But first he will accidentally the whole thing.

Exactly. We certainly didn’t after the LAST one.

“I don’t care SO much that I’m going to leave a comment about how much I don’t care! Feel bad, OP! Someone didn’t like this post!”

Unfortunately, we’re at a point where any attempt to fix media directly will be met with push-back by those very same people - we see this happening RIGHT now. They are weaponized and can be turned on any outlet that DARES try to speak the truth.

These people are now an army and bad actors will NOT willfully give them up. You have to assume the worst… that any attempt to fix the system will necessarily involve confrontation with them, and more we can reduce their numbers or limit their reach the easier that will become.

Treating them lightly with kid gloves will only encourage more people to join their ideologies, and it’s not a matter of hovering around 50%, there’s a tipping point. The moment there are visibly more people on the side of lies and fascism, a huge chunk of people who simply want to fit in or be on the winning side will simply change sides. Fascism and populism are diseases, and like any disease, it’s tragic that they’re sick, but you first and foremost have to contain it and stop it from spreading. THEN you can start worrying about their well-being once they are no longer a threat.

Things are different now as the educational system is being intentionally damaged, but every single child who grew up in America between the ages of 10 and 80 was raised in an educational environment that taught them in no uncertain terms ALL of the warning signs of fascism and manipulation - these haven’t changed in hundreds of years. They are either willfully ignoring them or spent their years in school eating paint instead of internalizing anything.

It’s totally reasonable to recognize they’re victims. It’s also reasonable to recognize that in most cases, they made themselves that way.

Why does it have to be either or? It’s totally reasonable to blame BOTH.

“Your honor, rather than pay his outstanding debts, this shiftless f***wit used 75 million dollars to fund a SuperPAC to bother people at their homes for the benefit of the Trump campaign.”

Not the original, but…

https://bash-org-archive.com/

Oh, I know. I’m not specifically talking to YOU. Just making a general comment in the second person.

Just move the whole setup towards the camera by about 2 feet and you’ll not only hide that power outlet, you’ll get the recliner away from what looks likely to be a VERY poorly insulated front door. I can feel the cold radiating off of it in the winter already.

Edit: Sorry! I misread your comment at first. Yeah, now that you say that, that makes the most sense.

But from the standpoint of anti-competitivity and Android vs iOS with Apple…

One’s behavior is denying access to their app store without agreeing to a set of device restrictions, but everything on the app store is available without the app store at developer discretion.

The other is an app store which MUST be installed, and is in fact the ONLY way to get software for the device.

One is CLEARLY more anti-competitive than the other, and yet the one that’s LESS problematic is the one that gets court action. It’s a joke.

https://source.android.com/license

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)

“At its core, the operating system is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP)[5] and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. However, most devices run on the proprietary Android version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed,[6] most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS),[7] which includes core apps such as Google Chrome, the digital distribution platform Google Play, and the associated Google Play Services development platform. Firebase Cloud Messaging is used for push notifications. While AOSP is free, the “Android” name and logo are trademarks of Google, which imposes standards to restrict the use of Android branding by “uncertified” devices outside their ecosystem.[8][9]”

Android itself DOES NOT require ANY concessions of ANY kind to Google.

Android itself DOES NOT require ANY concessions of ANY kind to Google. Maybe “opening the app store” means making Google’s services available without requiring those concessions to Google, in which case, that both makes sense and is a great idea.

This is the clearest and most sensible explanation of the situation, but I’m still not sure what’s meant by “opening the app store”. The reality is apps can be sideloaded and distributed freely on Android, even unrooted. Sure, Google requires OEMs to push Google services and tracking, and that’s evil and horrible and nasty, but do they actually force that onto app developers as well?

That’s not actually true though.

Android is open source and many devices, mostly Chinese products, launch with custom Android builds completely free of Google services. This is not a Google constraint - manufacturers CHOOSE to use Android builds that use Google’s services. Creating your own build simply stops you from integrating Google’s services into the OS, which is actually a PLUS if you ask me.

Even if they WERE requiring it, that would have nothing to do with end user store front installation, which is already something you can do, as shown by the 2 non-Google app stores I have installed on my phone.

Again… I’m not defending Google as some kind of good company here. I’m simply stating there is no way to make an anti-competitivity argument against Google in mobile that doesn’t apply at least as much to Apple. This is a nonsensical double-standard.

I appreciate you guys fighting the good fight.

At least SOMEONE’S on it.

I wouldn’t say Google has been “beaten into submission”. They still interweave their crap services into every Android phone with no ability to remove or disable them, couple their apps with an intrusive, privacy violating, system degrading backend with special rules for its own apps versus everybody else… even force the default system web browser to be an unremovable Chrome installation, and not even a peep from regulators that any of this might be anti-competitive.

No company has been properly beaten into submission since Ma Bell. Even the big Microsoft browser decision in the 90s turned out to be a joke - they’re right back to doing the same thing with impunity.

Apple was first. And the courts ruled it no problem.