The annoying nerds who said you should install Linux, use decentralised social media, use Signal secure messenger were right.

Control of our own computing is a prerequisite for freedom.

The internet *is* real life.

Russians Keep Mysteriously Falling from Windows to Their Deaths

Ravil Maganov, the chairman of a Russian oil company that criticized Russia's invasion of Ukraine, reportedly died after falling from a hospital window.

Newsweek
@rrb If I was any sort of public figure who had criticized Trump publicly or participated in his impeachments or the Jan 6 hearings, I would be investing in private security. @moh_kohn
@ellestad @rrb @moh_kohn according to some of my old peers still in the trade i've spoken with all the outfits are overbooked. Nobody available. Four month waiting list on all the actual competent outfits. Might still be some available in the fly by night dregs. Little more than mall cop temp agencies. If you feel like trusting your life to a half assed Blart getting paid 15 bucks an hour, TOPS.

@Beggarmidas @ellestad @moh_kohn How much does that cut into your tax breaks?

Or, they could go to their underground compounds they have invested in for when society collapses.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, much?

@rrb @ellestad @moh_kohn Not sure who you're directing that to. Only one with a doomsay duckout I know of is Peter Theil in NZ. Started it in 2014, completed it in 2017.
Lemme tell you something about bunkers though. They aren't that hard to crack once you get past all the earth & rock in the way. It never seerms to occur to anyone with no military background to insulate the doors. Stack firewood on a door long enough it turns that bunker into a pressure cooker.
Tech bros are stuck in a fantasy land of apocalypse bunkers and bizarre space stations

Tech companies have had a tough ride this year having endured a brutal layoff period.But their bosses still seem fixated on escapist fantasies.Mark

Business Insider Nederland
@rrb @ellestad @moh_kohn lol. Thats most people anymore in the industrial world, once the money & influence are removed. How many people you know personally lost in la-la land? That have retreated into some fantasy construct of religion or political zealotry or fan club mania? It's the whole fucking 1st world mate, by and large. Minus a few notable exceptions dealing with the harsh daily reality of war. Lunatics rule the asylum now. Maybe it's the microplastics building up in our neural gaps.

@Beggarmidas @ellestad @moh_kohn Deal with lots of African activists.

They do seem more grounded. They have real issues.

@rrb @ellestad @moh_kohn That echoes my own assessment. This is a disease that presents the strongest symptoms in the first world. I've long speculated that humans require facing actual adversity to mature properly. It's fascinating to me that in places with no such struggle available people will end up creating it somehow. The most problematic individuals are typically the same ones that never really seemed to grow up. Not struggling for anything locks them in a perpetual adolescent state.