Like some already said, how long ago is “a few years ago”? Because last year my installation had an annoying issue which is now fixed. And maybe five years back, some (newer or rarer) hardware/devices needed a fix through the terminal, but now work perfectly by default.

I haven’t tried Bazzite, but I’ve heard good things about it and what I know about it so far sounds good. Although @jlow mentioned some alternatives which I wonder if they’re even more suitable since you didn’t mention gaming. Out of habit, I still recommend Mint to former Windows users. But I haven’t needed to input a password for web, graphics tools or office apps, only have to type a password when updating, installing new apps or doing special terminal stuff (which I do by choice!)

On one hand, Mint’s default experience (Cinnamon desktop environment) generally resembles Windows which can make the switch smoother. On the other hand, some other ones fix a lot of defaults Windows chose wrong. Even little things, like moving the taskbar to the top (closer to other options) or to the side (takes up less space), so even if you pick a smaller leap to start with, it’s good to casually look around once you’re comfortable.

I’m picturing “Affirmative. Dollar 1299 now proceeding to window, over.”

­

Hold the wealthy accountable and stop letting people get that rich.

Governance is one of the tools we can use to hold the wealthy accountable and stop letting them get that rich. Not the only tool we have, but a powerful one.

Agreed

Welcome to the magic of federation! This is how I’m seeing your posts: https://lemmy.ml/post/38812210/22162387

Basically, the Fediverse are lots of different sites that all use the same language (protocol), and some are able to talk to each other. So a Mastodon site (instance) like mastodon.world

• can talk to another Mastodon instance (like mastodon.art, or techhub.social)
• can talk to some other twitter-like platforms like Pleroma and Akkoma
• can talk to instances of some other platforms including Lemmy and Mbin (reddit-like), Pixelfed (Instagram-like), Friendica (Facebook-like) and more
• I’m not sure but I think you can like, comment and subscribe on PeerTube instances

I haven’t kept up-to-date with what’s possible and what isn’t working yet, so I might have missed something.

I wouldn’t even call it purity testing, they’re just testing. I’ve seen obsession over purity taken to a counterproductive extent, and I maintain that it can be a problem when dealing with a complex unideal reality, but what BadEmpanada is talking about here is fine. That’s a healthy level of testing, and important in preventing recuperation or sanewashing. Democrats are a bourgeois-controlled party and don’t share our class interests.

To give an example of the kind that is counterproductive, I know of a (small) socialist organisation in my country which has been banned from worker strikes after counterprotesting one, insisting that since industrial unions are bureaucratic, the workers should all just boycott the strike and make their own union. This group claims all other socialist organisations are impure and pseudo-leftist whenever they compromise with material reality and present conditions.

And, obviously, that’s a whole other world of purity testing to what you’re talking about. The problems are when it reaches no-true-Scotsman levels.

My understanding of anarchism is the goal of eliminating government

The finer details will always change depending who you ask, but yes, it’s generally either the elimination of government, or of all ‘unjust hierarchies’ (which includes state government).

As someone else mentioned, ideological anarchists tend to be socialists, and in this context ‘anarchism’ is assumed to be that socialist strain, but not everyone calling themselves an anarchist is also a socialist. It’s a broad school of thought.

That won’t eliminate an economic system that originated organically.

Capitalism isn’t organic. I can’t think of a case where it has developed outside of a revolution (like the anti-monarchist revolutions) and/or imperial suppression. It requires the enclosure of the commons and development of private property security forces like a police, neither of those are an organic phenomenon.

If anything, I would assume anarchism is more organic, since it could be found in many hunter-gatherer gift economies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_communism#Example_societies

Now, I’m personally not convinced that this makes anarchism appropriate for our industrial/post-industrial societies, but it’s not inorganic.

I play sport near-daily but I don’t follow professional sports, and I honestly think ideally it should be abolished. It’s exploitative entertainment.

• Athletes often end up with horrible overwork injuries. I remember an interview where a range of former Olympians were asked “Was it worth it?” and the overwhelming answer was no, they now had life-long injury from training.
• Sport doesn’t need to be professional to be enjoyable to play and watch at a high-level.
• Like OP has said, it’s a business. They are parasocial and don’t care to truly involve you. They will platform advertisers who foster addiction, to make money. And I feel disgust every time I see a stadium absolutely covered with ads and uniforms covered in sponsorships. It might as well be a billboard with a patch of grass on it.

I’m obviously not against either sports or high-level competition, but as a profession? No way.

While many existing sports develop some useful life skills (physical skills, communication, decision making, strategy, … ) I have an interest in alternative games that emphasise these. Two of my favorites at the moment are Firefigher’s Olympics and Three-Sided Football.

Paper news subscription or any printed magazine

I’ve only bought printed local zines/papers as a form of donation to alternative media, the same material is published by them online for free anyway.

With the caveat that if it’s small and you pickle it, I’m down.

Good answer.

I gather the hatred some people like me carry for pukecumber has a genetic root.

not g••gling something

If you’re censoring because it’s a horrible company name, I just say “searching”.

Television. It’s like paying to see ads.

+. And the only couple of local channels I’d even consider watching can be viewed online for free anyway.

At some point if you decide you want a significantly newer or more powerful CPU or GPU (for example), there’s a solid chance you’ll need to replace the motherboard or the power supply. At that point, we’re playing Theseus.

Then again, mine was a 10 year old budget build and my hobbies changed significantly, so you might not actually need to upgrade at all if your computing needs aren’t hungry.

Yep. Although…

Is it safe to use the OK hand signal again?

Words and symbols cannot be divorced from context. Like @SineSwiper@discuss.tchncs.de hinted at, putting a date of birth in a username is common and there are so many other meanings for these numbers so it would be ridiculous to jump down someone’s throat for simply using them, or using common gestures. Unless that friend in the story was also saying some reactionary things in their comments, I think it’s silly and careless that someone challenged them on their name.

I been told by some international friends that one of the political flags over in Australia, the Eureka flag, has a similar situation where both trade unions and white nationalists try to claim its legacy, so it’s common to see in both the pro and anti immigration rallies. Context is what makes it either a potential nationalist/racist dogwhistle or a symbol of workers’ rights.

That’s just coincidence, I’ve been using the term for a long time. It’s not new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism

A happy ending!

To take this a step further, wolf-whistles (neo-Nazi dog-whistles) are often intentionally vague, and spotting them is important in recognizing cryptofascists because they will try and claim plausible deniability, “oh leftists call everyone a nazi” is something open nazis say to downplay themselves to other reactionaries. They know that their beliefs are still unspeakably disgusting to most societies, they tend to disguise it, downplay it and rationalize it.

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Sometimes it’s language and phrases itself, you can often see cryptofascists use the same phrases, euphemisms or odd terms as famous fascist speeches or texts, whether as an intentional subtle allusion or just unwittingly echoing what they’ve read. And that’s where they’ll chuck in terms like “Final solution” in memes.

Other times, it’s more direct coded language and symbols. It’s probably less unknown these days, but some common examples of codes are the sonnenrad ‘Black Sun’ symbol, Nazi-era pseudo-runes (not to be confused with legitimate historical Germanic runes!), the numbers 14 and 88, and more.

A few people are saying “streaming services”, I go further and rarely-if-ever buy entertainment media. Music, videos, games, websites.

Not even pirating most of the time, there’s a whole world of good Creative Commons music, FOSS games and actual creative communities (not just parasocial fan communities) for me to be entertained for lifetimes. It’s just healthier to be outside the world of profit and addiction machines. (It amazes me that people can think ‘influencer’ is not a creepy ominous title)

Adding to this, anything where I’d be paying a publisher middleman. Avoid whenever possible, pay directly if you’re in a position to support the creator/s of smaller projects.

This also applies to other things, like food ordering and travel accommodation. Some places offer a significant discount if you go directly to them - both of you get a bigger cut.