It is not my company.

Counterexample: Rome, most European countries in fact, plenty of Asian countries which started in fertile lands etc

You seem to be borderline panicking. Take a few deep breaths, and then remember the following:

1. The past is gone, the future is uncertain.
2. Never let perfect get in the way of good.
3. Pick your battles.

Now, with that out of the way: you cannot undo the past. Don’t try to.

So, the question is, what do you do? I am not bothering with tech answers, there are plenty of guides online.

Therefore: Go and see if there are knowledgeable people around you who have no reason to harm you. Go to your local hackerspace, repair cafe, civil rights group, whatever you may have close and looks acceptable. Listen to advice, and if necessary quietly discard the bits you think are stupid.

Yes, even if they are all weird neckbeards or furry trans wannabe catgirls or tree-hugging hippies. Nod and smile and just talk “shop”, if you have to. And there is no shame in accepting that you disagree too much with a group and won’t come back.

We are not supposed to face things alone. Sitting alone and panicking is a way that leads to tinfoil hats and lizard people. And everyone fighting on their own, divide and conquer, that is how movements fail.

In terms of what goes where and with what result, nah, not really.

The worst thing for me is the breathing, the body seems to switch into “you’re freezing to death, breathe accordingly” gear. The rest is perfectly fine. It is okay if I am doing something physically demanding (like swimming in cold water), but in the shower it just annoys me. Any way to deal with that?

Am I the only one who never had a power outage at home? I guess I am sorry that I live in a country with a somewhat maintained electricity grid ;)

But hey, remember this the next time someone says that renewables are what will make the grid unstable… Seems to work well in the US, amiright?

To be fair, I had one while being at a friend, when a lighting hit a transformer on his street.

If nothing else, do put a smoke detector in your bedroom. There are non-blinking ones.

I am not a particularly strict person when it comes to eating, but my main criteria are environmental impact and “how complex was the nervous system involved and how much did it have to suffer”. I admit I am pretty racist in that regard. No big cluster of neurons, no pity from me.

Even angry people irl are so, so much better than non-human online slop. We are social animals, we literally become mentally sick if we don’t talk to people, and then we try to substitute with algorithm slop, or in the good old times, drinking yourself to death.

IRL you can always come to different conclusions, although the chance is small. Online, there is only one direction and that is down.

Yup. Even if I work from home, or do my taxes or whatever, I am much more productive if I take a shower and put on a clean T-shirt and pants. Sure it is more comfortable to sit around in my underwear, but that signals to my brain that what we do now is not important…

I believe LLMs are more dangerous in that regard than normal propaganda. You can convince someone that the left-handed people are to blame for someone, but that still requires that someone to think (wrongly). With dependence on LLMs, you don’t think any more.

But do not ask questions only. Make remarks about your own experiences, or things you heard (within reason). It’s small talk, not an interrogation.

There is this Yiddish joke I heard somewhere, it went like this:

Guy is drafted to WW1, and is super scared. His best friend tried to console him:

"Listen, when you get to the draft office, there are two options: unfit or able. Unfit is good! But let’s say you get able.

Then there are two options again: staff or troops. Staff is good! But let’s say you get troops.

Then there are two options: rear or front. Rear is good! But let’s say you get front.

Then there are two options: you make it through or you get hit. Making it through is good! But say you get hit.

Then there are two options: you get wounded and go home, or you get a mortal hit. Wounded and going home is good!

And to be frank, in the other case, you won’t be able to worry anyway…"

The last two are just helping each other :D

You probably couldn’t call it friendship if you never hang out for the sake of it, but that is just the “I know someone” type of relationship

Ouch, that sucks. I am amazed how there is not a landslide majority in the US to fix the healthcare system, one way or another. Even if I didn’t have insurance, paid everything out of pocket, it would still be cheaper than the US, for what I believe is a comparable standard.

But then again, the average voter probably knows nothing about the world and is fed too much propaganda. I can see it starting here, too.

I mean, three choices there: move back to the city, give up on the job and get something that is likely worse but closer (while potentially spending more time on the farm), or leave that area altogether. All of them with a probability of working out fine.

If the fascists don’t ruin the country too quickly, I should have almost-everything-paid-for health insurance and protection against unjust dismissal for the foreseeable future. As I said, not in the US.

And I’m lucky enough to have enough savings to live a year or two without a job, even without welfare.

I am more worrier about how they grind up what is left of the economy between the US, China and “we need 500000 tanks to fight Russia”. And desperate people vote for easy answers, hence the fascists. If the US serves as an example, they will accelerate the decline, but at least they will shoot some brown people in the process, yay…

Not in the US, and I myself am doing fine. I earn about 30k after taxes, job is quite chill and for the moment it is safe, rent is about 12k a year, and I have some savings to not worry about the immediate future. But I can feel it coming, one way or the other.

This. Virus scans only get you so far, and only detect well-known stuff. Format your drive(s), start over with a fresh install. Be careful about importing backups and usb sticks and the like, of course it is unavoidable if you want to keep your digital life, but it could be infected. If you are friends with some CS / IT security nerds, ask them for help in exchange for $consumables :)

I guess it depends on how much you can abuse or ignore it. Debian works just fine if you put it in a locker for 3 years and then try to update. With gentoo, if you didn’t update for a week, you might as well reinstall :)

Arch is somehow in the middle, I had an arch VM that never had any problems except that certificate issue despite not getting many updates.