Or by telling him to make a decision, she’s giving him more autonomy than if she just left. Like she’s saying, “Look, we need to commit to a decision, no more up and down, which way would you have it?”

I can see that, though it feels to me like from the context of the song they have already had that discussion at least once before.

I know that it hurts when you feel a certain way about someone and they don’t feel that way about you- it can hurt a lot and it can take time to come to terms with it- and I don’t’ think removing yourself from their lives is an unreasonable solution if you are having trouble dealing with it- so I definitely feel empathy for the singers pov as well.

I would love to have an 8K TV or monitor if I had an internet connection up to the task and enough content in 8K to make it worth it, or If I had a PC powerful enough to run games smoothly in that resolution.

I think it’s silly to say ‘nobody wants this’ when the infrastructure for it isn’t even close to adequate.

I will admit that there is diminishing returns now, going from 4K to 8K was less impressive than FHD to 4K and I imagine that 8K will probably be where it stops, at least for anything that can reasonably fit in a house.

This is probably a controversial opinion, but Ive always felt a little bad for the guy this song is about.

I think it’s unfair for her to say he doesn’t care a thing about her. He obviously does. If he didn’t he wouldn’t want her to still be a part of his life.

This song is just about two people who want different things out of their relationship, and the singer is just unable to accept it.

She has the ability to cut him out of her life if that’s what she really wants, same as he does. She should cut herself free if it’s too painful for her to be his friend.

The biggest issue is that so many people see it just as you do, left vs right, instead of liberty vs authoritarianism.

For the most part the divide between “Left” and “Right” politically speaking IS the divide between Liberty and Authoritarianism. If you look up the History of the terms its easy to see this. Those terms originated during pre-revolutionary war France. The “Left” supported freedom from Tyranny. The “Right” supported the Monarchy. This has remained largely true ever since then.

Where the waters get muddy is so called ‘Authoritarian Communism’. When Communism was first being discussed it, along with Anarchism in general, were correctly labeled as ‘Leftist’ ideologies. Under both the ‘State’ is abolished completely. You can literally go no further left than voluntary association and abolishment of the state. As far back as Karl Marx, elements of ‘Authoritarianism’ began creeping into ‘Communist’ thought. While Marx was a relatively enlightened thinker- neither he nor Engels were the originators of Communism- despite having written “The Manifesto”. They were the originators of Marxism- an important distinction.

The goal- indeed one of the very definitions of ‘Communism’, even under Marxism is “a classless, stateless, society.” As such Communism is a form of Anarchism. Anarchy technically only requires the abolishment state, but the vast majority of Anarchists also believe in “Mutual Aid”, and ‘private property’ is a nonsense concept in the absence of a state- which is why so many Anarchists identify as ‘Anarcho-Communists’.

Now clearly (in my mind at least), removing one of the fundamental ideas of communism- which is that ‘The State’ (and especially a ‘strong/authoritarian’ state) inherently upholds and enforces the class system in society and is a bad thing which needs to be abolished and you replace that with it’s complete opposite- a ‘Strong’ State upholds and enforces ‘classlessness’ in society and is a good thing which should be supported, moves that type of “Communism/Socialism” from being a leftist ideology all the way over to being a far right ideology, as per the original and most commonly used metrics for determining if a position is “Left” or “Right”.

The problem with ‘reclassifying’ ‘Authoritarian Communism’ to it’s correct spot is that A) the ruling class (Capitalists) who are firmly right-wing do not want to be associated with it as it removes power from them and places it solely in the hands of the state. Likewise ‘Authoritarian Communists’ do not want to be associated with Capitalists either for similar reasons. Leaving the only people who care about the correct placement of these ideologies as the actual Anarchists and Communists- which are considered ‘fringe’, ‘extremist’, and ‘radicals’ by society as a whole and no one really cares about our opinions.

A ‘True/Accurate’ Left Right Spectrum would look something like…

Anarchism> Communism> Democracy> Social Democracy> Neoliberalism/ “Libertarianism(U.S. definition)” > Conservatism> ‘Far Right’> “Authoritarian Socialism”> Fascism

Putting them in that order reflects the ‘Liberty-Authoritarian’ spectrum that is the “Left-Right” spectrum. You could of course argue placement and some of them could be rearranged depending on circumstances. For example I put ‘Social Democracy’ as further right than Democracy because ‘Social Democracy’ is still by and large a Capitalist system, yet if the majority of people in a Democracy were right wingers- then the order would flip, however this is largely right imho.

For decades, the libertarian movement, as seen by the left, has been largely associated with the right, simply because of their professed support of the free market, and dislike of gun control…

You are confusing ‘The Left’ with “Liberals”. This is an extremely common and understandable mistake to make in the U.S. as there is a lot of intentional confusion. The ‘Democratic Party’, in particular since the ‘Regan Era’ is largely comprised of Neoliberals- a capitalist ideology. Capitalism relies on, and cannot exist without the exploitation of workers. As such you simply CANNOT separate ‘Social’ policies and ‘economic’ policies. Exploitation of workers IS a social issue- one of the most important ones- so if you support ‘Capitalism’ you are ‘right wing’ socially, even if you hold relatively enlightened positions in other areas.

Also “Gun Control” isn’t a clear ‘left/right’ divide either. Many leftists share the view of some right wingers that having access to firearms is an important strategy to resist tyranny. If anything access to guns is a Left wing position that was adopted by some on the right, as crazy as that may sound to modern American ears.

“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”

― Karl Marx

One of the key ways that “Libertarians” try to muddy the waters of what is a considered Leftwing or Rightwing stance is the mantra of ‘Free Markets’. But what is really meant is ‘Unrestricted Capitalism’. If there was ever a “Libertarian” who believed in “Free Markets” in the absence of ‘The State’ and ‘Private Property’- well they would likely correctly categorize themselves as a Leftist and not “Libertarian” (Please note the distinction between Private Property and Personal Property, and in particular how it relates to the ownership of the means of production.) Also to note: That definition of “Personal Property” is written from the POV of people born, raised, and indoctrinated by a Capitalist system and is not exactly how leftists would define it. “Personal Property” doesn’t have to be ‘movable’ per se- ones residence or even a village collectively could be considered ‘Personal Property’ by Leftists. What really matters is that it’s property that you can personally make use of. If you build yourself a small house for you and your family- that is personal property. If you lay claim to vast amounts of land that you couldn’t possibly work by yourself- that would be “Private Property” - which would require some form of ‘State’ to enforce.

Now some so-called “Libertarians” will try to argue for something called ‘Anarcho-Capitalism’. This is a mythical state of existence where there is no State, yet the people respect ‘Private Property’ rights. Ask most ‘Anarcho-Capitalists’ how they would propose to enforce private property in the absence of a state and they will tell you that they would hire Mercenaries/ “Private Police”/ a Small “private army”- Well at that point you are a Warlord. Which is the precursor to and one step removed from Feudalism. In other words by becoming a Warlord you have recreated ‘The State’, which is incompatible with Anarchism.

But that same movement has been seen by the right as largely associated with the left, because of their views on things like the drug war, enforced morality, and anti-corporatism.

It’s unironically great that you support those things- but even ‘anti-corporate’ Capitalists are still capitalists- and still right wing- despite being more enlightened in other areas. You are basically no different than a neolib, but with worse takes on the economy. Neolibs are right wingers themselves. We basically don’t have a “Left” in the U.S. The DNC is only “Left” of the GOP by relative positioning. The actual Left is growing day by day- thanks in part to the fascist takeover of the U.S., but we are still the minority for now.

But there are still quite a lot of us truly anti-authoritarian libertarians out there who despise both left, and right leaning authoritarianism.

But when I bring up issues of authoritarianism, I get “BoTh SiDeS?!” bullshit responses. Because YES, as we can see, BOTH SIDES do their own fair share of this authoritarian bullshit.

To reiterate my point, authoritarians can only ever be ‘Left Wing’ in name only. Calling it any other way makes no sense. It’s like saying a poor wealthy person or a sick healthy person- the two concepts are complete incompatible with each other.

Plus, property rights are just a logical extension of personal privacy rights.

PERSONAL property, not PRIVATE property.

Now I haven’t even gone into why the ‘authoritarian’ shift in “Communist” thought happened- and that is a whole other discussion. This rant was largely semantic but I feel it’s important to make the distinction.

They are already happy. The point of all this is to keep people ignorant and the working class divided- and they are getting straight A’s in that department.

If you mean the people who blindly go along with whatever ‘conservative’ politicians tell them then never, because of the previous point. There will always be a scapegoat to blame, to keep them mad, to distract from the Billionaires draining their pockets and eroding their rights. Immigrants, leftists, women, minorities, lgbt people… anyone who is different so they can play on these peoples xenophobia.

We already live in clown world. We are beyond parody.

I’d rather chisel text onto stone tablets than that bs.

Are Canadians not allowed to pummel home invaders?

Sorry

Is it just me or is whitewashing slavery the first step in reinstituting slavery?

It’s the same thing. The workers work, management just makes sure the workers work.

You’re the hero the company doesn’t deserve, but the one it needs right now.

I was looking at some PC’s at Best Buy and a salesman came up to try and give me the hard sell. I asked if I could buy the PC without Windows on it for a discount.

“How would you use your computer without Windows on it?”

“I’m going to install Linux”

“What’s that?”

“It’s an operating system”

Blank stare

“Like Windows or OS X…”

Blank Stare

Sigh “I already have a copy of Windows at home”

“Oh! Well I don’t think you can do that, no.”

My only Apple computer was a G3 Powermac, which I got used from the resale store at the University I used to work at, which means I got it real cheap.

Compared to the boring and clunky Windows XP machine I had, I loved the design of the hardware and the software. I loved that to access the mobo to upgrade the RAM I just had to lift up a latch on the side of the case (my Modern case isn’t even as easy as that to get into). I liked the colors and the ‘handles’ that made moving the tower around easy if you needed to. I had a very tacky aesthetic back in the day where if something was made of clear blue plastic I would buy it, so that Mac fit right in with my ‘decor’ lol

Compared to XP the UI was a lot more sleek and modern imo, the dock was a game changer because I rarely used more than a handful of programs so having them always available was cool. Plus my simple minded ass was impressed by the animations. The “hot corners” were super useful. as was resizing the windows by dragging them to the edges of the screen. The overall look was just much more nice to look at. I think it was 10.3 Panther if I recall correctly.

At the time I was just starting to learn about Free and Open Source software, so I thought the fact that they based OS X on Unix was pretty cool. The first DE I ever installed was on that Mac (LXDE?) and the first FOSS programs I installed was on there, VLC and The GIMP I believe. I also loved how easy it was to install programs. You would just download the file and drag it into a folder called ‘Apps’, and to uninstall you just deleted or moved the file out of there. Compared to the ‘install wizards’ and the ‘add/remove’ control panel on Windows, it felt like actual wizardry.

I think more than anything the geek in me just liked learning a new set of skills and a different way of doing things, but overall I loved the experience. When they announced the iPhone I was excited. I was actually one of those people who carried around a mobile phone, MP3 player and Digital Camera at the same time. So the thought of just having to carry around 1 device to do all those things was like a dream come true. Then I heard about the price and was less excited (it was almost $1000 in today’s money adjusted for inflation). I was a working class stiff after all. Then I found out about the lack of apps and thought that was weird. But still I was pretty much on board.

I got a iPod Touch to replace my Nano and kept my flip phone. That’s when I realized that I had to jailbreak it to fully unlock the functionality. That’s where they finally lost me. I had been planning on buying another Mac but I figured if they were willing to lock down their phones like that- it was only a matter of time before they did the same thing with their computers.

It ended up being a good decision because on my next (Windows Vista) PC I learned to install Linux and I could do some really tacky things with the UI then! lol. Compiz anyone :D

All this to say I think Apple was actually in fairly decent (if still too expensive) place prior to the iPhone, but their whole ‘walled garden’ approach to computing just wasn’t my bag at all.

This almost makes me wish I still used Apple products so that I could boycott them.

Ive been Apple free for 20 years though.

That was beautiful

I wasn’t asking for guidance, I’m just pointing out that these are all things that reduce usability.

I wasn’t giving you guidance, I was just pointing out that you are making it sound like some insane struggle to get and install programs on Linux. Usually it’s even more straightforward than in windows, especially if you already know what you are doing.

I’m just pointing out that these are all things that reduce usability.

Those are all examples of things that increase usability. Having multiple different ways to install a piece of software is only a problem if you allow choice paralysis to consume you. Right now you know just enough to know those options exist, but not their purpose or function. Literally less than 1/2 hour of googling would answer all of those questions, and with the benefit that you now better understand the useful functionality of your operating system. You only have to spend that 1/2 hour one time, and for the rest of your life you wouldn’t stress out over a flatpak vs a binary, or whatever. And again, for a new user they are probably best served by just opening the app store and hitting install. Easy, breezy, beautiful.

While you’re right that some of these issues also exist on the windows side, it’s not as prolific.

That’s just not true. Linux has had app stores for decades. Windows didn’t. Until recently, if you needed an app for Windows you had to trust ‘random online sites’ to get software. Now that Windows has it’s own app store, you can use both ways install apps in Windows- no different than in Linux.

I think that a lot of technical people forget that the average user is quick to give up and has a knack for breaking things. Many of the restrictive elements in Mac and Windows are to protect the average user, usually to the bane of the super user.

I just remember being a new Windows user and having to learn what a .dll and a .exe was. What the registry was, what installer ‘wizards’ were and how to properly use them, how to find the place in the control panel where you uninstall programs, how to update my system, what ‘fragmentation’ meant how how to solve it, how to not get viruses and how to remove them if you did, how the file system was set up and how to navigate it- There was a lot of stuff to learn, and you either learned it or you weren’t able to properly use your system. Same when I briefly switched to OS X.

It’s no different in Linux. People just don’t want to take the time to learn how things are done in Linux. The reality is it’s really not that hard to get up and running in Linux at all. And while you can always go deeper and learn more- its typically not necessary nowadays. I put Linux on my moms old computer when she was in her 70’s. She was not a techie person at all (extreme understatement). It took about 5 minutes max to get her up to speed. It was never an issue.

Many of the restrictive elements in Mac and Windows are to protect the average user

It’s simply a matter of readjusting your mindset. If you are about to do a simple and straightforward task that you already know how to do, chances are in Linux there are 10 other ways to accomplish the same thing- but you are in no way forced to know what they are or how to do them. If you are curious and want to know- that’s great. Take a little bit of time and learn them. If not- don’t.

Choice is good.

I’m a technical person and even I struggle with what/how the hell I’m supposed to even install applications on Linux:

On my distro it’s 1) Open App Store 2) Search for Software 3) hit “install”.

Should I download the binaries? Should I use snap/flatpak/etc?

That’s a matter of personal preference, but once you understand the difference, which is really not that complex, then the choice should be practically automatic.

If I do one vs the other which is more up to date?

You can check the version number.

If I can’t find it in the software store can I trust random online sites?

You have the same issue in Windows.

I think if you are paying to have a worse experience with a ICE car, and someone points out you can get a nice electric car for free and you think they are just being an annoying asshole- that’s an issue right there.

Sure, some people need dump trucks for work. If you don’t though I think switching to an EV is sensible.

I’m done talking to you doofus. I hope you get help for whatever is wrong with you.

A. I clarified to find me one of the same size as a 1990 model.

Good for you.

B. Isnt this exactly the same argument your making?

No, you don’t carry Ford Rangers around in your pocket all the time making them easy vectors to spy on people.

The bagtery tech was not there to allow thinner phones without comprismising capacity.

And if people really gave a fuck about thinner phones they would have accepted smaller “bagtery’s” to get them. Clearly capacity was more important. So I guess people weren’t chomping at the bit to get thinner phones now were they?

But people also want smaller phones.

Phones have been getting bigger not smaller.