U.S. companies kind of have, of course, kind of “bought” European CEOs, and not even in a sinister way: they showed them what they (the first-movers and quasi-monopolies in the market, chock-full with VC money) could offer, and at what cost. Of course, European alternatives to that would seem relatively limited and expensive. At the time, choosing U.S. hyperscalers certainly was the rational thing to do because they offered the best “bang for the buck” for European companies.

But now with the looming threat of these same hyperscalers having to cut off European companies’ access, European companies need to reevaluate their cost-benefit analysis. By my estimate, the threat of somebody being able to remotely shut down your business from one day to the other should scare the living shit out of companies and leave them scrambling for alternatives, or a hedge against this risk at the very least. And yet: crickets.

That’s fair. I wasn’t sure which way to read your posting: “be careful” or “bunker up, the end is nigh!” So I felt a little spirit of resistance was in order. ;)

The Tea Party movement and the Trump I admin emerging from it certainly was just a valve (as well as many other right-wing movements). Trump II, I agree, is a much different beast, although what exactly it is and who is in charge of it remains debatable:

• Is it authoritarians and neo-fascists running the show, merely taking large chunks of the billionaire class hostage, as Carole Cadwalladr has said about the CEOs lining up for inauguration and later almost falling over themselves when promising to bring back investments from offshore?
• Is it the moneyed elite who are tired of playing grey eminence, merely buying influence behind the scenes while, by and large, still keeping up the charade of committing to liberal democracy, egalitarianism and the rule of law?
• Is it a Russian or Chinese operation designed to destroy American power throughout the world? A look at the results of < 2 years’ worth of Trumpist foreign policy lends a lot of plausibility to this hypothesis: why else would this admin take the axe to American soft power and alliances throughout the world, threaten and alienate its allies while at the same time cosying up to Russia and other dictatorships, and deplete U.S. high value munitions in yet another senseless war?

Love the idea! It’s a nice reminder to the casual onlooker that, yes, the average person does constantly point a camera at themselves and it can be exploited. It can even be a conversation starter with anyone bothering to ask.

That said, yes, I have a fair amount of trust that the cameras built into my devices are not constantly recording and phoning home. Not due to “privacy settings” though, which are often little more than privacy theatre. The devices in my household all run on GrapheneOS and Linux, and I monitor my network for unwanted traffic. I also do not run any software inherently hostile to privacy (e.g. anything by Meta or Microsoft), unless properly sandboxed and cut off from the internet.

I assume the corporate ones are only looking for shortterm gains

Plausible, unfortunately. After all, the first one to make a move is the first one to be hit with cost, and is thus exposed to a competitive disadvantage as compared to the other idio… err, corporations who do not take any action.

That said, I had hoped European corporate leaders would be less short-sighted. After all, the possibility of the U.S. leveraging big tech to rugpull the EU’s economy is far from an abstract threat. At this point, not hedging against this scenario is like driving without a seatbelt. Yes, things might work out just fine for you - good if they do! But in the event of a collision, you’re thoroughly fucked, and if and when that event will occur is not for you to decide…

And yet, I still do not see corporate Europe make even the tiniest move to hedge against the risk that at some point, oligarch-owned U.S. companies will pull the plug on them. I wonder what their rationale is. Are European corporate strategists just too stupid or stubborn to see this as an obvious threat to their companies’ very existence? Do they believe this will just “blow over” and things will just return to normal after Trump? (Spoiler: they won’t.) Are they planning to lobby European politicians into kissing ass and bending the knee once the U.S. returns with new demands running counter to European interests?

Neo liberalism needs to fall for this to end.

No disagreement between us on this. The current rise of right-wing populism around the world (which Trumpism is just the most prominent part of) are mere blow-off valves, designed to release some of the pressure of an unjust system and (mis)direct the justified anger of the people away from its main beneficiaries.

Be cautious, but don’t be paranoid. Do not underestimate the enemy, but also do not buy into the propaganda of the all-powerful oligarchs where any resistance is futile. Do not be naïve, but also: Do. Not. Give. Up. Hope. Trumpism is failing, as is the surveillance-powered neo-feudal fantasy that the fascists behind it are pushing for. While the most dangerous days are likely still ahead of us, defeatist rhetoric is not going to get us past them. Resistance is both possible and worth it.

Not all hackers are ethical.

True. But the comment I was replying to was talking about hackers with a kind of “ethos” / ethics.

Do not conflate the Zuck or other Silicon Valley suits with hackers. They lack both the technical skill and the ethics.

A man of culture, I see!

No offense taken. With AI-generated texts becoming ever more pervasive, you’re right to be suspicious. 👍 I get that the bullet-point-ish style of my OP gives people ChatGPT vibes. 🤖

I could give you a run-down of ten tell-tale signs of AI writing style if you like. 🔎

Early voters are reporting some hijinks when selecting their choice so be VERY CAREFUL about confirming who you are voting for.

Like so?

Weidel is just cosplaying nationalism. As with many other European far right movements, the AfD is supported by Russian money and Russian information warfare operations. Russia wants to see the EU weakened, if not broken apart. And so their sockpuppets act upon their orders from Moscow.

Now make it playable via steering wheel and accelerator. Bonus points for linking “fire” to the car horn.

I know of these famed Nvidia driver problems, but they’re

a) not exclusive to Ubuntu; Nvidia is the party fucking up here, so they’re rumoured to be unstable throughout all distros and
b) I’ve been running Debian-/Ubuntu-based Linux distros w/ Nvidia’s proprietary drivers for about 10 years now, and I haven’t come across a single issue with it in all that time.

So. Well. That’s anecdotal evidence against anecdotal evidence, I guess.

But there’s people out there! (shudders)

I’m not an LLM and I don’t use any for writing my postings, if that’s what you’re getting at. ;)

If you want a good first Linux experience, stick with anything Ubuntu-/Debian-based; they are

• stable workhorses, i.e. they don’t break on you as easily as rolling release distros like CachyOS.
• wildly popular, i.e. you’ll find plenty of resources to help you get started (although, to be fair, the Arch wiki is also ridiculously detailed).

Whatever you do, steer clear of immutable distros like Bazzite for now. As cool as the concept is (I run Bazzite on my gaming machine) - as soon as you do something “non-standard” (and modding your Minecraft .jar with Optifine already qualifies as such), you’ll have to fiddle with the terminal and distrobox containers, both of which will be alien concepts for you at the start and may be top much to make it a good first impression.