It’s a fair point, but anonymity is not the same as privacy. Normally I only need the latter.

Just by avoiding gmail-like providers nobody crunches all the activation emails to build my profile. Using aliases on @mydomain I can separate the identities a little bit. Of course it is still possible to assume that all the emails from @mydomain belong to me, but I can accept that risk assuming that nobody wants to follow me specifically (why would they?).

Rule 1: know your enemies. I only need to protect myself from the ads-industry and that works on volumes, not on quality. Two emails are very likely two different people for them.

If you truly want anonymity then you’re right, but life becomes much harder.

Yes and no.

The domain registry knows the identity of the domain’s holder (ok, authorities can easily ask), but it’s impossible to associate a single email to a person with certainty. I can give you an email with my domain, for example.

I also do not see much difference with a fake account on Gmail (or whatever). Of course, it’s relatively anonymous if you only use it to register on a website or to send an anonymous email once, but if you use it regularly you will be identifiable anyway, just with a few extra steps.

Why so?

I’m quite curious to see how it will end in the UK with the porn filters because the people don’t seem to be inclined to use their IDs online, the system is brittle, and non-porn websites are being blocked too.

You forgot to mention the reputation of the US among its “allies” now.

It’s the equivalent of a “beware of the dog” sign: sometimes it’s just a puppy, but sometimes it’s rabid.

Debating online is as important as doing the rest of the things you say are “real” worthwhile pursuits.

I love debating because, with time, I became aware of angles I had missed. However, I stop when the other side embraces extremist, black&white, and childish positions. “Fuck the system” works when you are a teenager or listening to punk rock, but otherwise it is just ridiculous.

For instance: How can we pursue a cure for cancer if the political climate ensures scientists are scorned and distrusted?

You can’t. However, you also can’t if you are not 100% in the system and aligned. Anything requiring funding or permits most likely becomes harder the less aligned you are since you’d clash with politics, you’d never meet people with money, you’d become a liability, and so on.

I’m all in to go to protests, to vote with my wallet, and to preach my values. I’m also conscious of the negligible impact that I will have since large organized movements can barely move the needle, and that there are so many other ways to change the world.

A better resource: https://www.goeuropean.org/

Also useful: https://isitamerican.eu/

Yeah, but Matrix has bridges for almost anything.

But then you are simply using Whatsapp with extra steps.

Did you read it till the end?

we should be doing something

Ok, let’s dive into it. What does “doing something” exactly mean? I’ve been into this since before I could vote, so I saw quite through it.

“Doing something” means a lot of different things for different people. Signing a petition, going to a march, writing on a wall, you name it. For some people “doing something” means sitting all day discussing about socialism and revolution in a living room. For others it is more biking together with Critical Mass against oil on weekends. There are those seeking small daily actions like recycling, and then there are the activist jumping on a boat with Greenpeace to save the whales, and the terrorists doing anything from damaging something to placing a bomb.

What does it mean for you “doing something”? Once you determine that, determine how much of that something would be adopted by the general population and what level of change could that reasonably achieve. I’ll anticipate the result of you exercise: the bigger is your something and the smaller will be the adoption, but the product in terms of impact will be always “very small”.

Take Occupy Wall Street to make an example. I loved the whole thing, I love the work of David Graeber, and it was a massive success, but what did they achieve in practice? The expression 99% entered in the general culture and there may be a bit more awareness of the problem of billionaires, but looking at cold metrics it was like a big storm, then the sun came back and a few days later the last puddle evaporated.

you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy

Who said I’m not doing anything? OP said “You still work. You still buy. You still support the system.” to which I replied that I’m no more a naive 16 years old who shouts fuck the system and dreams to live off-the-grid avoiding the rat-race… and then goes back home to have dinner with mum.

If you are an adult and you want to go for it, be my guest! You may become Greta-Thunberg-famous, and people will follow you on social media. You will convince some people that, I don’t know, we should buy durable and reparable things to save the planet and fight consumerism. You will have an impact, albeit very small, and that will be a massive achievement if you dedicate your whole life to that.

Just, please, stop with idiotic replies accusing people to be enslaved in the system because it’s an insult to anyone who is currently looking for a solution for cancer, saving lives as a firefighter, building houses where people will live, growing crops, and even keeping up internet so people can praise the revolution against the machine from their bedrooms.

Of course. There are for sure women so stupid to go with a misogynist virgin prick.

After all, we live in a world where some Americans voted for Trump and got their families raided by ICE a few months later.

You’re asking the wrong guy. I don’t think it makes sense either even if I’m a (moderate) self-hosting guy.

FYI Sentry is for failure reports. It’s not a spyware.

https://sentry.io/

Masturbating, I’m masturbating.

Wow! Do it in public fully naked with the reasons of the protest tattooed on your body. You may hit the news and reach lots of people!

I accidentally watched an interview to some right-wing incels, and I’d say that they were lonely because they fail as human being.

I suspect that women aren’t dating conservative men, not because they want to punish them, but because they would personally rather not date a horrible person.

Considering how many women remain in an abusive relationship, I’m not sure that conservative men have less chances.

Ping me when you changed the world with whatever you are actually doing behind that keyboard 👋

I selfhost since so long that some of my domains could vote, but I still need some “mainstream” channels to be reached by several people.

If we can argue that close friends will put extra effort to contact you on whatever you use, it’s also true that your landlord, the plumber, the chick you picked up last night, won’t give a shit and simply consider you a lunatic 99% of times if you tell them to use anything non-mainstream.

You still work. You still buy. You still support the system.

Of course, because I’m no more 16 arguing that a revolution is the solution.