i think the only way we can survive and create a successful egalitarian society is by having some sort of overlord ruling over us

so for example let’s say we write a constitution and then have a super-powered generalized artificial intelligence machine force us to follow the rules

or aliens. we could become pets for alients https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgPeP_pfjp4

I mean, Bannon started this whole thing. He was pushed out of the inner circle but he was the one with the vision back in 2016.

Bannon is a visionary and he had the right idea. He just didn’t have the ability to execute. Trump took the ideas from Bannon and found new allies who have the ability to execute. Musk (and Thiel) were more than happy to jump on board

Edit: just in case it’s not clear I’m not endorsing his views. I am firmly anti-Nazi

look there was no plausible deniability when Elon did it. He pretended like he was a weirdo autist the night of with his weird head bobbing and his exaggerated gestures to try and give plausible deniability. but the Nazi salute was putting the toe in the water. feeling the room

it seems that the wannabe Nazis felt like the water was warm enough and they’re gonna start descending the staircase into the pool

And also if you want books that can’t be altered buy a paper book

The books on my 1st generation kindle have been there 15 years unchanged. Just don’t connect devices to the internet that don’t need to be connected to the internet.

The “internet of things” that was sold to us is just a way for corporations to exert more control. I am pro-technology. I think an ebook reader is infinitely more useful and valuable than a paper book - I can fit tens of thousands of books on my Kindle, more than I could read in a lifetime, and a full charge lasts more than a month at a time.

I can use whatever font I want, I can scale the size to what I want. I can change the margins, place bookmarks, gives a % of how far I am in a book, skip to chapters, etc.

Like, it’s objectively better than a book.

But it doesn’t need to be connected to the internet.

I’m not sure where exactly they made the switch. Basically, I got my girlfriend one a year and a half ago and it did not need the software. I explained to her to turn off the wifi and just download books and drag and drop.

But then around Christmastime last year my girlfriend’s cousin wanted an ebook ready so we bought her a Kindle and I gave the same advice. But she couldn’t figure out how to drag and drop, so she brought it over. I was fussing around thinking something was wrong with my USB cable but then I realized it required that special software.

So the switch happened at some point in the last ~18 months or so my memory’s a bit hazy

Amazon just couldn’t let it be. There’s a certain set of people that just aren’t going to opt into all the bullshit. These people just want a plain and simple ebook ready to host their ebooks. They think if they force the special software they’ll be able to do things like sign into your Kindle and change your settings by force.

But what happens? Instead of gaining those people like me or you into their ecosystem, they’re just gonna lose future hardware customers. I would have been perfectly fine buying Kindles for the rest of my life if they had just kept that feature.

I’m sure it’s going to be reversed engineered at some point but it’s absurd. I don’t understand the short-sighted greed.

Up until fairly recently, you could just drag and drop files onto the Kindle with a usb. I’ve had my first generation Kindle for almost 15 years now and it still works. Just download an .epub file, convert it to .mobi with Calibre, and drag and drop it over to the Kindle.

I have a newer one too, that I got a couple of years ago as a gift.

The trick is just disable the wifi and never let it communicate with Amazon servers. They will mess with your settings and push secret updates that remove features. For example, it could “sync” your books with your Amazon account if you naively log into your Amazon account and that literally results in you not being able to remove items from your Kindle without logging into your Amazon account on your computer and going through a million menus. It won’t let you do it from the Kindle, even if you’re offline.

But if you just never let it connect it to the internet at all, you’re fine.

Although the new Kindles now require a special Amazon software to copy files over (because of “convenience”) and it won’t communicate with the usual protocol so you can’t drag and drop like you could for the last 15 years.

So yeah, don’t buy a Kindle. at least not a new one.

don’t leave. same reason i remain in florida. that’s why they want. if all the sane people leave, you raise the % of insane to sane.

we counter intuitively need more progressives to move and live in florida and texas. these are going to be the two most important starts in the upcoming century

plus while the government is insane, there are many varied and diverse communities in these states. i live in an immigrant heavy community in florid and absolutely love it more than the blue states i’ve lived in the past. minus the state government, needless to say

Texas will inevitably be blue. Just like what happened with California.