Don’t try to tell me that it’s all so easy now, I literally just went through hours of research and experimenting and samba settings and changing my disk’s fstab file just to get a folder to show up on my home network.

For most people, it is (and has been) that easy. If it works as intended, you can simply open your desktop explorer thing, click on network and have it show up. I know that because that has been my experience a couple of years ago and I was surprised at it just working so flawlessly. To be clear, I’m not denying your issues, I’m just pointing out that your experience is not automatically the average experience.

Of course there can be bugs and other issues which require troubleshooting, but that’s not specifically a linux issue.

The difference is that for non-techies, it’s harder to troubleshoot because advice you find is mostly written for techies, there is less info and there are a lot of different linux based operating systems.

For techies, it’s generally easier to troubleshoot because you can get more info out of the system (if you know how) and you generally have more power over the system.

but pretending it’s all smooth sailing and so easy and polished is misleading.

I agree, you cannot generalize a personal experience and then universally apply it to every person as well as every linux based distribution, like “it’ll work flawlessly out of the box because that’s been my experience”. You also cannot generalize it over every linux based system. I have tried a lot of different distros with different hardware and my experience has varied a lot. I have had issues and bugs with ubuntu that just didn’t happen with arch based distros.

But again, it’s virtually never smooth sailing for everyone in every case. Windows users have to troubleshoot issues and bugs too.

In recent years, I started to feel differently. Sure, it’s nice if you have 1 app/1 tool to do a lot of things, but it comes at the price of dependency. When a service/tool turns to shit (which seems to be a matter of time in most cases), it’s so much harder to find something new.

So I tend to prefer a lot of different simple tools that can do one thing only, but they can do that one thing right. And if it turms to shit, I can just replace the single tool instead of having to find an alternative that can do everything.

It’s always the same game. Anyone who speaks out against anything the Trump regime is doing is declared a leftist infiltrator/brigader.

Antifa isn’t a country, party or group though. It’s a loose movement.

A similar thing would be environmental activist (or enva for short). Sure, you could call yourself environmental activist while adocating against the environment, but that wouldn’t mean that environmental activism is bad for the environment, it would mean that you aren’t actually an environmental activist…

however, they make quite a bit of profit

Pretty sure they didn’t for a while. It’s the same approach as always. Operate at a loss, gain (nonpaying) users, maybe sell or use their data and slowly turn up whatever you are doing to make money (ads, fee).

No, they are not ideologically communist. A ruling party is by definition not communist. They are diometrically opposed.

Being ideologically communist simply means that you believe the ideal society is a communist society. Theoretically, you could be the king of britain and still be a communist.

I’m sure there are many people who are members of communist parties who are not actual communists, but there are some true believers who think they are working towards a communist society in the far future by building up state power in order to “compete” with capitalist/imperialist forces.

Again, I doubt their methods will work. I don’t think you can work towards a stateless society by strenghtening the state. But I’m not gonna deny their ideals because I don’t like their approach.

There are virtually zero actually communist countries in the world. That is factually true.

I’m not a marxist, but this point doesn’t make sense to me. “Communist countries” aren’t called that because they have somehow managed to achieve a communist society (which would be impossible to exist in a capitalist world), but because they are ruled by a governent that is ruled by a group/party which is (or at the very least claims to be) ideologically communist…

Sure, but the scene is the first scene of the movie. There is nothing you can miss.

Except of course if you know anything about the movie or what it is about, but then it should be kinda obvious why they are shooting at the dog…

To be fair, epic is losing money trying to gain users from steam. They weren’t profitable even before they lowered their cut.

I’m pretty sure valve could go lower than 30%, but I doubt they could go as low as 12% and still remain profitable.

it’s just a PC

Yeah, that’s kinda my point.

Who cares if they aren’t gamers. Valve also sells digital creative software on Steam.

If we are talking about businesses, chances are they will simply install windows on it and use licences of applications they already own… Again, “it’s just a pc”. The vast majority of businesses don’t buy licenses on steam, so why would they change that?

Couldn’t a problem be that If they set the price too low, companies buy them in bulk and using them as cheap, performant and sexy looking pcs? Consoles are very restricted in terms of os and other software, forcing people to use them in a way that almost guarantees you earning back your loss in the long term.

Steam machines are the opposite, you can install virtually anything on it and use them for whatever.

The headset itself is running linux and it is meant to be used with the steam machine, which also runs on linux.

Since the Kirk shooting, there has also been the ice shooter any now a church shooter.

Just the world’s politicians have

Not sure this is true. When people have more percieved short term problems (war, job security, inflation, etc), percieved long term problems become less important, especially if the proposed solutions have a negative impact on the short term problems.

Has it?

Yep.

You added a lot of weasel words

The point is that Trumps image can change, even for his core supporters… I obviously have no clue exactly how many of his supporters were dissilusioned, which is why I will use “weasel words” (aka estimates and guesses)…

I hear a lot of “this will surely be the end of him”

I doubt that there will ever be the “one thing” where everyone suddenly realises they have been duked… Obviously that’s not how it works…

if martyr figures were that powerful

Ever heard of George Floyd? Trayvon Martin? Eric Garner? Those people weren’t even influencial to the left wing as a movement when they were alive (unlike Kirk), yet they still fueled one of the biggest movements in recent years.

start martyring themselves?

Some people do that, but in order to be powerful, they have to have been killed by the enemy you want to mobilize people against… Which is why the right will do whatever they can to blame this on “the radical left”, no matter what.

I don’t think Martyrs tend to be all that useful.

I think you are incredibly wrong on this point.

one less active propagandist

Pretty insignificant considering the countless other right wing propagandists out there who do pretty much the same thing. Also, events like this have a tendency to inspire more propagandists and radicalize people.

power vacuum and loss of leadership within turning point

Possible, but again, tp is not THAT important. They have turned a significant part of the youth and have a likeminded regime in power that continues to concolidate power. And they can an will use this event to consolidate more.

chilling effect on this sort of rhetoric

That’s not gonna happen…

impulsive and poorly planned ‘retaliations’ causing further damage

Damage to whom? You don’t know because the potential results are unpredictable.

reminding those ‘in power’ of their mortality

Like Trump’s failed assassinations?

The “Epstein thing” is never going to have reprecussions

It’s hard to tell, but it has disillusioned at least some of his supporters, showing that it is possible, at least for some people, to snap out of the cult. Obviously some will always support him, no matter what.

it will take a lot of time and significant financial investment for someone else to fill that role.

I don’t think it will hurt them in any significant way, maybe even the opposite. Kirk is still incredibly useful as a martyr figure and it’s not like he had much of an operational role. He was a propagandist and he will still be used to spread far right propaganda, even in his death.

I understand that he was incredibly influencial, but that’s mostly because he was a pioneer of the modern right who made the right wing cool to a younger audience, but his methods have since been adapted by many other right wing propagandists.

Or can you explain why you think his assasination will weaken or harm the right? Because I don’t see it.

If it wasn’t this it was going to be something else.

Trump isn’t invincible. Stuff like the Epstein thing actually seemed to hurt him. This is a very convenient distraction.

At least this definitely solved a problem permanently.

What problem is solved? Kirk was a very effective propagator, especially with younger people, but he’s not irreplaceable. And his death is already being used as very effective propaganda.

A repeat of something like the doge employee assult could fix some issues

Again, what issue is solved? I don’t understand what you think this achieves. The main effect stuff like this has is giving the right effective propaganda material and escalating violence. And the left is not in a position where escalating violence benefits the US, quite the opposite.

there was never going to be enough capitulation

I do not suggest capitulation or appeasement… But in order to resist effectively, you need stronger organization. This makes organizing way more difficult.

How? Why? This could have incredibly dangerous consequences. Didn’t Trump send the national guard after a dodge employee was beaten up? Only time how he will exploit this situation for further gaining power.

Seriously, I’m shocked how nonchalant people are reacting. Further escalation of political violence is extremely dangerous for the left at the moment and could be extremely lucrative for the Trump regime, which is constantly testing the water on how far they can go in terms of seizing power.

Don’t forget, it was also an assassination that was the trigger for the Kristallnacht. You hopefully are not quite at that stage, but it is events like this that moves you closer…

Definitions, especially definitions of political terms, vary a lot these days. But if we go by the leftist (and original) definition, the terms are definitely mutually exclusive.

There are multiple candidates, but if elections are held in a one party state, they all belong to the same party or a party that is effectively under the dominating party’s control.