Game theory would like a word.

Considering the smallest non-fragmented group has resulted in the current 2-party system in most western countries, and results in tribalistic xenophobia, I’m quite content stating democracy is not the egalitarianism it is purported to be.

And I quite resent the insinuation I’m a lapdog.

Democracy: Dictatorship of the majority. Mob rule.

Matrix was ‘de-federated’ from Libera.chat because Matrix admins refused to properly moderate their servers, respect privacy, maintain reciprocity, etc. There’s a whole letter explaining the hair ball that occurred.

Have at. Timelines in-order.

Tensions and issues coming to a head:

https://libera.chat/news/matrix-deportalling

https://matrix.org/blog/2023/07/deportalling-libera-chat/

Breaking point you’re looking for:

https://libera.chat/news/matrix-bridge-disabled-retrospective

https://matrix.org/blog/2023/11/28/shutting-down-bridge-to-libera-chat/

Today: https://libera.chat/guides/matrix

no wonder they can’t moderate everything

That would be the case if it wasn’t a flagrant violation like, “These matrix rooms are spying on these chat rooms without announcing the users in the matrix room”, and Matrix refusing to fix it when informed.

Imagine if Matrix did that to their user base. “We’ll occasionally drop in to listen, or pipe your conversation to other people, but you won’t see the, “x joined”, notice. Cheers!” Creepy spying, the polar opposite of privacy.

Let’s say you want to talk to your friend. You have several protocols, Phone, Mail, Email, SMS, or maybe something stranger, like smoke signals or memes. Each protocol needs a different port.

Your friend doesn’t answer phone calls or check VMs. The ‘port’ for phone calls is blocked. Nothing gets in through here.

Your friend only accepts email from certain addresses, like protonmail. This port is filtered. Only known things get in through here.

Your friend accepts any texts if they begin with the secret pass phrase. This port is open and filtered. Few unknown things get in through here.

Your friend accepts all postage. This port is open. Anything can get in through here. HTTP or HTTPS, your browser.

The VPN is sort of like an opaque tunnel you run from your house alongside public roads to some place you feel safe exiting, And then the usual steps in communicating. All of the communication has to go through the exit point back to the house.

If this kind of thing interests you, have a basic book for free. https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/353

“open” and “privacy” are sometimes just buzz words

Yes. Private companies are co-opting the term, and providing source code only after signing an NDA… That qualifies as “Open” but is not FOSS or FLOSS.

Several things, but the issues focus around the company running the show, rather than the API. Their ‘binding rules’ have an outrageous number of loopholes.

• “We won’t sell any assets ever! Unless… someone buys us. Or if we decide there’s a benefit to selling the assets.”
• “We reserve the right to do whatever we deem fit with non-profit money, so long as it benefits matrix.”

Matrix was ‘de-federated’ from Libera.chat because Matrix admins refused to properly moderate their servers, respect privacy, maintain reciprocity, etc. There’s a whole letter explaining the hair ball that occurred.

Their explicit goal is monopoly. Every thing should use our API. Everyone should federate. (Share your data with our servers.)

Companies are companies. Non-profits included. Non-profits are just a way of saying, “We’re not going to the stock market, but we can still funnel money into various pockets… especially our own, or people we want to pay money to.”

Foss/Floss is about ownership, control, modifiability, ect. being handed to whoever owns it. Matrix is about ownership being shared with Matrix.

It’s a wondrous API. Everyone should use it, and set up their own private self-cleaning servers.

Almost… Automattically?

You’re right.

Though anti-theist is an umbrella term that includes opposition to religion, not just belief in god. Which includes believing religions are harmful. As it isn’t a regulated religious body, the term is rather loose and not stringently defined. I personally believe it’s better to distinguish the faithful from the non-worshipful.

As opposed to dytheism, which typically holds god may be, or is, malicious and should still be worshiped. Though dytheism is not exclusively faithful, the term connotes faith more often than simple agreement god is evil.

Philosophical, not logical. The actual axiom is still 'god exists."

Defining what god must be, rather than defining what would qualify as a god, assumes there is such a thing as god.

Example: The cat god is a being that is a better cat than any other imaginable cat.

Compared to: A god would be all-powerful. This being, x, is all-powerful. Therefore, x is a god.

Compared to: There exists a cat better than any other cat. This cat, being greater than all others must be the god of cats. (Does this qualify as an omnipotent ‘god’? No, but at least the cat is provable.

Defining what’s good is good.

Adam and Eve were canonically cast from heaven for being able to define good and evil.

Status screen. Yes. Also, mini-maps, appraisal skills, and chat history.

Knowledge is power.

Anti-theist.

No, not a professional anyhow. We’re all teachers of one kind or another.

I consider myself a hacker of the classical variety. Not a cracker, but someone who is driven to understand something until the puzzle pieces fall together elegantly. You can do all of this yourself, if you can make it through a decent chemistry book. Look for “A Molecular Approach”, Tro teaches the subject well.

Once you get to the point of understanding catalysis, you can make a detonation out of just about anything. After you can solve chemistry problems, all it really takes is a written reaction 2H + O = H₂O to give you an idea of how you might go about making said reactions. The composition of Semtex is public knowledge, just ask Wikipedia.

It was all in the name of fun… mostly. It was also one of the most memorable teaching experiences.

I thought I mentioned smoke bombs, but apparently not. They were a good litmus test to see if the boy could keep a secret. Following which were: Dry ice bombs. Thermite, Elephant Toothpaste. Napalm. Hydrogen gas explosions. (If you see a plastic bottle on your lawn filled with blue liquid, do NOT disturb. Call the non emergency police line.) Nitrogen explosions. (See 2020 Beirut explosion for visuals.) And a few other unmentionables that are much too easy to manufacture, one of which I saw in another’s answer.

RDX (Royal Demolition eXplosive) is the oomph behind the plastic explosive C-4. It is slightly more explosive than C-4, because it hasn’t been stabilized by anything.

All ended well and mostly good. Unfortunately I think I assisted the boy is believing breaking the law was fine so long as you don’t get caught. Now I can’t look at chemical formulae without my heart starting to pick up the pace. However, there were no injuries, no actual close calls except the spilled water when we started the dry ice. Following which the boy sat through several intensive lessons each on operations security, command structure and discipline, distractions, and safety. We learned safely, which is all that matters in the end.

Exactly. Apple is literally half of the US government’s current propaganda conduit.

Not to mention, if you’ve got even 1 billion USD to burn, you can hire one heck of a merc. group.

Apple grosses between 150b and 170b annually.

Demanding they pay more than they make in a year would lead to a 3 trillion dollar company going to war against their government. And not just a court battle. We are nearing the point at which corporations can contest with governments.

Imagine the entire next generation being brainwashed into disrupting supply chains. Gen Z children sabotaging transportation routes, physically protesting, because their status symbol told them the government was corrupt.

Could the USA take Apple? Yes. But that’s a fight they’d be wise to not incite.

Fire is chemistry.

I like this answer better than mine.

Depends on how big the fine is. Anything with an ‘m’ instead of a ‘b’ is just the cost of doing business.

My great nephew as a teenager ran afoul of an old-school BBS archive website. He was certain it would be good fun to make a few incendiaries, Despite my attempts to dissuade him, he began to hide his enthusiasm, which had me worried he’d do it on his own. I figured it’d be wiser (and safer) to have someone with a bit of chemistry knowledge around when he tried doing dumb things.

We started small. I purchased some dry ice. Thermite was too boring. Elephant toothpaste was cool at first. Some petrol with polystyrene mixed in. Aluminium and acid cleaner. Then onto fertiliser tennis balls.

We eventually worked our way up to the Taj Mahal… Cyclonite. Hexogen. RDX. Unstable as the devil and more volatile than nitrated toluene, or TNT. The chemistry was very simple, but ridiculously foolish. I consider it advanced only due to the difficulty in ensuring we didn’t get to visit a hospital or get a visit from the bobbies.

Never again. It took several days because I multiplied the recipe, like a dunce. We should’ve just made TNT, it would’ve been safer, but he persisted and I indulged.

The night before the big day. At this point, we’d been faffing around a dangerous line for almost ten months, whenever he managed to wrangle some free time for more mischief. I’d managed to extract a promise, this was to be the last of it until after his national service. He agreed. Keeping it in the boot of the car had me especially anxious,and until we saw the detonation, I felt like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The detonations in a desolate field were gratifyingly lovely though. He got the final trigger on an over sized charge, and his grin was worth the heartache.

He’s a pharmacist now.