balsoft

That would be pretty cool. Burn down the patriarchy and the institutions which support it.

Right, there's no permanent solution to this issue while the working class is not in control of the state, because ultimately it's the state which sets the value of fiat currency. If we win the fight to get a Taler-like system recognized as an official one, it would be as difficult to get rid of it as it is to ban cash right now.

It's not just about the bloat or the free software principles nowadays. If you live in the US right now and organize against the regime, it is a matter of personal safety to not use Windows 11, or at least to neuter it as much as possible.

That thing leaks everything you do to Microsoft, and you know as well as I do on whose side they're on, and what the fascists do to those who threaten them. Same with most other corporate software.

Apart from that, right now Linux is the easiest to use it's ever been, and has no intention of stopping. The racecar analogy is no longer relevant, perhaps it's closer to manual vs. automatic nowadays. You do have to learn a bit more stuff about your computer than you would with Windows, but it's not a lot.

The biggest barrier to entry is installation, which is why everyone who cares about privacy (which frankly can equal survival in these trying times) should be hosting Linux and de-googled Android install parties.

There are digital payment schemes that would be completely anonymous for the vast majority of consumers, like GNU Taler. Support an implementation of it in your country. Cash is dying because of how inconvenient it is, we must build something that has the convenience of digital payments while also preserving privacy, there's no other way.

Yeah, but the monarchist protestors want to reinstate the US-backed Pahlavi dynasty in the form of Reza Pahlavi.

His father Mohammad, the last US-installed Shah of Iran has literally said this in an interview:

Women are wicked, evil, all of them ... Women haven’t produced anything, no scientists, they’re pretty creatures

And has repeatedly referred to women as sexual objects existing only for his gratification.

Reza himself has been quiet on women's rights, never once denouncing either his father's views or the currently existing gender inequality in Iran.

I guess it wasn't very socially acceptable to be that misogynistic in the US after the 70s or so. Maybe he will finally speak out now that Trump made this kind of discourse mainstream again.

I don’t think they’d ever get people to do the same for the newer OS’s

Just sayin, if you host a Linux install party you can get a copy of most Linux distributions for free. You can also get it for free if you don't host a Linux install party, but that's minor details.

I agree it's fucked up what Khamenei is doing. Even before the protests the government had some awful policies when it came to human rights of the Iranian people. The protestors have every right to be angry and fuck shit up.

But judging by their slogans, a lot of them are aligning themselves with their fundamental enemies - imperialists whose sanctions have led the country to its current economic state.

Unless a revolution is staunchly anti-imperialist, it is bound to be co-opted by the US to set up a puppet government and extract as much labor & resources as they can muster, by any means necessary. Remember that the last time the Shah came to power, the protests were founded in real issues and grievances of the population, and look at the outcome. Look at the outcome for Syria or almost any Arab Spring country. I guess for many Iranians getting US to support them seems like the only way to win, in which case it's a real catch-22. Maybe it will turn out that this iteration of the monarchist government will be slightly better than the clerical one, but looking at the state of US right now it's unlikely.

I am heartbroken about this whole thing, because those people are clearly fighting for a better future for themselves, and they're getting slaughtered for it. But it is likely that their sacrifice will be for nothing.

Yeah, they're alright laptops, but not as special as they were at their peak. The keyboards were (arguably) best in class, they were modular and repairable even by the standards of the time (the CPUs were socketed until T440p!), and really well-built machines overall.

But I admit that some of my attraction to them is because I prefer how some things were done back then.

The old laptop keyboards with a lot of travel, and the old-style trackpoints with a big leverage, are tactile and nice to operate. Thinkpads have the best of both from that era IMO. I know where everything is even in the dark, the long travel prevents accidentally pressing a key, the feedback is decisive. The only way to compete is to stick a mechanical keyboard in a laptop. Oh, and if you do have trouble finding a key in the dark, there's an exceptionally cute thinklight you can turn on.

Hotswap batteries are amazing, you can take two charged with you and just swap them over quickly without mucking about with powerbanks and such.

The physical screen latch means it is closed securely enough to throw papers/a yubikey in the closed laptop, and yet you can easily open it with one hand without the body lifting from the table. Closing it produces a satisfying clunk.

Lack of a trackpad means that you can dedicate more space to a keyboard even on a tiny laptop.

The old laptops are thick, but they have a lot of ports which can come in handy. (I do prefer framework's approach to this, though).

I understand that all this went away because the new way of doing things saves on cost and nobody cares, or people outright prefer it over the alternative. But damn would I pay a few grand for an Theseus-style upgradeable "forever laptop" that would have at least some of those features. I'll probably cave and get a used framework eventually.

I do agree that it is all very novel and weird. However, the show of force for European oligarchs is the most convincing reasoning to me.

From a purely financial standpoint it's a big investment with unclear returns. Natural resources there are difficult & expensive to extract (first of all, there's no infrastructure), expensive to transport, and it will take a very long time to recoup the costs of a full-blown invasion; neither fascists nor capitalists think on such timescales. In terms of projecting power on Russia, it's also dubious because US already has a military base in Greenland and could probably expand it quite a lot before Denmark would start seriously opposing it. And in any case I don't think Trump's admin is too worried about Russia at this point.

Meanwhile, European oligarchs are not happy about Trump trying to meddle directly on their political turf, supporting far-right parties and so on. As a result, EU is currently slowly distancing itself from US. There have been some mildly worded letters about the Gaza genocide and the Venezuela thing. EU is already trying to decouple from the US tech-wise, it has been trying to build its own defense pact, etc.

A drone strike campaign, Navy blockade, 1-day special forces operation to depose and kidnap the government, an amerikkan flag over Trumptown (previously known as Nuuk), and an island-sized military base with ICBMs 10 minutes away from any European capital sound like convincing arguments to stop even thinking about disobedience. It would also help with scaring everyone else too - as a russian saying goes - beat up your friends to instill fear in your enemies. Again, I'm not sure this is how it would work out were it to happen, but the fascists tend to think this way.

To me it feels like the least improbable of all reasons.

Of course it's also possible that this is just Trump and Miller blabbering about their wet dreams and the oligarchs won't let them do it.

Greenland has nowhere to hide

While it's not as big as it looks on Mercaator-projected maps, it is still pretty huge and full of empty nothing covered in snow. There is plenty of space to hide if you know how to survive.

no way to deliver weapons and only 60,000 inhabitants.

Both of these are true, but you shouldn't underestimate what a determined guerilla force of 30000 can do with small arms and explosives. The US won't be able to send 2 million able-bodied men there either, it's not the 60s anymore.

The only question is whether Greenlanders hate the US enough. For now I don't think they do, which is why I also believe that a one-day "special military operation" is the most likely outcome.

Why would you believe anything at face value during times of hybrid war?

They are not only words. Look at the massive budget cuts to propaganda ops/USAID, and the damage to supply chains and trading partnerships done by tariffs (and especially the way they were negotiated). Even the words themselves do matter, they are destroying what's left of the so-called "rules-based order" in the minds of people around the world. They clearly gave up on soft imperialism.

The US have one objective: contain China.

Those are not mutually exclusive. The current government thinks they can contain China militarily. The general direction can be seen quite clearly. Enhance domestic oil extraction and get a reliable supply from South America as a complement (oil is the prime energy source for war, after all). Get their european vassals back in line with a show of force. Pump their asian vassals full of weapons to project power. Destroy Chinese economic influence (belt&road or otherwise) by invading/couping anyone who dares to ally with China (unless they have nukes).

I hope it doesn't work out that way but this seems to be the plan.

But afterwards. Ukraine was prepared.

Greenland also has plenty of guns, the natives are very accustomed to cold and snow, and the people there increasingly hate the US. The logistics would also be difficult for the US because they don't have a land border. If Greenlanders decide to fight back, and Europe backs them up even the same amount as Ukraine, it might be a long and bloody affair for the US. You don't actually need advanced military tech to fight imperialist invaders from afar on your home turf, look at Vietnam.

This won’t happen. Ukraine happened to split Europe from Russia.

China would make Europe reconcile with Russia.

China is not some staunch ally of Russia, I can see why that connection is usually made, but it's just not true. They are simply non-interventionist and will trade with whoever trades with them. China refuses to sell most military equipment or dual-use commodities to Russia, and they are Ukraine's biggest trade partner.

Allying with China is the most logical thing for the EU as a whole to do right now. They are a predictable, reasonable, stable partner with a huge industrial base. They are also leading the world in fossil fuel alternatives for energy generation, which is urgently needed to fix the climate crisis, and is especially poignant for Europe because it needs to shake off the dependency on Russian gas.

The only reason it's not happening right now is that EU oligarchs are scared shitless of actual socialism, because they correctly surmise that it will be the end of their dictatorship on people. US is already doing their best to force their hand, let's hope it hastens their demise.

The US won’t take Greenland if the EU would turn to China.

With the current fascists in charge I'm not so sure. They think they can replace soft, economic imperialism with sheer military might, this is what is being said verbatim by Miller and implicitly by Trump, and all their other actions point to it as well. I hope it backfires badly.