It’s also not the first or only 21st century technology that is or was waaaaaaaaay overhyped.

First it was the Blockchain

Then it was the Cloud

Now it’s Artificial Stupidity.

We do. ‘Spring fever’ is very real. What’s less clear is why.

I have a friend who was addicted to both cocaine and alcohol. While he, of course, is convinced that cocaine is one of the worst substances to have ever existed, he is even wearier of alcohol because of: (I’m obviously both paraphrasing AND excluding most countries with a Muslim majority here)

a) Social acceptance. No one is ever going to judge you for quietly sitting in the corner of a bar drinking your beer. Try snorting a line on the same setting and see what happens.

b) Availability. Even in sparsely populated areas, you are never too far away (say, a 10 minute walk) from a bottle of wine/spirit/beer.

c) Practicality (which is what answers your question). You don’t need a syringe, spoon, knife, bill, bong or lighter, not even another recipient, to start binging on booze. Once you buy/steal the stuff, you’re all set - and drinking something definitely IS more ‘natural’ (as in, it’s a reflex) than injecting or smoking something.

Shit, man. WHY did you have to bring this up…

Because they are such a tiny AND unprotected minority, they are fairly easy targets for othering / discrimination.

[ I am not condoning, just informing ]

I hate the fact that they made ‘The Descent 2’. Totally (and unnecessarily) killed the ambiguous ending of the original.

I seriously doubt that it would count as ‘shitty’, but it wasn’t very well received and is not widely known either, for me rather a kind of comfort movie I’ll defend till the edges of the earth: the Cohen brothers’ ‘A Serious Man’

So you see…up to a certain point it’s kind of our own fault too

I’d love to, but I can’t. Colonialism’s ‘Divide and conquer’ rule is only applicable and effective if the targets are either willingly in the game (i.e., corrupt enough to collaborate) already relatively divided (i.e. Already fragmented enough), or stupid enough not to realise what’s being done to them.

I don’t want to be that person either, but I really don’t think that Sykes is personally to blame for Britain’s shitty policies in and for the Middle East, the consequences of which still play a major role in the mess the region still is. Point being that, besides Gringoland, Britain should also be held accountable for the role they have played around the world in everything from ethnic cleansing all the way to supporting brutal, even murderous, dictatorships.

Regarding the last part of your comment, a dude called Christopher Simon Sykes, whose last name you might recognise, wrote a book called ‘The man who created the middle East’. It’s a biography of his grandfather, and an attempt to vindicate him.

You can argue all you want about TPM and its ‘security’. I ALWAYS thought that forcing users to use TPM 2+ hardware is planned obsolescence and nothing/no one will convince me otherwise.

The only thing affected users can and should do is to leave that PoS of an ‘operating system’.

Yea. That is THE one reason why I’d never touch GrapheneOS as long as it only runs on Pixel hardware.

I know this will most probably be an unpopular opinion, but as someone who was born and raised in Central America, I have never understood why these countries are separate countries.

I don’t see LibreCMC (https://librecmc.org/) mentioned anywhere in this thread, so correct that.

Unlike Open WRT, LibreCMC is recognised by GNU to be a fully free Linux distribution, and you still get the time-honoured LuCi web administration interface.

LibreCMC runs on much fewer devices as OpenWRT, which can be a feature for those who are overwhelmed by the length of OpenWRT’s list.

WTAFF is that supposed to be anyway?

This is a very good, comprehensive and comprehensible answer. Thank you!

Amusing.

a) I don’t use shitGPT and never will, so I wouldn’t know how to phrase questions for it;

b) You are aware that this is ‘no stupid questions’, right ? People here expect to be asked stuff - or to learn from others’ answers for that matter, which I’m pretty sure is the case here;

c) Cold? Maybe that’s because this is a science question? I’m not asking a lady out;

d) Disrespectful? It takes a particular brand of pessimism to be offended in the least by a question that’s not even directed at you…

This is nice!

So if I understand you correctly, in the real world, they do add up?