ProdigalFrog

ProdigalFrog , 15 days ago

AFAIK, Grayjay is not a closed source app, the source is on github, but he chose a license that restricts monetization and redistribution due to having concerns of people taking FOSS apps and repackaging them on app stores with added monetization or malware.

Not ideal, but not closed either.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

Silver lining is less flights booked means less emissions for the environment.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

That's not great... I can only hope more people opt for trains instead this time.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

I hope that prompts more funding into Amtrak if people do opt for that!

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

Gah! I wish so desperately that wasn't the case, but I can't dispute that. It really does feel like without investment in our rail network, there's no good way of long distance travel, so it's currently just a shit sandwich all around.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Gay people can donate blood now! (In the US, at least) :D

Also @photonic_sorcerer

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

Ahh, bummer :(

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

I was only offering what I knew to be true for my area locally, I didn't want to speak on things I hadn't researched. Looking it up, I guess it seems like it's possible (with varying degrees of waiting period), in a pretty significant chunk of the world, so that's even better than I thought, if still not ideal. ^^

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

It's all good :)

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

What's the situation with donating in your area? :)

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Hell yeah Linux Mint Debian Edition

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

The industry has shown us how they absolutely cannot be trusted, while FOSS applications have shown us they are sustainable and will always put the user's interests at heart, with Blender being a prime example.

We have to stop funding closed source software, enshittification is inevitable.

If we all donated the price of Affinity's perpetual licence to Krita, Kdenlive, and Inkscape, we'd have a suite of tools that could outcompete them all, and never have to worry about another acquisition.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

I've actually been pretty impressed with LibreOffice as of late. It's fairly easy to adjust the theme (they have proper dark theme support now!) and layout to something pretty darn cozy feeling. Maybe for a power-user it's not enough, but for my simple needs, like fiction writing and simple documents, I honestly can't complain, they've done a solid job. Could it be better? Sure. But it's in a good place, IMO.

I think GIMP is a better example of a really user-hostile UX. That, almost more than any other open-source app, needs a UI overhaul.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

GIMP is an odd project, one that I'm not sure is actually being held back by money, considering they've been sitting on a donation of bitcoin since 2014 that now amounts to 1.3 million, and just... haven't used it, at all?

Krita seems like a more promising project, IMHO.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

Ah, thank you for the info, I was not aware. I hope they're able to put that money to good use now.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

Cheers for posting this, I snapped up a copy to throw on my kobo.

ProdigalFrog , 1 month ago

There's a 'Save PDF' button to the left of the Share and Cite buttons, just beneath the summary (on desktop) :D

ProdigalFrog , 2 months ago

Ahh, you're the guys who posted over in reddit before your thread got locked that think it's a good idea to promote Russian propaganda equally with Ukrainian content, because you don't want to 'Take sides' politically. Closed source too, so that's pretty much a dealbreaker right there, especially for Privacy focused users. We've been abused by closed source software for far too long to trust anything less.

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/a0e22c7f-59f8-4944-ae0b-71542fa153e2.webp

You also have absolutely no plan on how to monetize, as others have said in this thread already.

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/fa78e666-03ad-4a5a-8845-0e4983804a25.webp

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/90e87d3a-7d2a-4aab-9979-6b468d93d4ae.webp

I certainly won't be supporting you, not with those values.

ProdigalFrog , 2 months ago

Jackfruit can make a mean pulled pork.

ProdigalFrog OP , 2 months ago

LOL 😂

"Come on over to our instance and learn to slurp like you should, K?"

ProdigalFrog , 2 months ago

I have a fairly similar opinion to @mambabasa, I have no real issue working with anyone on the left, even the more liberal types as long as our goals happen to be aligned.

The only 'left' group I would not be able to work alongside in good conscious, are tankies. Every time in recorded history that Anarchists have teamed up with authoritarian leftists, it inevitably went south in some of the worst ways possible.

I've never met a tankie in real life, only ever encountering them online, but if I ever did meet one, that would be my line in the sand (at least, if anything meaningful was on the line). There's no need to repeat that part of history again.

ProdigalFrog , 2 months ago

As long as they don't yearn for a jackboot of olden days, and acknowledge that Stalin, Mao, and other authoritarian 'communist' regimes are not something to strive for or apologize for, I wouldn't mind working with them for the common good and shared goals. 🙂

Since they were de-stalinized, would you say they fall somewhere along those lines?

ProdigalFrog , 2 months ago

As someone who hasn't ever looked into Filipino politics, you've given me some interesting rabbit holes to go down.

Bit of a long shot, but, have your own views ever come up with them? I'm curious if any of them ever explained what they find appealing about Leninism over Anarchism.

ProdigalFrog , 2 months ago

Apologies for the late response!

Different people have different experiences and come with different conclusions. Under a different set of experiences, I could have thought Marxism-Leninism would be the logical conclusion.

This is something I'm interested in understanding. I think your new Communism community might be a good place for me to explore that topic further, when I have time to write a more compelling question.

ProdigalFrog , 2 months ago

What is holding lemmy back? I use it almost exclusively for months and find it to be a great replacement.

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

Also East Coast, and can confirm, do the same.

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago

I was surprised to learn that Carter deregulated trucking, which devastated wages for truckers, and they never recovered.

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

aussieWS's comment on that video sums up what the video creator means by 'asthetic' Anarchism, which, tl:dr, has very little to do with actual Anarchism. He even explicitly says in the video, "It's not like European Anarchism, it's not socialism."

It's a nicely produced video though, and I like the idea of a single small chest that'll allow you to create anything.

Highly recommend Chris’s book Anarchist’s Tool Chest and Anarchist Design Book. His writing is good, and he makes reading about wood working fun. As far as his “anarchist” theory it’s just kind of a dumb muddled way to describe a break from capitalist tendencies. Which, hey, I support. But he makes the error in believing consumer choices are responsible. Which is totally naive when you look how many countries like Japan had their markets opened at the end of a barrel of a gun. Capitalism, consumerism, and mass production are top down policies. Often pushed on people that are already living perfectly fine and self-sufficient lives. Only a very clear headed—and mind you, radical— government could bring back the type of small entrepreneurial and self sufficient communities that could host a hand tool furniture maker. And that government would have to sufficiently strong enough to defend against other predatory countries looking to open their markets again and dump in cheap products. I know what type of society Chris longs for, and I feel that in my bones too, but the way he writes about how it can be achieved is so hopelessly naive that I find him even more likable. Keep in mind, his books are 99% woodworking, but when he tries to explain his philosophy it comes off as bad advice. If a bunch of people began trying to feed their families with hand tools they would go broke. It’s honestly why the hand tool route is more of a retired man’s hobby. Unless of course you lived in an exceptionally wealthy/bougie community that can afford to pay you properly. Looking at my poor surroundings I’m well aware nobody can properly pay me for a hand-tool piece of furniture and the amount of time I spent on it… My ramble is over. Chris is great. He has a lot to teach about woodworking, don’t get distracted by his politics (like I have).

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago

AnPrim is not terribly popular here, as it tends to be diametrically opposed to the goals of Solarpunk, which as others have already mentioned, is about using technology to empower individuals and improve society as a whole through an Anarchist lens. I think you'd fit right in here. :)

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago

Bro, I looked at the other conversation you linked, and two responses in, you just drop this outta nowhere:

As a side note this is why I don’t consider people like ol’musky transhumanists; he wants weird robots and brain implants because it looks futur-y, not because he’s grappled with the pros and cons of the solutions for decades and determined that this is the best way to help people. He’s a sham who pretends to know what he’s talking about after looking at a cool photo instead of honestly engaging with the philosophy he pretends to advocate. I am reminded of him through my interactions with you.

How do you expect people to react when you insult them for no other reason than politely disagreeing with you?

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago

People voted for FDR instead of Herbert Hoover, and that ultimately resulted in some pretty sweet policies. It wasn't perfect, but that is a prime example of a presidential vote being worth casting, in addition to more anarchist methods of bringing change.

There was a lot of protests happening at that time which really helped motivate the new president to actually do something, but if all those protestors chose not to vote, Hoover could've been elected instead, which seems... Not ideal?

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago

As far as I'm aware, it was a combination of unemployed worker protests combined with WWI veterans demanding their bonus certificates be cashed early, known as the Bonus Army, marching to the capital. Both of which were motivated by the economic depression of that time.

From the first link, I did spot one communist protest in Rhode Island that was 10k strong, as well as a protest in Boston, Massachusetts that was 40k strong against capitalism (though it does not specify if it was communist).

so it is implied that this requires more than voting.

As I mentioned in my previous comment, the thing that really pushed FDR to do the right thing after he was elected was the powerful protests, but I would maintain that had the protestors not voted out of principle and Hoover had won instead, it is likely not much would've been done to alleviate the suffering and conditions those protestors were protesting. Hoover publicly denounced every positive effort put forward by FDR. He also showed how he would've dealt with more protests had he stayed in power from his treatment of the Bonus Army.

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago

The science of domino effects regarding climate is not set in stone or even fully understood. It could be really bad, or it may not be as bad as some suspect. I don't really see the utility in assuming the worst of something that could be fixable, or at least mitigated.

Personally, I'm going to look at the proposition of complete and utter doom with a healthy dose of skepticism, and continue to try to make things better where possible.

Out of curiosity, why do you consciously choose to discourage others from trying to make things better? I guess if I thought we were all doomed, there wouldn't be much point in telling others that we're doomed, since it'd be irrelevant anyway. I'd just do my own thing and attempt to live my life to the fullest ability that I have.

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

This is a subject I've done a significant turn-around on in the past couple years after seeing how fascism took hold in the past, and doing a fairly deep dive on the differences in policies between the 'bad and less bad' parties, and the practical outcomes of those policies in people's lives and ability to organize.

Like you, I was completely disillusioned with the system, and thought of voting in said system to be a pointless exercise. However, sometimes it can make drastic differences that can impact millions of people's lives to various degrees. To be clear, I'm not advocating for putting extreme amounts of effort into campaigning, but the critical votes (For the US, the Local State Midterms and Presidential Elections) are absolutely worth putting a vote in. If your country's votes are not completely rigged such as it is in Russia, then I would advocate participating in the vote.

So why do I think that now?

First, let's address the idea of Trump and Biden being one and the same:

While I would never defend Biden to the point of saying he's a 'good' man (he's still a neoliberal at heart, and as you say, he supports genocide), he is allowing some positive things to pass that would not happen under a Trump presidency, and some of those things can be fairly significant.

1. Trade Unions are having a resurgence, mostly due to the fact that Biden isn't actively trying to hinder their existence compared to previous presidents (Ronald Reagan decimated them, for example).
2. The Inflation Reduction Act is actually a big a deal, and is something that Trump would not have passed. It's definitely not perfect, but it will give the renewable energy sector a pretty massive boost, which is desperately needed to get the ball rolling toward helping reduce climate change. It also will subsidize our transition to heatpumps and better insulated homes, to reduce energy consumption overall. Considering how little time we have left to make meaningful change in regard to climate, this is a massive win considering how captured the government is by Fossil Fuel lobbyists.
3. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is another genuinely good bill that will help with climate change by putting $110 billion towards making the electrical grid ready for a transition to solar/wind energy.

Lastly, for all of Joe Biden's many, many faults, he is not a full on fascist dictator. And now comes my biggest reason for voting (not just in the US, but everywhere).

Fascist's rely on passivity to gain power.

I made a larger post about this topic here, but the short version is: When someone trying to get into office is openly fascistic, history has shown that they will do what they say when they get into power, and they will do everything possible to secure that power permanently, and expand it.

Trump is the first openly 'strongman' style fascist that has a very high chance of getting into office. He wasn't quite this fascistic in his first term, but now, especially after January 6th, there is a very real possibility of the US descending into a genuine jackboot dictatorship. And traditionally, fascist regimes help other fascist regimes around the world (And Trump has a hard-on for Putin, so Ukraine would be fucked if he wins).

Yes, Biden is committing genocide, the US is still is an imperialistic government, the prisons are still full of slaves, and he is ultimately a neoliberal that will not enact truly meaningful change on a wide scale. But even with how bad things are, they could absolutely get, way, WAY worse. We've already seen some pretty massive regressions in rights due to republicans, as other comments have mentioned.

I do understand your frustration though, especially as you're living in a country that is fucked over either way by US politics.

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago

The unfortunate truth.

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago

The Inflation Reduction Act doesn't really do anything to combat inflation, it's a poor name. I linked a video about it that goes into greater detail of what it practically entails. And with the Jobs act, I tried to highlight how significant of a role that legislation will have in getting the US off fossil fuels, which, like I get it, that seems inconsequential when your country and others like yours are being subjected to imperialism RIGHT NOW, but I emphasize it because climate change is something that affects us all, and to demonstrate that who wins this stupid election does have downstream effects that matter for everyone for a long time to come, climate wise.

We collectively do not have a lot of time to fuck around with getting off fossil fuels, so any big step in that direction is, IMO, critical. But that's just my 2 cents.

Donald Trump lost the popular vote; passivity wasn’t the problem—he was broadly rejected! Liberals had their victory but the game was rigged.

I mean... Yes, for the most part that is true with the electoral college, and @Five's post here about how the swing states are the only votes that matter is mostly true (though I still would argue it's good to vote even in the more 'secure' states just to be on the safe side).

However, I'm not sure that was the case with Hitler's rise, and as my linked post shows, he didn't win the popular vote, the less bad option could've been chosen had the Germans 'defensively' voted back then.

But, yeah, I'm not going to defend the US's electoral system, it is absolutely a joke, I agree, but the result is not set in stone, it's still absolutely worth fighting, because it's going to be very close.

In my country, both Duterte and Marcos got people to identify with their power and proletarians mobilized under and for this image of power.

That's certainly much harder to fight against if the majority are already down for it, especially when things were pretty dire. It sounds like it was very similar to Italy during the rise of Mussolini, where seemingly it was inevitable due to him having a significant majority vote.

I think my voting suggestions only work if the fascist party isn't already going to win the majority vote by a landslide (But even then, it's best to vote anyway, just in case polls were misleading).

Also, I was only bringing up US politics because I'm already familiar with the historical ramifications of 'less bad' voting here, which has shown a trajectory of when 'full bad' wins, things get way worse, which for me just highlights that a passive stance toward voting doesn't really bring any sort of tangible benefits, whereas defensively voting (at least historically in the US), has shown to be worth the effort to vote.

I don't know if that's the case for your country, or for others, but I would guess that it may apply there as well. You said yourself that when Durerte won, hundreds of thousands died. If you believe that those lives wouldn't have died if the less-bad guy had won, then your vote was worth making, even if it ultimately didn't work, because there wasn't a zero-sum chance that it wouldn't have worked.

I guess I advocate for voting for 'less bad' because game-theory and history has shown to a sufficient degree that the harm reduction is worthwhile.

ProdigalFrog , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

There were two posts about this subject in !climate_action_individual

One post by @silence7 was a link to site on climate-friendly credit unions that don't invest in unethical things, and the other was a post by me on choosing to invest in ESG index funds that are verified by FossilFreeFunds.org due to normal banks investing your money into fossil fuels without your consent (I wasn't aware of the climate friendly credit unions when I made it).

Personally, I think it's fine to invest because, in a world with pensions being increasingly uncommon or defunded, it's realistically the only way to be able to retire, or survive while being out of work due to medical issues at old age without going bankrupt. Though I'm speaking mostly through the lens of living in the US.

ProdigalFrog , 4 months ago

I wouldn't hand that right to them on a silver platter. This is what consumer protection law is for.

ProdigalFrog , 4 months ago

The idea that its downfall into fascism would not have knock-on effects around the world, and that all the 'good' people could escape it to greener pastures, is very shortsighted and more than a little naive. It was not destiny that Germany became fascistic, Hitler didn't even win the popular vote. The knock on effects of the fascists being allowed to win was absolutely devastating the world over. Why would the US becoming full blown fascist be any different?

ProdigalFrog , 5 months ago

Florisboard is a good one.

ProdigalFrog , 2 months ago

Realistically, it would look something like how the Anarchists organized society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, or how Rojava is organizing today with communal federations. Anarchism sidesteps the inevitable authoritarian regime that various Marxist theories have by not installing a 'temporary' vanguard state that quickly becomes autocratic and dictatorial, they just jump straight to decentralizing power immediately by giving it to the people.