Recommending mullvad, in this economy ? That's a bold strategy , if nothing else.

I suppose if you're going to do that then following up with handwaving brave's historic shenanigans and current CEO is consistent.

"They previous did and continue to do some shit i don't care about , i like their products" at least shows some backbone.

The corporate defense version of the narcissists prayer is weaksauce.

Thats just it though, a lot of the time there are reasons.

A lot of those reasons aren't immediately apparent, Some of those reasons might never be understood even by the person themselves.

I also want to make clear that a "reason" isn't always an excuse it's just the preceding experiences/events that lead up to an outcome.

Someone with a non--standard set of tools for reading context has a non-standard chance of seeing and/or understanding those reasons. Because the outward facing signs of that context are geared towards a typical form of communication that is commonly less accessible by the neurodivergent.

I say "non-standard chance of understanding" on purpose, because it's not always a case of better or worse and can vary over time, with skill acquisition and learning.

There are neurodivergent people who are very attuned to specific types of tells that wouldn't typically be seen. They might not understand the relevance or context, but they can notice a difference.

There are people who acquire a learned (as opposed to natural) form of this type of assessment of others.

That skill(or skills) can be it's own set of problems, but it's possible.

I don't disagree with the post you are responding to, almost all of that is reasonable.

Your overall argument would be more convincing if it wasn't you doing the exact same thing you are complaining about.

As for specifics , the "Just a tool" argument is meh, not all tools are equal in potential benefit and harm.

Asbestos (while it is a material) was a "tool" used to insulate from heat.

Was it good at that, sure, it probably saved many lives, was it also harmful as fuck in the medium to long term, yes it was.

It can be a useful tool and also be a detriment, those things aren't mutually exclusive.

The danger of a tool can also be mitigated with adequate safeguards that come from experience gained over time.

The argument then becomes risk vs reward, which is an entirely different conversation.

It is indeed the "no ethical consumerism" argument and as I said it's an interesting conversation to have.

I wasn’t arguing against your general premise. I specifically called out the lack of flexibility in your statement and what that implied to me.

That isn’t the case for me though. It isn’t for you either. It isn’t the case for the vast majority of people.

Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real.

And this is the exact kind of privilege and/or lack of imagination I was talking about.

It wasn’t about word choice as much it as what that word choice implied.

It suggests you don't understand how limited the choices can be under poverty, or how widespread it is.

I wasn’t positing it as a gotcha, I am "being real" when i say there are very real circumstances (for a non-trivial amount of people) that don't adhere to your ideal.

Assuming Walmart was your example because it's what you know and not because America is the only place that exists, physical distance is far from the only factor.

Assuming you have a home, even if you lived next door, that's not even close to a guarantee you'd be able to afford a continuous level of food that matches your ideal and also reaches a level of healthy nutrition.

The easy example is literal starvation, where it's not possible to secure enough food of any kind, let alone the kind that adheres to your premise.

This isn't an obscure thing from 300 years ago, this is a reality, today.

I wasn’t saying you were wrong, i was saying your argument possibly comes from a position of privilege and if you think this is a 300 year ago problem, I was correct.

edit: clean up

If you reach 20 companies that aren't ad-centric for-profit companies you can qualify for the false equivalency pro-league.

It's up there with mental gymnastics in the bad-faith Olympics, a lofty achievement.

well. i'll give you ad-guard , canonical is also making great strides towards ad-centric so that one too.

That's a very narrow slice of a supply chain to be using it as a basis for conclusions like that.

I don't disagree that the "shortage" is artificial, i'm just saying that your local store having stock and raising prices isn't a good basis for determining overall supply chain health.

Like looking out your window and seeing rain, so obviously it must be raining everywhere.

Are you sure you want to use "Publicly stated positions and intentions" as a metric to defend trump ?

i mean, you could, it just seems like you might not have thought that all the way through.

This is what I have been saying for a long time: The essence of being male is to not be female.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, would you mind elaborating ?

They should pay for prophylactic counseling?

Yes, because prevention is superior to treatment after the fact in both outcomes & overall cost.

Though it seems you have a differing understanding of "Medically Necessary" to my own so i suspect we won't agree on this.

"For profit healthcare" is a misnomer is should be called something like "profit equilibrium maintenance : healthcare edition"

The best outcome for a "for profit" is profit, not healthcare. Given the choice between larger profits and better healthcare outcomes the profit will win out, every time.

It seems like you don't quite understand how federated services work.

Here's a quick primer on how you can improve your federated internet experience.

• You can block individual users
  • That will remove posts by them from your feed.
  • All future and historical posts by them will also be removed from your vision.
• If you feel like a community as a whole is allowing behaviour you disagree with you can block that entire community
  • You also have the option of creating your own space with a similar theme, a space that you can police in exactly the way you prefer. ( for example "Video No Politics" )
• In the possible case of disliking the content and/or moderation of an entire instance...you guessed it, you can block that also.
  • Creating your own instance is also a possibility, it can be a bit involved but is certainly possible.
  • Then you have all the control, you can invite your friends, success.

You could also continue to complain about things you can easily fix, that is also an option.

"Their upvote ratio is too damn high", is an instant classic btw.

Given your replies so far you seem to be looking for something a bit less echo-chambery (or as i suspect a chamber where the echoes are more to your liking)

Luckily this is entirely possible and relatively easily achievable, have fun.

Are you genuinely struggling to understand why people who think he's actively saying hateful shit about trans people wouldn't necessarily want to increase his presence in the general Zeitgeist?

Or did you just want to slip in the "stereotypical white guy" dog whistle?

If you are actually struggling, i can probably help.

imagine a person saying horrible shit about you, specifically.

Now imagine they have a platform where they say this hateful shit to lots of people, enough that you sometimes run across these people and they also say hateful shit to you, perhaps worse.

Now imagine an unrelated meme is made with this persons face on it and you see it 5,10,15 times a week.

Now imagine that the comments on most of these memes feature a whole bunch of people defending this person and agreeing with the hateful shit they said about you.

I'd imagine that's why some people care.

Genuine question though, what would be the right thing to give the energy/importance to in this scenario?

Describe what you mean by "freedom of speech" here, I'm assuming you don't mean the first amendment because that only applies in the US and only for protection against congress ( the US congress ofc ).

Given the above I'm not sure what line you mean here, libel/slander?

You can only point out facts that exist, well, you can technically point out whatever you like and call it "fact" i suppose, but it's not really accurate unless it's an actual fact.

Unless accuracy isn't what you were going for ?

In case you were wondering : https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fact