So what? We trade because we mutually fill deficiencies in each other's economies. The fact that you have a personal deficiency in tools is kind of irrelevant because you do not represent either the canadian or european market. Furthermore, your comment also overlooks the fact that maybe you might have an easier time finding european-manufactured tools if europe had better access to certain ressources.

As for the ocean... there are two oceans between europe and china, yet that managed to make that work. I think the ocean thing is not an issue at all.

It all makes so much more sense when you accept the fact that the vast majority of the population doesn't know what the Windows Terminal is, but instead can tell you every detail about Taylor Swift's engagement.

Sorry for your loss. Linux is there for you though.

Not having access to Alexa and other invasive products sounds liberating, not a punishment.

The tools to manufacture content are more accessible, sure. But again, information has always been easy to manufacture. Consider a simple headline:

[Group A] kills 5 [Group B] people in terrorist plot.

I used no AI tools to generate it, yet I was able to create it with minimal effort nonetheless. You would be rightfully skeptical to question its veracity unless you recognized my authority.

The content is not important. The person speaking it and your relationship of trust with them is. The evidence is only so good as the chain of custody leading to the origin of that piece of evidence.

Not only that, but a lot of people already avoid hard truths, and seek to affirm their own belief system. It is soothing to believe the headline if you identify as a member of Group B and painful if you identify as a member of Group A. That phenomena does not change with AI.

Our relationship with the truth is already extremely flawed. It has always been a giant mistake to treat information as the truth because it looks a certain way. Maybe a saturation of misinformation is the inoculation we need to finally break that habit and force ourselves to peg information to a verifiable origin (the reality we can experience personally, as we do with simple critical thinking skills). Or maybe nothing will change because people don't actually want the truth, they just want to soothe themselves. I guess my point is we are already in a very bad place with the truth, and it seems like there isn't much room for it to get any worse.

What does a map in Arabic display for the Saharah? Maybe start there, by translating the name back to the original, then make a new translation to English that is more faithful to the specificity.

CEO's mooch off of the value of labour, no doubt, but to think they are stupid is a serious miscalculation. That kind of arrogance, underestimating your opponent, doesn't win any battles.

If you just want to know when the clothes are dry, there's an easier way that keeps you in full control: put a ct clamp on the power cord. Doubles as energy monitoring. You can then block that crappy wifi spying system off altogether.

"We should restrict the free use of oxygen because terrorists can breath it to sustain themselves."

C'mon. Crypto has issues, but this ain't one of them. Pandering to people's fear is how fascist seize power for themselves and perpetuate the horrors we feared in the first place.

Tech was better in 2015. It's all corporate squeeze now.

Ditch Amazon and big tech. Consume less in general. Do more with what's on hand. Repair instead of replace.

Not everyone has the skills to do the above, so volunteering time to help others do this can help too.

Yes, there's that, but it's also just straight up gaslighting as a means to bully sovereign countries and further brainwash people into whatever reality the administration dictates. Next time, it'll be an executive order to have Greenland renamed, etc. The pen truely is mightier than the sword.

Controversial opinion time: no matter your stance on DEI, it was doomed from the start, because it's too easy to be perceived as unfair discrimination.