grue

Consider the following scenarios:

1. You start with a hill, then dig down into it and build a building such that it has a flat green (vegetated) roof at the original ground level.

2. You start with flat ground, build the same building on top of it, then mound dirt up around the sides to form a hill.

Two methods to the same result, right?

But now, imagine that instead of one building, you've got an entire city worth of buildings like that bunched up touching each other (no roads between them, just interior corridors). With scenario #1, you've still got to do a bunch of excavation for each and every building. But with scenario #2, you only need to do earth-moving around the perimeter of the city (if you even bother). Still the same result, but now method #2 is much, much cheaper.

I’m looking out over the Tokyo skyline right now and there’s every level of building. How do you get everyone to agree on the one right height?

This is a very hypothetical thread, so that's the kind of issue that could just be hand-waved away as part of the initial premise. But if you want a real answer, that's easy: "zoning codes." Cities have absolutely no trouble exercising their authority to regulate building height.

Everything you think would be good about underground would be more easily and cheaply accomplished by building aboveground buildings that connect. (Or said another way, by effectively raising ground level to roof level without the expense of digging.)

Underground Atlanta is like this, BTW: they didn't dig below original ground level; they raised the street grid up on viaducts.

The rest of GrapheneOS doesn't influence how web developers design websites, or what fingerprinting and other private information the browser allows sites to steal from users.

It's not just Manifest V3, either. It's also the "Web Environment Integrity" API (read: DRM for websites) and "WebMCP" and such. Those are the sorts of monopolistic practices and enshittification you're supporting and endorsing whenever you use a Chromium-based browser, including Vanadium.

You need to learn the difference between a workaround and a solution.

Also, don't try to pretend that a normal person is going to live as an outlaw just so they can avoid enshittification. Most people will comply, and society as a whole -- which includes you, even if you don't comply yourself! -- will suffer for it.

As a GrapheneOS user I'm aware of the developers' arguments for it, but it has the same problem as every other Chromium browser: Google controls the upstream code, so it's still going to contribute to Google's harmful hegemony over web standards.

It probably is more "secure" than Firefox, though, measured against the GrapheneOS devs' threat model. But my problem with Chromium is one they don't even try to address.

I use Firefox on both my phone and my desktop.

YSK that every Chromium-based browser is harmful and should be avoided, regardless of how up-to-date it is.

Unless your prep includes "fight against it politically, tooth and nail," you're only delaying the inevitable.

There is no such thing as a technological solution to what is fundamentally a political problem. Ultimately, the fascists pushing this shit have to be destroyed or they will destroy us.

Because I have self-respect.

As the owner of both a Pixel 8 running Graphene and a Pinephone, you really aren't missing anything.

Let's be honest: you're gonna end up like Barclay, with a holo-porn addiction instead.

Wait, if that could work, what stops them from just turning Senate procedures into a game of fizzbin? Only the threat of Democrats retaliating in kind when they get power again?