WindAqueduct

Seconding this recommendation. Story of Your Life is the best sci fi story I've ever read

You might like Steampunk Prime: A Vintage Steampunk Reader, edited by Mike Ashley.

By the way, the sad reality is that many of the good sci fi stories have flat prose. It's just something you have to accept.

Very well. Since privacy is irrelevant, give me your full name and address. I promise I won't report you to ICE.

If you think you can organize a resistance to fascism while being surveilled 24/7, be my guest. The only thing you're doing by being a stupid doomer is discouraging people from taking proactive steps towards better privacy. Surveillance is what kills our freedom of speech, assembly, and petition.

It's funny how much people deny that privacy is the foundation of freedom when every tyrant knows it. That's why they set up surveillance systems.

No, the state can't just do that. They could do it to any one person, but not to everyone. Consider this hypothetical: the state wants to kill 100 people. If everyone is outside, this job becomes easy. If everyone is in their homes, this job becomes harder. Why? Because breaking down doors, moving equipment, etc. costs money. And government agencies don't have all the money in the world! They can't:

1. Go after every single person who uses cash
2. Go after everyone who uses a vpn
3. Go after everyone who uses encrypted messaging
4. Go after everyone who attends a protest and who wears a mask and puts their phone in a faraday bag.

Privacy works best in a larger group. Telling people privacy is dead actually hurts you more than telling people that there are indeed effective steps you can take to protect yourself.

Encryption requires no respect from the State

Keeping your google account can be helpful if you want to follow this strategy:

1. Register on Signal using your phone number
2. Port your phone number to google voice ($20 transfer fee but free after that; additionally while its privacy sucks, google is great for security)
3. Change the settings so that every caller is sent to voice mail
4. Use mysudo and cloaked for VoIP numbers
5. Set up Signal on a new device (ideally a grapheneos pixel)
6. Use a calyx institute hotspot for data or buy a sim card with cash

Socialists need to learn to stop being dogmatic. If a Marxist-Leninist revolution is our most viable solution, democratic socialists et al should back it. If democratic socialism is more likely to succeed, Marxist-Leninists should back it.

Your number one step is privacy. Privacy is the foundation of freedom; it "protects the right to be left alone".

If you're a beginner, Naomi Brockwell's videos have very good tips. If you're not a beginner, read Michael Bazzell's book Extreme Privacy. Read it in full and decide the level of privacy you want (you likely will not need every single one of his tips).

No, don't use Telegram. Chats aren't end to end encrypted by default, you have to specifically request a secret conversation. It's also not possible to encrypt group chats on telegram. Matrix, signal, session, simplex, and many others are much better.

Yes, people should have that, but it's not that simple. Some liberals, particularly classical liberals, think a free market would bring those things to everyone. I don't necessarily disagree, though I think free markets can only ever be free under communism/socialism, not capitalism. The issue with centrally planned, universal healthcare is that a hostile government could refuse to provide you care, much like insurance companies that don't approve coverage for many things. Additionally, there needs to be strong medical privacy protections.

This is to be expected as Russia needs true security guarantees to end the war.

Use an SLNT bag