I am fucking scared of the mass surveilence nightmare direction that the internet and the world as a whole is going towards… C2PA, france hacking itself into citizen phones, the UK anti encryption law, EU’s chat control, etc. Im also sick of and hate the “you will own nothing and be happy” mentality that corpos try to push. I dont wanna know how the world will look like in 5-10 years.
If you will take a friendly criticism meant to be helpful? As the ancient philosophers mentioned, you cannot control the world, only yourself. Language such as this is biased and shows that you lack understanding of the phenomena involved. You hate it bc you fear it, maybe, even while you do not know precisely what it is. Like what exactly can they do with a phone once they have access, what are the limits, what are the supposed benefits even, and most important, what are the ways around it, and yet what hidden costs are associated with circumventing it? You seem to feel that you are trapped, that you lack power - and yes, you are and you do, but also… so very much not at the same time!!!
Like for protesting, simply do not take a phone, and instead bring something like a walkie talkie, or even arrange visual cues such as flags, bandanas, a particular style of hat (red = cops are near, whatever), done, problem solved. Spend some time learning about the things you care about, and separate yourself from the “sheep” mentality that expects everything to be spoon-fed to you 100% of the time.
Or else go the other way and lean into it, realizing that using a mobile device is nothing at all like using something you “own”, and instead you “rent” your time on the cell tower network, so whoever owns & controls that gets the ultimate say in how they want it done. “Engagement media” aka click bait articles never seem to get around to presenting the full picture of what is happening. Like, you do not control that, and never ever will, but ultimately they do take fairly good care of people. People that do not go to protests even have little to fear, unless one springs up around them, and even then all that happens is…what? You still have full control over your device, except they can also ping it, maybe turn on the camera? (Inside your pocket what will they see or hear?)
Either way, you will be happier once you’ve resolved your intention of how you want to live your life. Right now you feel the stress of being on the fence, wanting the best of all worlds, but it will take sacrifice and effort to achieve a fraction of what you want, so defining what that even is can be the first step towards achieving your goals. e.g., coming here rather than Reddit should have helped:-). Now, spend time reading to help you define your next actionable step.
It’s weird how I’ve seen several of these kinds of comments on lemmy recently. They’re responding to a post that’s pointing out an obvious social/political/economic problem by reducing it to the poster having some kind of personal mental health issue or accusng them of being stupid because they don’t know enough about the issue to have a degree in it.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen them anywhere else. Maybe they just always got buried on reddit, idk. But it’s an interesting redirection that’s a) super unproductive, and b) trying really hard to take focus off a very real social issue. “Your late stage capitalist country quickly descending into fascism? Have you considered Wellbutrin?”
Your comment falls prey to a binary fallacy, aka false dilemma. It is possible for both to be true at the same time. The immediate issue is that OP feels bad. The is indicated by the very first words in the very first sentence, as well as the start of pretty much every single sentence after it:
So instead of assuming that I had not heard any of this from OP, and was responding to part (the major aspect imho) of what they said, you instead flew off on a tangent, assumed that I had missed all the emotional language entirely, and redirected (ironically, exactly what you accused me of, it is amazing how often that occurs) into how I somehow do not believe that privacy violations so much as exist anywhere in the world… really? I suggest that you reexamine your premise. But do as you please, ofc.
For the record, I never used words remotely close to “stupid” (in my mind I was envisioning things like “take charge of your destiny!”), I never suggested that OP take drugs to escape/deal with the pressures of life, nor did I offer thoughts of suicide, I never accused them of personal health problems, nor did I mitigate the seriousness of the situation, etc. Instead, I offered practical solutions for REAL-WORLD issues, and advice on how OP can reclaim their sanity.
Maybe you simply blocked anyone that ever disagreed with you on Reddit? Or else your mod did that for you in all of your “safe spaces”. Feel free to block me too btw - I think we would both benefit from that actually, if this is how conversations with you would go in the future.:-)
My view of this conversation, fwiw:
OP: Lions exist and keep eating people!
Me: Have you thought about carrying a gun with you whenever you go out into the jungle… or just do not go there anymore?
You: Stop bullying OP, you big poopy-pants meanie!!:-(
(Also, speaking of redirecting the conversation, I see that you offered no advice to OP of your own so… yes actually, it is odd, weird even, how I have seen several of these kinds of comments on lemmy recently, responding to a post that talks about real issues with severe social/political/economic ramifications by reducing the commenter to having somehow ignored the OP and being extremely unproductive in their response, while simultaneously offering nothing productive of their own, thus taking the issue off on that weird tangent - I really wish people would stop doing that, you know what I mean!?)
Its not downplaying the problem it’s offering a philoshopical solution to the anguish.
Op will destroy himself before he destroys the system. So he shouldn’t expect to destroy the system. Take a step back and realize what you can change and what you can’t.
When I got interested in privacy it was genuinely overwhelming it felt like I had to upend my entire life which seemed impossible. So I stepped back and thought about what I could change. I started making small changes here and then doing only what I was comfortable with. After a year I’m almost off Google services and I’ve migrated off all big tech platforms except discord. I’m securing my home network and reeling in my email and cc usage online.
The world seems scary but I can feel myself getting away from the things I don’t like. I can sleep knowing I’m doing what I can.