drewofdoom

Nobody is going to make you vote one way or another, but please recognize the following:

The United States is currently a two party system. It sucks. We need to push for more ranked choice voting, as well as direct popular vote.

However, until we’re able to achieve something that makes this parties viable, we will continue to have issues with the right wing getting undue influence in our politics.

Vote with your heart, but make sure that you’re okay with another Trump presidency of you decide not to vote for Biden.

Keep in mind as you do so that more than one state had enough votes for Jill Stein that if they had gone to Hillary, Trump never would have become president.

We should have viable parties outside of the two not great to horrible parties we have now. But that’s simply not the way our government works as it stands now.

Last thing: you’ve become a single issue voter. This is the lefty equivalent of only caring about abortion and ignoring literally everything else. Politics is complicated, and I personally find single issue voters incredibly shortsighted and lazy.

There are serious concerns regarding potential genocide, and Netanyahu has always been a problematic, right-wing leader that flirts with authoritarianism. I would agree with you on that front, and it’s perfectly fine to draw parallels to other authoritarian regimes.

However, it shouldn’t take much to realize to that accusing a Jewish nation of being actual Nazis is not only insensitive, it’s antisemitic.

We can criticize Israel for very real issues. There is absolutely no reason to invent new ones.

Is it brainwashing and indifference, though? Could also be fear of a hostile government. Russia isn’t exactly known for its fair treatment of protesters, dissidents, and activists.

I think this is a cultural difference. In the US it’s not uncommon for common sense health regulation to get ignored - such as the amount of sugar in soda - because people cause an uproar about freedoms being taken away.

But if you say it’s about the health of sweet, innocent children… well then suddenly it’s a lot more palatable for the public.

So here in the US, you can want everyone to stop smoking, but make the case that it is for the benefit of children in order to help achieve that goal.

You got it! We all need a little reminder to take context into account sometimes. And I do appreciate what you were trying to do, which is promote privacy. It’s a laudable goal, and one that I encourage you to continue. Just remember to meet people where they are, instead of where you want them to be. ;)

I think you misunderstood what they are trying to convey.

Yes, it’s quick and easy to install (privacy respecting alternative). But to even get to the point that you recognize that you need that alternative is a time commitment as well. They are so busy trying to stay alive and support themselves that they don’t have the extra mental registers to devote to keeping up with privacy implications of popular software.

Not to mention, some software now suffers from IE6-itis, except this time with chromium. So if a user encounters one of those issues on an important site, they’re more likely to drift over to the chromium side again. That friction alone causes more hardship for a person in their situation than simply giving up some privacy for convenience.

They’re also not even making excuses. They’re simply telling you what the point of view is in their world.

Your current approach presents a holler-than-thou attitude that is rude and off-putting. Ultimately, it’s not your job nor mine to chastise them for their choices. If they’re reading this thread, that shows interest in the topic.

Allow them to discover it for themselves (with guided encouragement and assistance if requested) instead of being guilted into a decision. That will have a much more long-lasting impact.

I see the method you attempt all over the Internet, and it always has the same effect of contributing to a toxic, elitist culture. IMHO, that needs to stop if we have any chance of changing more minds to be privacy-aware.

Forgive me, but I’ve been around the Linux/FOSS community for a couple decades and I have never heard someone mention the Freedesktop spec as a requirement to be considered ‘Linux.’ Considering that the Freedesktop spec is mostly targeted towards systems with graphical UIs, would that mean that any headless system running a Linux kernel and GNU userland is not considered ‘Linux?’ Furthermore, that kind of flies in the face of the idea of using Linux as a testing ground for alternative computing ideas.

Now, there’s been a lot of discussion around fragmentation, and I get the arguments towards enforcing standards, but to me this is a truly bizarre line to draw in the sand. You could just as easily say “Any systems not using SysV are not ‘real’ Linux.” Or any system that gets rid of /usr. Or any system that isn’t POSIX compliant (bye bye, NixOS…).

Seriously. I don’t get it. Please show me what I’m missing.

You could say the same thing about other distros that hide the difficult bits, tbh. Is Endless Linux? What about Elementary?

The thing about Linux is that it’s extremely flexible, and there’s a lot of choices about interface and user experience.

So what is it about ChromeOS that makes it not Linux? Is it that it doesn’t have GNOME, KDE, XFCE or the hundreds of other DEs? Is it that you don’t need to use the terminal for anything? I mean, it’s not the kernel or the userland or even the compiler…

So what is it?