2 years is pretty rough by modern standard.

Data centre capacity, they seem to be making an emphasis on access to independent power sources.

member of a group of wealthy individuals wielding sovereign power

This doesn’t seem right. Russian oligarchs do not wield sovereign power, yet they are still oligarchs.

They wield power, but the term sovereign doesn’t seem appropriate.

Believe it or not, but there are externalities to the polemics you are describing.

The ostentatious posturing (I am a tiny minority that is virtuous, everyone else just wants to punish people and doesn’t want the law to apply to everyone equally) is pretty ignorant. I’ve lived in multiple countries across North America, Europe and Asia, it’s clear that you haven’t thought about this.

It’s comically easy to find well known (locally) examples where even the non polemical version of your arguement doesn’t hold.

EDIT: I would appreciate a counter argument from people who don’t agree. I am genuinely curious, because to me this seems like common sense. And I can provide multiple example from different cultures about why this rhetoric does not sound convincing.

I don’t think the reference to “ostentatious posturing” is uncharitable. Just look at the text. This copytext is pretty standard and clearly aimed at self-aggrandization.

Sure, but he is not an oligarch.

I believe I used the command line when I last used MacOS, that’s the option that came up when I did a search for only getting apps outside of their store.

It’s been a while since I’ve used MacOS, but isn’t the process for allowing apps roughly comparable to enabling apk install rights on Android?

I don’t think open Android is viable.

It’s technically open, but it’s structured in a way that it’s de facto not open.

I am personally planning to move over to a Linux phone of some sort. Going to keep my A73 for critical apps/use cases and slowly move over to a Linux phone.

In a way, it’s good that Google is killing sideloading (in the real sense, where I decide what gets installed, not some hoodlums in Mount View or wherever).

Yes, I am in Europe.

I actually had a Nokia N9 back in the day until I lost it.

Jolla is on my watchlist.

I suspect I will keep my old phone for banking/e-government/work apps.

I really hope there will be some solid development on Linux phones in the coming year.

I will have to drop Android once it’s not possible to use F-Droid. This is a red a line for me. In a way it’s a good thing, it will help with my goal of dropping Americans services/products.

Literally promoting phrenology.

That’s why I said this article was subpar. And I even commented on this in pretty harsh terms:

the regime members are really busy doing their best to make a new metaphorical rope

I don’t agree with a lot of what they say, but I don’t believe they are malicious, at least to the extent that many American news sources are.

The Economist is generally a pretty good news source, but I thought this article was subpar.

Irrespective of whether this facial evaluation algorithm works or not, as things stand today, it is pointless to discuss its use in the context of meritocracy. A regime founded upon the rejection of personal responsibility, corruption and criminality makes such discussions irrelevant (algorithm or no algorithm).

At the risk of sounding like an accelerationist, I can’t get rid of the feeling that the regime members are really busy doing their best to make a new metaphorical rope.

Xi is not an oligarch, to my knowledge, he has always worked in the CCP.

Identical post structure, tone and argumentation style across multiple posts.

You’re not going to beat the Americans at their own game. It’s a society that does not respect the rule of law, does not believe in true market competition and does not believe in democracy.

If you think I am acting out, consider the following point: recently Meta was found to have directly (in a premeditated manner) promoted scams/frauds that netted them $16B in commission in a single year. We all know that nothing will be done about this even under a hypothetical centre-right US government.

How do we know that? Well was anything done about Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour in the 90s?

But for me, the real irony is the polemics about competition and “free market”. In a real free market, MS, Meta, Google would not have hundreds of billions of dollar to burn because competition would drive profit margins to a state of approaching zero. Zuck would not be able to burn $45 B on his weird and disgusting Metaverse Mii autosexuality fetish.

Not a fan of the leadership of China, but I genuinely do believe that one area that we can learn from them is how to deal with oligarchs.

I don’t doubt such approaches are used. They almost certainly are. I am just wondering if Threadi is large enough for anyone to bother (be it oligarch backed groups or independent conmen).

Interesting theory.

Although I do wonder if the approach is sufficiently scalable/right level of throughput (if this indeed what’s going on).

What is the point of such accounts?

Why do this? I understand the point of setting up such an account on Reddit (gain karma and then start low key spamming or joining a bot-net), but on Threadi?

Counter arguement: you need to do your own research/planning/applications and so on. There won’t always be an easy “all inclusive” path. But opportunities are there for those who are looking for them.

That being said, it would massively help to speak at least one other language fluently.

You’re also correct that it’s not easy from a resource perspective. But if people from much poorer countries can make it work, than so can people in the US.