That headline deserves to be taken out and shot for the amount of misinformation that can be easily interpreted into it. I also think it’s just wrong, after all, we even share some DNA with trees and cyanobacteria.

Doesn’t mean this isn’t a supremely interesting find! After all, the early Saharan cultures during the times when it was Savannah-like are a field that is very much actively being uncovered at the moment.

Why was the US funding FOSS projects? That strikes me as weird, inappropriate and suspicious.

A mixture of the elements within the US that actually believed the stuff about personal rights and democracy still existing behind the more sinister realities, as well as it being in the same pot of funded projects like Radio Free Asia, Radio Liberty and the likes, which always were a mix of just outright propaganda organs, but also providing the scaffolding of free media access for some regions in the past.

So, it’s complicated, ultimately rooted in a mix of the cynical US wanting to support dissidents in other countries, and the idealist US also having people actually believing in personal freedom and privacy, even within their government/state structures.

Also, just in general, a lot of FOSS projects get funding from governments, US or otherwise. If I remember correctly ReactOS got a lot of funding from Russia, for example, because they saw a potential way to get away from Microsoft in it.

From what I gather, there was no open influence wielded over those projects, I at least don’t remember the OTF forcing a backdoor onto Tor Browser for the CIA or something like that - thankfully the open source structure makes that easier to control - but the weakness becomes apparent now, of course, because funds could now be withdrawn, as the government turned fascist.

Kind of, I wouldn’t really call them an international organisation in the way I would be imagining, see how easy it was to cut their funding when national interests turned openly fascist. Their affiliation with the US government above more independent, international organisations meant, that they would support privacy and a free and open internet, as long as it helps dissidents in other, non-aligned countries, but quick to cut it, if it reaches their own doorsteps.

Not the one you answered to, but I think I can understand the idea of US funding having been a toxic source of dependency, and it being better in the long run to get money elsewhere. That “elsewhere” is a good question, though.

Just me, personally, my dream would be an international fund, carried by the UN or maybe an independent NGO, that can get funding from both private and public funds, that prioritises free internet access the way the WHO prioritises health. But I think that’s still far off.

That is one really clever idea, that I would love to try out if I had a 3D-Printer! Of course, there is the question of how obnoxious this can get for people around you… (still worth it, even if only to fidget with while alone)

Ah, okay, I was indeed missing all the snark, lol

We’ve never tried a pure and proper capitalistic movement either.

Genuinely confused what you even mean there - because, yes, we did. Like, to the extent “proper” makes sense - “pure” is nonsense that only makes sense for ideologies, not materialist movements. I assume there is some intentional snark to it? I may be missing some signalling there, AuDHD and all, but I think it is worthwhile to explore that idea, regardless:

What do you think the long and arduous, sometimes brutal, sometimes liberatory, stuff was, that happened in the early modern era? Where property relations and the mode of production changed from Feudalism to global (back then at first colonial) markets and industrial capitalist wage labour? That is also precisely, why I think a material analysis of the Eastern Bloc is so damning: They had wage labour, they traded on the international market, they even had hire- and fire at factory gates at times, with a more decentralised economy than more consolidated western economies at times (managers competing against each others for state resources) - even though their ideals said that that should not happen. Not for lack of their purity or ideological drive, simply because the material and historical conditions panned out like that for those entities.

That is what I am getting at: “Pure” does not make any sense, it’s ideological nonsense, IMO. And “proper” only means - being a material, real political force. If you go on general strike, the effects of that at first don’t care for ideology at all, they are immediate. (further organisational capabilities are still important, though)

I think that’s something we sort of lost in ideology, especially since the 80s - thinking not from the perspective of “ideal -> reality”, plopping an ideal on top of reality (and failing, and getting more brutal in failure) - but instead “reality <-> contradictions within reality”, where there are developments stemming from the way we produce, we distribute, power manifests and we, more broadly, interact with the world, and then resulting from that, failures and contradictions building up, leading to eventual, revolutionary change over several key, historical events. (That often fail repeatedly at first. See how republics and democracy faired in the 19th century after the French Revolution, where the common consensus for a long time was basically: “That can only result in new mass terror and a new Napoleon - or, if at all, maybe work for a low population, rural settler state like the US”)

As an aside: That does not mean, vision is completely unimportant, or anything, just that vision is itself is not useful as an ideal to strife for, but just a tool for changing along what is necessary and possible materially, and organising for that.

To provide a materialist explanation the way I understand it: From my perspective, that’s because there has been no proper communist movement in the sense of how Marx put it - a really existing historical movement as material fact in the political space - for many decades. (I, personally, do not think the Eastern Bloc fit this role after the 1920s, where it developed a state-capitalist turn due to their material conditions, e.g. having to industrialise, advancing from feudal-like structures, trading on the world market, etc. - cue the infighting over that interpretation.)

So “leftists” instead were just fighting against each other on a market of attention for resources - the dynamics thus becoming those of ideology, often religion-like, instead of material politics. Morality, purity tests, cult-like structures - all that shit was (is) common, because the material position of many groups was (is) - no matter how they would like to describe themselves - not really in opposition to capital all that much. It was in opposition to any other group for members, donations, attention and cultural hegemony within the “sphere of leftism” within the status quo, so to speak.

But at the core, I think that the mode of analysis has always been correct: One of class dynamics, one of property relations, one of production and distribution. So, the clever lots of the majority of leftist currents have been correctly Cassandra-ing for a long time now.

And right now, I think we are very much witnessing a proper, materialist crisis, the breakdown of the liberal status quo, social-democratic management of class war through the welfare state retreating - thus, I think necessarily, there will also emerge a proper communist, materialist movement again, which will hopefully direct the infighting over resources and members within the status quo, to proper political struggle again. (Not that the former will completely vanish, but I do think, it will slip into the background more). A material movement again, instead of an ideological one. One where it isn’t that much about what -ism you call yourself, or what flag you fly, or what newspaper you recommend to your friends - but one about how to get the political power so that you and your neighbours don’t get worked to death in labour camps and capital ceases to exist as a material force.

Sounds like the app is indeed quite a mess, then, unfortunately :/

Ah, yeah, it’s my own PeerTube instance, using the “share” function gives you a link to the instance you are currently on, not the original one. I use the PeerTube companion add-on to redirect PeerTube links to my own instance automatically (where I can easily interact with my own account), so always linking to the original instance can get a bit finnicky for me - and usually, it shouldn’t be a problem. (Hadn’t come up before)

But now that you bring it up - I gues “usually” might not include app interactions? 🤔

Oh, that would be a good way to use it then. Other than that, the official app isn’t too bad, from my cursory glance.

EDIT: Although, I guess your problem may still happen, if the issue was actually unrelated 🤔

Yeah, I think the official android app is pretty bad, sadly, from all I have heard. Not all the devs fault - I heard they had problems with apple/google app store rules, where they were under extra scrutiny to only allow videos from a “vetted and moderated search index” or something to be allowed on their app. (ludicrous, IMO, that their project of all projects suddenly got scrutinised to that degree, compared to other shit on their stores)

I think there were some decent FOSS app alternatives on F-Droid, but since I myself am 99% on desktop or use just vanilla Firefox mobile, I am sadly not a good person to recommend apps myself.

Oooh, I like it a lot, I might end up using it in a game or smth, too 🤔

Thanks for sharing it with the world! It is really cool.

Wow, I guess they have now literally reached the earliest one they could do a live action remake of. Good to know that even while things have been heating up globally, the underlying current of absolute boredom in this dystopia is going strong.

What is this about? This?

Haven’t been on reddit and am notoriously often living under a rock when it comes to news outside my personal interests.

I think that is utlimately valid - although I think the other options are all coming with their own problems. You will then have to instead live with the interests of tech corporations (including nonprofits who ultimately need funding) and advertisers collecting your data, whose interests will ultimately not be much less malignant - or small free software projects of a sometimes quite limited scope. The latter, I think, is also a valid niché, but will leave the overall standards of the internet to corporate interests.

Considering how the CEO here acts for Brave, in my opinion, this is not simply about him being an asshole or being politically questionable. To me - everything about him screams “grifter taking advantage of people’s legitimate concerns” - and he has a material interest in your data as well. Brave always felt to me like trying to sell and market privacy instead of proving to me, in their fundamentals, that they actually have my interests in mind.

Which is why I, personally, do not really understand choosing Brave above LibreWolf (or Tor Browse, occasionally), if privacy is your #1 priority.

Oh, yes, it wasn’t a direct answer, also, I’m not the person you answered to. Ultimately, my comment was more meant as an overall addition to the discussion, building on the idea of what a solution to:

Which I think is one of the big issues with OSS projects - many are based around a very small number of people being motivated to work on something for free. And it dies if that stops.

might be.

But as answers to your two points. #1 - I have no idea where they got that from, myself #2 - I think you answered that one yourself rather well, and I wanted to build on that one.

Sorry if that was confusing, my brain is also good at confusing myself at times, can’t imagine how that is for others at times.

I can somewhat understand the overall criticism, because Librewolf - as far as my understanding goes - would be in trouble without the work being done on the code upstream.

Personally, I know that this does not exist (yet), and to some people that put privacy above everything else with a more libertarian slant, this might sound like the worst option imaginable, but my “dream” way to handle it within the current economic system would be:

Have an open source, FOSS base, web-engine and all, developed with public funds similar to public broadcasting in many countries (Bonus if carried by international organisations instead of just national. Think a UN institution like UNESCO or WHO, but focused on making the internet accessible neutrally and to all). On top of that code, projects that want to put privacy above all else could still feasibly built projects like LibreWolf (an even Brave), relying somewhat comfortably on secure fundamentals.

I know, sounds like a dream, which it is at this point. But every other solution within the current economic status quo I personally thin of, I see no chance of enshittification not always encroaching and creating crises, if not outright taking over.

It’s only half-topical, but let me say one thing: farmers are romanticised waaay too much in my opinion. Yes, they usually have a more precarious business, and agriculture as such is, of course, very much the foundation of our societies and very lives.

But don’t be blinded by the image of homesteading and such - most farmers are basically just business owners, with their class interests often removing them from a large part of the population. Many of the seasonal workers for example have shit pay on top of shit conditions, and they are notoriously overrepresented with some kind of “rurally wholesome” image, when they can be just as much business assholes, that mainly own a piece of land and the machinery necessary to use it for agriculture.

This will only get worse, because bankruptcy like this has one main effect: consolidation, even more farmland operated by big business, even though I personally think small business like this one is clearly already not as good as people tend to make it out as.

Right? I thought that looked like some serious ideological, “but hurting business is too far!”-brainrot.

But the article is actually really confusing to me:

One in five Americans plan to turn their backs for good on companies that have shifted their policies to align with Donald Trump’s agenda, according to a new poll for the Guardian.

That means ~20% plan to boycott themselves, which is not necessarily the same as supporting a boycott. Participating != supporting. Not supporting would e.g. also potentially mean attacking people like the person with the sign in the article photo, or ruining a Thanksgiving dinner with a huge family argument. While supporting can also mean “I support the movement, but for this and that reason, don’t participate myself” (that may be due to genuine dependence on some boycotted things, or just lack of motivation, or a feeling of not knowing how to, etc.).

Then the article goes on with a quote:

When 20% of Americans are permanently changing their consumption habits and nearly a third of boycotters say they’ll hold out indefinitely, convenience may no longer be the decisive factor companies think it is.

Again, that seems like 20% are actively boycotting, which is actually a pretty big number for a movement like that.

But then, there is another conflicting number just one paragraph away:

When asked about the boycotts that have been making headlines over the last few weeks, 36% of Americans said they are or will be participating.

So, wait, what? Why are the numbers so significantly different?

Last month, a Harris poll found that 31% of Americans have reported similar goals to “opt out” of the economy this year in light of the changing political climate.

Wait, that is yet another number, where are the 20% coming from even?

Also, I swear, maybe I am imagining it, but I think the article changed while I was typing this, because I remember wanting to structure an argument around them later using the “support” wording again, but now I can’t find it any more. Maybe I was misreading, that happens to me at times, but it wouldn’t be the first time a news outlet has changed an article while it was already live without a notice.

To anyone not wanting to click, here is the neat graphic with some more demographic info from the article: