DigitalDilemma
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“Avoid US based software and services”
TLDR; you can’t. At least not if you’re running any kind of business.
I did a quick audit at work a few weeks ago. Over 90% of our stack is US based. Windows, office, 365, vmware, even our linux distros. And that’s without even thinking about supply chain. And most of the the hardware we use and has support licences.
Fun fact: the majority of people trafficked in the world are for sex purposes
What’s the source for this, please?
My own research points to the fairly reputable https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/ which estimated around 28m in modern slavery (on the low side of other estimates), and of those, 6.3m are in commercial sexual exploitation, less than a quarter.
I get that you’re trying to bring awareness or whatever
I absolutely am trying to do that - it seems to be ignored by almost everyone, something that I personally find shocking. Even when raising the figures here - usually a place full of people with more empathy than most social media, the response has been partly negative. Maybe because people don’t seem to want to acknowledge the bigger problem. I don’t get it. Perhaps the numbers are so huge it’s hard to appreciate that each one of these is a human being who’s trapped, alone and suffering.
but both comments so far read more like “not worth legalizing sex work when other slaves still exist”
That wasn’t the intention.
It can help, yes - but a large percentage of the 38 to 49 million modern day slaves still exist in otherwise fully legal businesses.
Awareness of slavery is still really low amongst many people. It’s going on everywhere, not just in the sex business and is very difficult to stop.
50s here. I’ve had that too. Sometimes due to low mental health, but often just a change in interests. Gaming is one hobby I’ve kept coming back to since the early 1980s, and overall it’s pretty constant. Other hobbies have come and gone - I think it helps to have a variety of things to spend your time doing, rather than one big one.
What isn’t constant is the type of games. FPS used to be amazing, but now I get motion sickness with many, including some third person games. Also my reactions are slower with age, so online is often frustrating. I adapt by playing more cosy and strategy games. Factorio Space Age currently taking a lot of my time, but I’ve a few that I keep going back to.
Why would you want another year of their software for free?
Because AV, like everything else, costs a fortune at enterprise scale.
And yeah, I do understand your real point, but it’s really hard to choose good software. Every purchasing decision is a gamble and pretty much every time you choose something it’ll go bad sooner or later. (We didn’t imagine Vmware would turn into an extortion racket, for example. And we were only saying a few months ago how good value and reliable PRTG was, and they’ve just quadrupled their costs)
It doesn’t matter how much due diligence and testing you put into software, it’s really hard to choose good stuff. Crowdstrike was the choice a year ago (the Linux thing was more recent than that), and its detection methods remain world class. Do we trust it? Hell no, but if we change to something else, there are risks and costs to that too.
shareholders … worship money
Well, that literally is the only reason to become a shareholder, right?
I mean, technically you’re participating in the management of the company and can influence decisions such as environmental benefits, but it feels like that only happens when there’s secondary benefits that also improve profit.
Absolutely. I will never buy another Early Access game - it’s buying something that is clearly unfinished, and you the player never get a second chance at the first impression. There’s too many other games to expect us to come back and try it again once there’s more content and the bugs are ironed out.
I’m pretty sure he’s using Twitter as some sort of home project science experiment.
The amount of sheer hate and vitriol I was getting ramped up hugely in recent months - the algorithm is definitely promoting hate, despite my almost never replying/posting. Lots and lots of far right political content also, it really didn’t feel random.
I bailed a couple of weeks ago.
“We’re shocked” - nobody.
But companies are crawling everything like mad - I’ve noticed a 400% upturn this year alone in bot traffic on a low traffic web forum and a few sites I host, so much so that I’m having to do some fairly heavy filtering upstream to keep them out. (They don’t resepect robots.txt, obviously)
When bot traffic outnumbers legitimate traffic at least 10x, it makes you wonder why you’re paying to host stuff.
This is exactly why I never buy Early Access games. The biggest thrill for me is starting a new game, and if that isn’t as good as it can possibly be, then that opportunity has been wasted.
Sure, it /may/ get better at some undefined point in the future, but there’s just so many games out there that are complete, and won’t require re-visiting at some point because they got better. Once that first play is gone, it’s gone.
I think there’s a core difference between loot boxes, which is out and out gambling, and gameplay. Both can be addictive, but they have very different consequences.
Gameplay addiction steals your time and maybe your social life, but that’s it.
Gambling addiction also steals your money. And when that’s gone, drives you to extremes trying to find more.
“Free speech” for these people has only meant for them.