Ask Lemmy

That eventually I'm going to die.

People stop using Facebook, Google, and Amazon and people rebel against mandated car cameras. When you apply for a job you no longer need to agree to a privacy policy that allows your info to be used for robo calls and spam email. It also becomes illegal to require people to agree to those policies to see their medical labwork online.

Fines for these violations of law become meaningful, and companies start taking privacy seriously.

Renewables and EVs!

Despite humongous efforts by us politicians and their corporate owners, adoption of renewable energy and electric vehicles is speeding up.

Even further, the basic idea that the poster child for anti-future, Trump, may be doing irreparable harm to the US in many ways but is unintentionally key to speeding up the transition in the rest of the world.

Mango Mussolini has cemented his place in history as the worst ever President, the most corrupt, the most damaging to the country’s position, the most harm to the citizens, the worst so far in running up the debt. However history will also talk about his inadvertent role in other positive changes

If you have hope for the future you probably aren’t reading any of the climate crisis science. Or you think you’re going to heaven.

Imperialism and neocolonialism are gradually dying, while the global south and socialist countries are rising. The old world is dying and the new is struggling to be born, but the process is moving forward.

The global population is united in revulsion at the genocide and neverending war carried out by Israel, even if the politicians are owned. That gives me hope that justice will prevail.

I can only see so much future so I guess I'd have to say I'm glad trump is so old. I just want to get this shit over with already so we can all go back to living simply again, without all the angsty bullshit always floating around everywhere, causing a rancid stink. Divisiveness is an old tool that is used against the populace, we need to recognize that for what it is.

When I see what wonders NASA does (with their ever shrinking budget), it gives me hope and makes me want to stay alive to be there for their new discoveries and breakthroughs.

Also another thing is this... the Fediverse and the broader FOSS community, we (self insert, lol) do things for the community bec we want to help, not because we are paid to or forced to, we try to make the world we live in a better place by fighting big tech and monopolies, it is truly fascinating to think about.

Personally, I'm terrified that the massive, oligarch-sponsored, far-right propaganda machine that dominates US social media and television viewership, in fact, has the United States public by the balls, and is going to have unassailable influence on elections in the US from now on.

(And if the technology, borrowing techniques from marketing and industrial psychology, is not dominating the will of the lumpenproletariat already, it's still being developed and eventually will.)

However, there are a lot of people whose opinions I respect, including historians like Heather Cox Richardson and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie (who is well studied in US history) who are optimistic about the future of the United States, and even think we can seize the country back from the oligarchy and restore free and fair elections in short order. (Albeit, for now, we'll still be stuck with the two-party system we have. It'll take a revolution of the people to change that.)

Meanwhile, Daniella Mestyanek Young aka Knitting Cult Lady is an experts on cults, including authoritarian cults of personality, and was an intelligence officer for the US Army, and according to her, cults of personality that are focused on a single person rarely survive the demise of the cult leader. They can if they create a doctrine of transition to a new leader (see North Korea) or from CoP to a cult of idea, but without preparation by the charismatic leader, they collapse.

And Young seems to know what she's talking about.

She observes that Trump is entirely not cooperative about facilitating a transition, even to the point of publicly humiliating his natural heirs (that is J D Vance and Marco Rubio). It seems even that Trump may want MAGA and the Republican party to collapse once he is gone.

Work will still need to be done after Trump dies (or faces accountability and is imprisoned) and/or SCOTUS is banished like a demon possessing a child and free and fair elections are restored. We'll need to confront what happened here in the United States, that we've been under the yoke of the ultra-wealthy, and of big conglomerate corporations, and need to ironclad our election processes and our regulatory bodies so that they cannot be subverted or captured.

Can we do this? I don't know. Historically, the US has failed to follow through every step of the way, from quitting reconstruction to failing to try Nixon after Watergate to failing to address mistreatment of blacks, of the First Nations folk, of children, of immigrants, of every group we've exploited for labor and suppressed. But this time, people can get their information from the internet rather than merely through school curricula and published news. Maybe there will be enough voices to pressure change.

every time i come home, it two cats are waiting at the door.

first they try to sneak out of the flat, afterwards they brush around and roll on the floor, demanding belly scratches.

yeah, i think as well they got the wrong software ;)

the world is not gonna end because we have renewable energy.

Any day now, Donald Trump will die.

When you talk to people IRL outside of work, some of them are pretty cool and helpful for no other reason than because they want to be.

Twice a week I play disc golf with some good friends. We get some good walking in, support each other when someone makes a great shot, joke around, insult as necessary. And it's all free.

Afterward we get a bite to eat, then go to our favorite coffee shop for some dessert. Then sometimes I head to my sister's house to go for a swim to finish things off. It's truly wonderful.