…but it is time to admit that American society lacks the capability to implement meaningful political and criminal/judicial reform to address the challenges outlined by the article.

That’s by design. Friends across the pond talk about mass protest as a solution, but not only is the US akin to a bunch of countries loosely allied together (300M people), but we do not have the job/civil rights protections necessary such that everyone can protest safely. If you get injured during a protest (or worse), you have to pay a lot of money to get treatment. If you “say something the wealthy don’t like,” you can lose your job, get smeared all over social media, and be blacklisted from future employment. If you snicker at a public event or sit quietly on a campus, you could wind up in jail or in front of a judge who will be more than happy to take cops’ words for it that you are a public nuisance or were resisting. Our “right” to protest is functionally a guideline, in practice.

US becoming an authoritarian/nihilist mafia state is not good for global democracy

I have some bad news. We’re already there. This is already a Mafia State, and although the lower courts still seem to be on the side of the people, the Supreme Court has been handing the Executive Branch more and more power when asked.

…and I have very good American friends (both far right leaning and centre right).

You should reconsider those friendships, because they are the reason we are here at all. They are the problem, and befriending the American far right is just befriending fascists. If you care about the future of global society and democracy, you cannot also hold space for the far right.

Exactly. It’ll be a 3-day workweek, and you’ll only get paid for three days of work. They’re not gonna give us the same wages for less work.

I would say no. They’re still releasing their proprietary driver on Linux, and it’s still generally the better option for most people in most cases. Perhaps that will change in the coming years, but they’re still not putting that much effort into supporting NVK; no gaming distro has yet recommended its users switch, for example.

Nintendo, is that you?

And there’s the whole issue with a certain buffoon who doesn’t understand how tariffs work and is currently trying to speedrun an economic collapse, so who knows if the hardware components will be available in three years.

However, unless there’s a significant change in games that makes the current Gen unable to play games, I think it’s likely going to be a great device in three years time. I know that I have no plans to upgrade mine.

I mean, nothing is stopping a whale from contacting Hello Games to get a bespoke spaceship… 😂

Yes, but that didn’t happen overnight. The authoritarian creep had been happening long before, but it’s important to remember that they don’t yet have total control; they can do a lot of horrible things with impunity, certainly, but they need to keep up appearances and move more slowly with other things so they have less resistance from whatever remains of the judiciary.

No Man’s Sky has almost every feature that Star Citizen will have/has:

• Frigates
• Walkable ships (via the new corvettes)
• Space stations
• Food/cooking
• Quests and lore
• Planet exploration
• Ship to ship dogfights

Like, by the time SC releases, the game’s features will have been done by multiple companies. I expect people actually buying the game, if it’s ever released, will do so for the memes and not because the game has anything innovative to add to gaming.

Steam Deck 2 is very likely a long way away; they’ve said they won’t be doing minor upgrades—only major ones, and the current models still play most modern games just fine without issue. There’s no reason to wait on a Steam Deck if it’s within your budget.

You can absolutely play a Steam Deck on the couch. It’s effectively the same sort of device as a Switch, just without all the Nintendo nonsense of knowing that you’re supporting a company that specializes in squashing industry innovation through litigation.

You can even buy a dock that uses the USBC port as an HDMI output, if you want to play on a bigger screen, and connect your favorite Bluetooth controller.

…yet. Authoritarianism creeps, it crawls silently, strategically, meticulously, knowing that far too few will notice or care until it’s too late.

My work will not provide me a work machine for the very optional WFH benefit I have. Either I use my personal machine, or I have to go into the office, and fuck the office.

So, I put my work stuff into Virtual Machine jail; if they want to spy on me, they’ll have to figure out how to break out of that first.

Also note that this is now the second time (that I’m aware of) where they’ve censored or helped to silence journalists or activists.

https://theintercept.com/2025/09/12/proton-mail-journalist-accounts-suspended/

They basically did the equivalent of a YouTube takedown and left it to the affected people to show why they shouldn’t have their accounts suspended, rather than doing the reasonable thing of making the original claimants prove why the victims should have their accounts suspended. It’s decisions and actions like these that make me wary of the company.

Wow, what a great service. Definitely a bastion of privacy.

https://theintercept.com/2025/09/12/proton-mail-journalist-accounts-suspended/

That’s the idea.

Not just potential for misuse. The people in charge of Palantir are the exact sort of people you don’t want having access to any kind of data, because they will find a way to weaponize it, monetize it, or both; consequences or laws be damned. They’re run not just by billionaires, not just by transhumanists, but by technofacist accelerationists.

The fall of Palantir cannot come too soon.

Alright. I leave it to you to show where I’ve made a mistake in my assessment. I’ll change my tune if you provide a compelling case.

The Proton CEO has said multiple times how much he admires Trump—and this is after he started displaying his fashy colors. He might care about privacy, but I can’t trust him not to sell me out if his favorite celebrities “ask nicely.”

Edit: And they just recently censored journalists “by accident”: https://theintercept.com/2025/09/12/proton-mail-journalist-accounts-suspended/

Heard a song from Wuthering Waves, and it caught me be surprise with how good it was, so I figured I’d give the game a try.

It feels a lot like Genshin Impact, but the world and story feel better, is not Mihoyo, and the voice acting includes the main character. For a F2P experience, it’s been fun going through the initial story. To its detriment, however, there’s three different gacha currencies. Definitely not worth bothering with beyond freebie pulls. Overall, I’d recommend it, but only the free stuff.

As a wise person once said, “No company is going to break the law for you.”

It’s fine to have some trust in your services, but it should never be without exception. The responsibility for privacy is always ours to ensure.