motherfucker

If you’re interested learning opsec, step 0 is learning to threat model. Figure out what situations you’re trying to prevent, what actors or forces may cause those situations to happen, and what your options are for stopping them, and what the costs of each of those options are. Then you can make an informed decision. Privacy is a gradual adaptation, not a switch you can flip overnight or ever be perfect at. It involves a lot of tradeoffs.

A human with no ability to feel unpleasant feelings would die of malnutrition or exposure. A community where everyone has the exact same needs and therefore could only act in ways that were beneficial to everyone would inevitably die out when those needs couldn’t be met.

I think viewing any of these situations or feelings as good or bad ignores the inherent chaos of our existence. And I mean chaos in the sense that slight changes to initial conditions can wildly change a system’s outcome.

I also think viewing “bad” characteristics as inevitable is often used as a way to dismiss change which is clearly a massive net positive. And looking at society’s problems as simply the aggregate of individual people being greedy or angry ignores the nature of systemic problems and suggests individualistic solutions that are doomed to fail

I do too, sometimes. It’s not a healthy habit. I hope you can find a balance that works better for you.

So you’re subjecting yourself to authority that you believe is acclimating you to do things against your will?

Getting people acclimated to obeying authority by starting with menial commands is a real thing. For it to work, the person doing it needs to have some authority and the commands actually have to be things that the other person won’t object to. Do these people have authority over you? Does changing how you talk about Unix desktops seems like a reasonable command to start that process?

Now, I have no problem with viewing random strangers as authority figures if that’s what you’re into, but it seems a lot more likely that you’ve used this idea of compelled-language-as-social-control as a thought-terminating cliche to justify not thinking about why someone might care about randos online using the word “ricing”. And to be fair, it seems like a weird use a mental energy if the point is to assert dominance, but at the same time, you’re the one engaging with it, so what does that say about you?

Japanese cars, yeah?

Anarcho tankie, standing by

Imagine giving up a technical position for a sales position. I’m poor as fuck but I actually enjoy my work. I own my home. I get to play guitar and play with my kids. If I’d taken the sales position I was offered I’d be dead.

Sounds like you’re a duct-taper. That’s also indicative of a procedural issue with the company you work for. Shit sucks. Hyper competent duct taper usually ends up being a pretty thankless job as well. Never getting to actually fix underlying problems. Always putting out fires. And everyone just learns to expect it from you, from above and below. And it sounds like you’ve learned to expect it as well. I know all workplaces have their dysfunction, but I hope you can either come to find this one more tolerable or find a better environment soon.

Sounds like you’ve just got some shitty coworkers, m8. Or are you talk about your direct reports?

The site actively recruits for communist orgs, mutual aid groups, and provides resources for labor organizers. My organizing committee at work exists because of Hexbear, for better or worse.

Signing off on this comment as Cool and Good. Hexbear seal of approval or something like that.