines, do what they want, even direct taxpayer money into their own pocket. As much as you can, stop using, buying from or otherwise supporting big companies who openly side with fascists. You can vote with your wallet. In capitalism, voting with your wallet (what you buy, where you buy from and most importantly what you don’t buy and where you don’t buy from) is a very effective secondary vote option. Also stop using Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and so on. In those platforms, you are the product, and when you use them less, they can generate less money from your data, behavior and interactions.

Long-term, Nazi ideology always leads to societal division, hate, crimes, bad living conditions, lots of deaths, and eventually wars. Because once they’ve taken control of the inner political systems, and jailed or killed enough minorities they think are “harmful”, they will always look for the next minority, and then the next, and the next, and then they’ll be after you. And there will be very few if any legal ways of stopping them. After that (or even before), they will turn on their neighboring countries and start wars with them. Because they always need a new common enemy to hunt, they live based on the belief that they’re more superior than others and that kind of grants them the right to take what they want and oppress those they deem “inferior” (Nazi ideology in a nutshell). When they don’t have any easy targets anymore, they will look at other countries to invade. Any neighboring country in particular needs to be constantly aware of that.

Slightly longer term, if the USA fall to the right-wing extremism, it will lead to its weakening and downfall (allies will also turn away), and China will become the undisputed global super power in the world.

Longer term still, climate change will cause massive mayhem planet-wide. Since fascists are anti-science and pro-economy, and economy is pro environmental exploitation, they are accelerating the problem even further. They will deny the problem exists until it hits everyone, including them, in the face. Hard.

Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a way to save us from climate change regardless, unless the whole economic system drastically changes, which will probably not happen until the catastrophe is there, but we can absolutely fight fascism and extremism, and in doing so this will also delay climate change slightly, granting us a few more years of “quality” time on this planet, before it all goes to universal sh!t.

It’s nice to see a significant portion of people (probably still not enough though) leave proprietary social media. Unfortunately, it took them extremely long to realize why that’s a bad thing to use.

So that’s one step in the right direction I guess.

On the other hand, there generally isn’t much hope for humanity left because we haven’t learned from past mistakes, haven’t listened to science, and haven’t ensured ourselves a decent future on this planet.