In our teens me and my friend gave each other random items that had really dumb picture of the person who was giving the gift. T-shirts, mugs etc.

Yes and if these dense mofos would let me take a while longer, everything would work better and company would literally make more money. But nobody really cares, it's all just about takin part in this weird social fiction that exists to pander someones ego.

Name one socialist/communist nation that hasn't been growth based industrialist economy? I think anything growth based is not gonna happen much longer, due to energy shortage, habitat loss, climate change, running out of critical minerals etc.

Sure I'm open for some degrowth socialism but don't really believe that's the way things gonna work out.

Eventually but I think society might need to collapse and rebuild in between, and that supporting this level of complex civilization isn't gonna be possible, nor IMO desirable.

This is not to say we would go back to being cavemen, just that society has less tech and energy at its disposal and less people.

I guess we could get there without collapse, but I have zero faith in any kind of degrowth moment despite agreeing with it ideologically. This would help us avoid much death and suffering but it doesn't seem to be priority for anyone in power.

Tony Blair institute is basically retirement home for ex politicians where they can just talk nonsense and get paid for rest of their lives.

Probably not too much so his big tech friends can scrape all data they need.

I'm using this one. https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard Once I downloaded dictionary for my native language+ English that came preinstalled, and granted permission to learn from my typing, it's pretty good.

Not as good as swift key, but enough for my needs. I don't use swipe typing but someone I know said it is alright.

This, and if you eat vegan, it will also limit the damage done to bugs as a result of smaller land use. I'm vegan with no exceptions, but I don't really give a fuck about being vegan in some weird absolute way like "can I sit on leather chair at my friends". Instead of that, veganism is just an attempt to reduce suffering, with full understanding that it is never going to remove it, and that there are other ways to to reduce suffering in the world without being vegan, which I also try to implement in my life.

I wouldn't fuck with anything related to flying tbh, since that shit is pretty closely monitored for anything sus.

I don't like sitcoms in general but the fact someone made this is funnier to me than any sitcom I have ever seen and I have my own laughing track going on in here right now.

I buy most of my content, steam mostly for games, have spotify, buy music from bandcamp for DJ sets, at least my favorites, have family netflix, HBO, disney +, although I don't use those as much since they are mostly full of crap. Sometimes I even buy/rent a movie if it is not available in those and I can't find any torrent, or just out of convenience. I produce music and buy all my audio software (ableton and fuckton of plugins) because I don't want to deal with the hassle of using pirated versions. I buy ebooks every now and then too, although with that I also admittely pirate some, especially when the author is dead, in which case I really don't feel any guilt for pirating it. I also use patreon often and support creators that way.

I still think piracy needs to be an option, so streaming services can't have their way and we are just forced to use their enshittified platforms. I avoid it, because I understand not everything can be open source, and nothing get's done without revenue. I don't pirate from small authors/creators.

All the while musicians get basically fucking nothing from huge streaming services profiting from their labor. Series get cancelled left and right despite good reception because they were not profitable enough, although still profitable, because netflix is only interested making next big hit. Games are filled with microtransactions and kernel level tracking (anti cheat), forced online features in single player game and sometimes games one bought are just made unavailable, like with old mobile games (case in point, dead space mobile). Professional software is often moved to predatory subscription models and paywalled updates to the software, like Avid, Waves.

And people still cirlejerk about piracy being the worst thing to intellectual property ever. Problem isn't piracy, problem is small creators are payed so little from listens/views/whatever that the can barely get by, and have to make alternate source of income via patreon or some other stuff. Piracy won't even make a dent in that.

Luckily in every category some people/companies are pushing back but all of this is just case in point why we need piracy. When I get around releasing music/games, I don't mind piracy at all, might even put my own tunes on pirate sites out of spite. Current intellectual property laws are fucking joke and only benefit the largest creators in their respective fields.

This is actually pretty based