bl_r

Well, there’s also that bit where we funded fundamentalists during the cold war to try and fuck with the soviets, and the imperialism we and the soviets did that led to radicalization. A problem that we exacerbated which bit us back in the ass a few decades later.

In most cases there isn’t much you can do to fool the government without a lot of prep time such as scouting routes to find cameras, destroying them, or being really good at changing into bloc in the middle of a crowd and not getting caught.

But the important thing is threat modeling. The past dozen or so protests I’ve been at haven’t had the government as a big threat, it has had fascists as the primary threat. While a fascist cop would be a problem, it is much less likely than fascists combing through protest footage to try and doxx people, or a fascist at said action trying to get good photographs. That’s why I masked up.

The last real dicey action that I went to I still masked up, even knowing that the government could still try to track me if needed because I knew it would be time consuming to do so, and that they would only go through the process of doing that if I make it worth their while. Bloc is still effective, but quite hard under this heavily surveillanced police state.

I think it would be funny to normalize wearing bloc in order to retain privacy. It’s why some people might wear accessories they normally don’t wear, such as beanies and sunglasses at protests, even if they aren’t in full bloc, covering hair and eyes (in addition to a surgical mask) can make it really hard to doxx someone.

That’s a fun mistake to make. I had a similar thing happen with Kubuntu uninstalling my GPU drivers. I could never figure out what caused it.

The world is full of creatives who make things without any expectation of income, but people create anyways. Look at open source software, or the many youtubers who don’t get enough views to get paid yet they post anyways. There’s quite a few journalists who operate solely on optional donations.

Fuck IP. Copyright is theft. IP kills.

No. Of course not. I put it in quotes since I was being sarcastic.

but Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, can’t even get the mental health services he obviously needs

Lmfao

I’d rather get healthcare at all. I’ve been too poor to afford any medical care at points in my life, I’d settle for even some low quality care as opposed to none at all and hoping that this new weird pain either is insignificant and goes away without issue, or it gently takes me out in the night.

I’m excited to see where pirate medicine goes. I’ve met a trans woman who told me that her DIY HRT was life changing in the best possible way, and I can only dream of what would happen if people started making their own Insulin or T or whatever

I fucking love pirate medicine. Fuck the US healthcare system, what good is having the “best healthcare in the world” if you can’t even afford mediocre healthcare?

I'm not familiar with taoism, and I do not understand the point you are trying to make. I've read the chapter on this site.

I think you are talking about this paragraph:

Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there is ritual. Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion.

I don't get what you are trying to say. Are you saying that Li is Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_(neo-Confucianism)), or in the quote I have, ritual? Are you saying I'm an advocate for Justice in the sense of this quote? I think you are either misunderstanding me (I know I am not understanding what you are saying since it is unclear), or ascribing a set of values to anarchism that doesn't line up with what I'm arguing in order to dismiss my argument.

To be fully clear, I'm going to elaborate on what I'm saying. I'm giving a simple cause and effect statement here, not some moral justification. When there is a liberatory movement that threatens the power structure that enforces hierarchy that oppresses people, those in power will use their position to make the movement, threatening tactics/techniques of, or other things done by the people of the movement illegal, necessitating breaking the law to continue. Working within the shifting bounds of law is insufficient.

Yes, but since most people for whatever reason believe that you can fight the state only by the rules the state makes, you won't be able to do anything about it.

I agree. As an anarchist, I do not think following whatever rules the state makes will ever be sufficient for achieving any liberatory goals.

They are doing this pretty intentionally. Tomorrow is always different from today. People have been complacent, while some other people perceptive of the future in a bad way have made plans for taking unprecedented power over societies.

This is why I advocate for decentralizing power (and the dissolution of all hierarchies and hierarchic power structures). The last thing I want is a despot using the current mechanisms of power and centralize everything, and have such an absurd amount of power.

You are saying this [cut quote about my advocacy of decentralization] as part of a discussion, but they are not discussing this with us. Public opinion won’t stop them. Only force will.

I agree. Every single movement that has gone against a component of the government required either violence, or backed, credible threats of it. The government will never reduce its power to the benefit of the people, even if that policy is popular.

You are absolutely correct, I’m just worried about one less barrier.

FOIA is great and all, and so are public records laws and disclosure laws.

But the state is gonna state, and when push comes to shove, social media will be another tool to manufacture consent, break up movements, and preserve itself over the interest of the governed.

I’m not concerned about the ability to FOIA shit about Twitter or Facebook’s algorithm, as much as I’d like to know about how it targets the content slop to its users. I’m concerned about how it will consolidate power into fewer hands, and how state sponsored social media will be abused. And I don’t think FOIA would ever reveal that if it happened.