The purpose of age verification is to further deanonymize internet activity, i.e. increase surveillance. As rich Western countries experience contractions and discipline labor, they react with oppression and war rather than improving conditions. This is an escalation in preparation for oppression.

There is also a secondary aspect at the heart of seemingly most national-focused tech legislation and that is to favor whatever monopolies are dominant. For example, if there are national monopolies that are getting drowned out by international ones, but that can still successfully lobby the national government, they can try to get policy that makes it easier for them to gain market share and harder for international monopolies. Or, in the other direction in terms of scale, basically every hurdle to implementation is a barrier that is much more costly to an individual or small company but easily absorbed by a big monopoly. Force most websites to implement AV and you’ve just added a flat base cost that makes small companies less competitive.

Ah, I thought so. Honestly don’t really have the time and energy to go back and forth with these massive walls of text, so I’ll just say that you’ve fallen hook line and sinker for Russian propaganda.

Ah yes it’s my fault that you have no response. Just throw in a thought-terminating cliché.

Ukrainian Nazis exist, just like there are Nazis in literally every country on the planet. They weren’t in control of anything, nor were they in any way in control of the government.

See how you are just going on and on about things I didn’t say rather than responding to what I did say?

Though Ukrainian neo-Nazis absolutely were in control of exactly what I referenced: running front-line militias that shelled Donbas. This was widely reported until 2022 when Western media needed to push that to the side.

The “ethnic Russians” were primarily Russian army troops out of uniform.

No the ethnic Russians I am referring to are about half of the people who lived and live in Donbas. Civilian population centers were shelled.

There’s piles and piles of evidence about this.

No there aren’t.

The low intensity war between Russia and Ukraine was to destabilize Ukraine to attempt to force it back into Russia’s sphere of influence against the will of the populace.

Historical revisionism that ignores Euromaidan and the grassroots response in Eastern Ukraine to the coups and anti-ethnic Russian, anti-left campaigns that followed. Do you think it was the Russians that locked union organizers in a building and set it on fire?

If that isn’t imperialist, I don’t know what is.

Yes, exactly, you don’t know what imperialism is.

I don’t know why I’m writing all this out, tbh. You’ve drunk the Kool aid.

Self-soothing to help rationalize why you have no actual response to what I’ve said.

Anything “an enemy of the west” says is believed uncritically, no actual thinking, just regurgitation.

Oh? What specific claims by “an enemy of the west” have I believed uncritically?

Have a wonderful day regardless, and I honestly hope you’re doing well.

Uh-huh

That’s reasonable. I personally knew a lady who was beaten, imprisoned and starved for a week by the morality police for forgetting her hijab at home though. I struggle to think of a context that would justify that.

Who said you have to justify it? Can you give a link and quote of the person who tried to make you?

This was many years ago though, as I understand it the morality police and their systematic human rights abuses were largely unofficially abolished in 2023 after mass protests.

Human rights discourse is fraught and almost always extremely national chauvinist, racist. But yes there has been a moderation.

The new wave of protests from this year were largely about inflation and cost of living, as far as I understand. You don’t get to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries via effective crowd management.

I’m not sure what this means.

In order: yes, yes, yes, and also yes.

Then you are wrong.

My opinion is that the primary motive of the original war, which they honestly thought they could get done in 3 days, was primarily to expand the workforce due to their crippled demographics

Well yes not ending the war after that 3 days, which was an option for Ukraine but rejected by their masters, would have been the way for Ukraine to not be destroyed as a country.

Unfortunately for Ukrainians, they have been sacrificed and their country ostensibly sold on loan. Russia did indeed hope they would choose to not do that.

But who knows what you mean by “crippled demographics”, the demos were not particularly different in Donbas. Also why ignore the history leading up to it.

while simultaneously scoring an easy propaganda win domestically, giving a black eye to the US and EU, and get a hold of the rare earth minerals which were being prospected in eastern Ukraine at the time.

Actually none if that is imperialism except maybe the rare earths but that’s really not an inherently compelling argument on its own because all land has value, but not all invasions or annexations are imperialist. Russia was not exactly hurting due to lack of rare earths. They were hurting from being slowly isolated from European markets and from a war zone on their border. 8 years of neo-Nazis shelling ethnic Russians in Donbas after Euromaiden and you’re speculating it was rare earths?

It also didn’t hurt that before they bombed it, the area was relatively industrialized. Due to the incompetence of authoritarians in general and their inability to admit defeat (just look at the US in Iran today if you want a 2nd example), they are forced to keep going to save face no matter how pointless it is and how many people die.

Material forces constrain what “authoritarians” can do in this way, this is naive fantasy speak about how nation states operate. In reality, the refusal to do Minsk III is what set the stage, it is a recognition that a hard break was sought by Ukraine’s masters and no negotiation would be forthcoming that even had the pretense of another agreement to fail to meet the conditions of. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline is a good example of the break being sought. With Ukraine off the table for a political negotiation, that left only the establishment of an ongoing material dynamic: demilitarization by force, annexation of Donbas, surviving a new economic status quo.

Speaking of the new economic status quo, Russia fared well despite the various financial nuclear options leveraged against them. This was probably a surprise to their neoliberal bankers, but the base reality of the situation made sustaining it appealing.

Take your pick. Saber rattling with Taiwan,

That is stoked by the West and there are no new developments on that front that aren’t the US trying to escalate via moving yet more military assets there. Or China moving ships across waters right in between the mainland and the island slightly more often or with a slightly different exercise.

You call this making threats?

encroaching on the Phillipine’s maritime waters

I guess if we are being vague about what encroaching is okay. Building up and claiming various contiguous waters in the south china sea that would have otherwise been international waters and continuing to dispute long-disputed claims to some islands.

You call this making threats?

skirmishing with India and Pakistan on their border

Name them and let’s see what the big deal is. PS, is it threatening.

I see every other day here references here to Ukrainian Nazis, Russian self-defense, etc.

So what? This doesn’t respond to what I said at all.

As an Eastern European who’s heard second-hand from refugees what’s going on in detail, I hope you can understand why that’d piss me off a little.

I don’t care what pisses you off.

PS you skipped over 75% of what I said.

Iranian government brutalizing its own people? Butwutaboutdawest.

That seems like a reasonable question to ask in order to not blindly adopt national chauvinists views. Shouldn’t you put developments in context to avoid getting swept up in a propaganda push?

Is this the “authoritarian apologia” you mentioned? Maybe you could give a citation of someone doing it so we can judge if they are being unreasonable.

Russia waging an imperialist war to absorb a neighbour? Butwutaboutnato.

Is it imperialist? Russia is doing this to expand profit seeking for its national-level monopolies or otherwise export capital? If so they are doing a bad job. Or maybe you don’t know what imperialism is in this context.

Regarding NATO, yes understanding its purpose and it’s member activities in the lead up to Russia invading Ukraine is actually a basic necessity for grasping why it happened at all and why it isn’t just revanchism or “imperialism”. Can you tell me what happened re: the Minsk agreements and why that is relevant? What were their contents?

China threatening it’s neighbours? Butwutaboutdawest.

I honestly don’t know what this is even about. Maybe Japan remilitarizing? It’s not hard to see why that would be concerning.

Nothing is ever their fault, any atrocity committed is either a false flag or misinformation because the only thing that matters is the team on the shirt, not any actual actions.

I have never seen someone saying anything remotely in the vein you are referencing that doesn’t also have criticism for those nations.

Perhaps you could give an example.

God forbid somebody can be against US imperialism and against Russian imperialism simultaneously, that’s much too nuanced.

One would have to start with an understanding of imperialism.

I mean they just ban everyone who can critically read the media and understand basic geopolitics. Of course the remainder will be imperial core national chauvinists, that’s the default in their countries.

The moment they openly defended keeping chasers around and sexually tokenizing trans women, I was out. Those lead to a compatibilist approach to integration via internalizing self-deprecation and worse.

The people making these accusations simply believe, without investigation, that China is committing genocide against Uyghurs. Any pushback on this is labeled genocide denial, in bad faith, because none of them have done even a mildly critical review if what has happened in Xinjiang nor the truly absurd US state department/intelligence connections of the small and dishonest group of think tank grifters pushing that particular narrative.

There are no logs to post that would satisfy them. They seek to slander and avoid thought, not discuss the topic of genocide with any level of seriousness. This is about their egos, not any actual concern about Uyghurs. I’ve never even met one of these people who can name an element of Uyghur culture. They’re just a rhetorical weapon to these national chauvinists.

It’s spurned by liberal admins and mods usually. They can’t actually argue against us so they put their cognitive dissonance into an unhealthy place of self-soothing.

This actually isn’t unique to Lemmy at all it is the default reaction of committed liberals and liberals with thin skin. But when someone feels ownership of a place and like they’re losing legitimacy and control they can lash out.

It’s also important to understand that most people online discussing politics in these forums know basically nothing. They don’t read. They can’t critically engage with media. They don’t question their own biases when presented with people from other cultures. They certainly don’t actually do anything irl that would teach them visceral lessons. Trying to build an organization (not a career in a non-profit), a party, or even just feeding people. They might as well be 10 year olds for all the information contained in their political opinions. But they feel extremely entitled to their positions and wrap it up in their identities. If they are contradicted they feel personally attacked. If they think something despite having never investigated it, they announce it proudly with confidence and bully those who disagree. In short, humility runs counter to their socialization.

Finally, they’re used to punching right, or at least most of them are, and their rhetoric breaks down when they are instead forced to punch left. So they just start namecalling instead, banning, or just trolling, as it allows their egos to escape without much damage.

Luckily, we are looking at an echo chamber of people who automatically self-isolate and can’t organize anything. In the real world conversations are faster and more productive and building things and teaching is much easier, even with an audience that isn’t entirely friendly. Irl people usually can’t get away with acting like such babies.

Tankie is a thought-terminating cliché by liberals that can’t handle losing an argument and don’t know how else to punch left.

Actually I was never this insufferable.

Funny how they all talk like 4chan chuds

Depends on whether cooptation or vilification suits them. They can turn on a dime.

“Extremist” is an interesting accusation because it depoliticizes the inherently political. The supposed bad thing is that the object of derision allegedly deviates from the “norm”, but this says nothing about whether it is correct or good in actuality. It only works on an inherently reactionary audience, or one that absorbs emotional content unquestioned (the intonation that it is bad to be the extremist is internalized without analysis).

Reps don’t really care they’re who created and funded ICE in the first place.

It is also directed at people who are already oppressed and excluded from power structures socially and legally. The big news murders were typical white people, for every one of them there are ten or more marginalized people.

Debian is better as a server host. Ubuntu is not easier for a server for anything except initial installation but you’ve already done that once with Debian so you’ll be fine. Only reason to use Ubuntu is if you want core software updates every 6 months and for this purpose you don’t. And can still have the option for newer software in select cases using containers.

Americans have a false belief in their elections and that they can simply vote this away later. Or when that illusion is shattered, they often develop a political nihilism, having no further concept of political power.

This is not actually unique to Americans, either.

No problem friend. It is fairly hard to handle all those other phones - see how LineageOS keeps it’s supported list fairly small!

Apple routinely slows down its phones with every major update, promoting people buying $1k+ phones every 2-3 years.

Pixels are the main target of aftermarket ROMs because they are reference Android devices with highly available unlocked developer modes. Most companies producing phones do things like add propriety changes that require substantial workarounds for relatively basic hardware functionality and make it much more difficult to even install an aftermarket ROM.

Really this is all a consequence of capitalism itself and the need to lock in ecosystems to establish controlled markets (allowing for controlling one’s own profit). Every phone could be fully unlockable and hackable by the end user, but companies specifically prevent this in order to maximize their own profits.