schmorp

Thanks a lot for sharing this. I’ll keep it bookmarked for later reference, looks very cool!

Emergency? Which emergency?

But is FOSS actually more vulnerable?

I was leftie before I was techie. If you don’t know anything around tech and computers you wouldn’t know what to do. Even as a fairly tech-adjacent professional it took me quite a while.

Then again, I only became a real leftie again after kicking all the corpos out of my computer.

Tech used to be (and still is) obscured by heavy gatekeeping. We who understand a little more like to joke about those who don’t, and I guess we’ll have to stop that if we really want to unite the left. Don’t ridicule, explain. The person might never have had a chance to learn the concept.

For speech to text I also found Speech Note (not to confuse with Speechnotes, some similar thing from a different team I believe)

I do think it’s a problem that doesn’t need solving, but would maybe some sort of instance integrator sites help keep the fediverse open and easily explorable?

I found KDE Simon, and Numen … I’ve only ever used a commercial product, Dragon Naturally Speaking, many years ago. It was used so I could speak instead of typing texts but it did have functions to assign commands as well - don’t think it worked on Linux though.

I would want to add: A lot of scientific studies are made to understand animals better - their well-being, their language, their relation with us. Another series of studies has begun to document human knowledge around plants and their traditional use.

Myself and many humans around me have started to seek contact and communication with our non-human neighbors. Even people who still say “It’s all lost, I don’t care” show clear signs of caring.

That is some excellent writing - I went through a little of it and found it well laid out. I’d say you make very efficient use of your time and this is an important contribution for the fediverse, keep doing you!

yes

TLDR: Because AI is shite

anti-intellectualism and distrust of “so-called experts

Experts or authorities?

Here some conspiracy for you: A lot of psychiatry (not all) is made up shit rooted in old white guys’ ideas about how to keep unruly youngsters and women in check. The DSM is a vague symptom list sponsored by the pharma industry and gets changed every few years or so (glad they took the gay out).

I consider the output of (the scientifically connected side of) psychiatry, together with the output of my peers, together with my own perception when I make decisions about my own wellbeing - if that alone is anti-intellectual and conspiratic to you, you might be adhering to scientism rather than science.

Weighing in for Southern European mental health care, family support and abuse support. Believe me, you will be better off talking to friends or fellow sufferers online or offline than trying your luck in the public system. Pills is all you get here, and prescribed somewhat hit-or-miss after what amounts to a 15 min interview, most of which are spent by the doctor typing your data into his computer.

If you need help for domestic abuse, be prepared for hours of bureaucracy while reliving and retelling your trauma to a host of police and social security professionals repeatedly. Then relocated to somewhere where you receive the bare minimum of care. I was lucky to never need it but have witnessed it, and frankly would consider any offers from unknown van-dwellers before this.

The only way to get the help you need is to research your stuff well beforehand, and then wheedle out of the system what you need by annoying the bureaucrats till they give up.

Maybe some non-Europeans could weigh in with their perspective as well.

‘Tech Billionaires give all wealth away to end world hunger.’ ‘Tech Billionaires lobby for wealth tax with national governments.’ ‘Tech Billionaires realize they are normal people like anyone else, not super smart world-saving geniuses, and finally shut the fuck up.’

Now these would be news.

Same with real people out there. I grew up in conflict with my parents before the internet and had the exact same issues you describe, just offline. it comes down to taking any and every advice with a grain of salt, no matter. Online and offline self help groups can be great, and life saving.

I do see the problem that a valuable set of global data is ultimately held by a US-American organization. I do know regional subsidiaries exist and in the case of Europe often seem to be run by public organizations, so that offsets this problem. I also wouldn’t know how federation would work with something like inaturalist. Maybe keep instances of regional data? I could see a use case there.

I’m already enraged, please go home

True. At same time, permitting angry music subcultures keeps the angry masses docile enough to not completely lose their shit. Engaging in angry music is a bit the same like writing angry political comments online - it feels engaged but changes little.

About pop music, I do respect that some people enjoy catchy tunes, easy melodies, dance-able rhythm as a kind of escapism. Listening to political comment can be exhausting, and music is, among other roles it can play, meant to be enjoyed.

That said, give me punk rock before pop anytime. Most shallow music these days makes my brain melt with the use of autotune alone before I even try to make out the lyrics.

ADHD

should my focus travel that road

made me snort.

Also, thanks OP for this post, this is some great quality dense information useful stuff right here.

In my country (non-english speaking), facebook is definitely the default for group organization and it really bugs me. I don’t want to use facebook, so I end up not organizing with anyone in the surroundings. Then someone set up a Telegram group and that was sort of an improvement, but impractical, and still nobody posts events.

First time I read about Mobilizon, it fits the bill of every local community internet thing facebook is currently having its dirty corporate fingers on. But what kind of server would I need to set it up? Any old laptop run from home good enough?