pivot_root

Authoritarians need to project an appearance of peerless strength, intelligence, and infallibility. The people who fanatically believe their policies will directly lead to what was promised aren't doing it on the basis of those policies, but instead on the trust of the confident strongman who made them.

I have tried it multiple times over the years and I did not have great luck with things "just working" as everyone claims.

This is why I don't like recommending LTS distros for anything other than servers. The Linux kernel and desktop software moves fast these days, and running 2 year old kernel and DE means missing out on the fixes and improvements that the "it just works" people are talking about.

Oh god, no. Are you trying to drive people away from using Linux?

Most people with that little money aren't going to go out of their way and assume the risk of investing in new ventures. They're going to put it in some managed or unmanaged fund recommended by someone else, and that money is going to be invested in something safe and presumably profitable on an infinite time scale, like a megacorp (or 500).

It would amazing if the everyday worker's savings went towards aiding the local community in starting new businesses, but I wouldn't count on that being the default.

Naw. Wear that shit with pride, then take a Snoop-level rip from a bong.

There's no lack of evidence for the MyPillow guy, that's for sure.

Time to invest in ivermectin suppliers.

The typical conservative response to that is "but then they'll take their businesses elsewhere and now you get nothing."

The typical conservative response also fails to even consider just how difficult, expensive, and risky it is to move a large business to an entirely new region. Real estate has to be purchased and sold, employees have to be relocated or replaced, logistics have to be established in the new region, valuable business connections and contracts will have to be severed, and for brick and mortar businesses, the competitive landscape will be different.

Legal, probably. Whichever corporations push that hypothetical bill are going to write it very specifically to ensure that it excludes their use cases.

Here's an example of how they could do it:

S.A.V.E.K.I.D.S:
Support Age Verification Environments Keeping Internet Detectable Signals

Blah blah pretext and background information...

Blah blah surface-level purported reason for the bill is to prevent kids from bypassing age verification checks by using a VPN to pretend they're a resident of another country...

No entity operating in or doing business within may provide services or make available technology that irreversibly redirects, masks, or otherwise obscures internet-destined traffic to appear as originating from any source other than the internet-connected network in which it was generated.

Site--to-site VPN? Fine, it's destined for the intranet.
NAT? Also fine, it is the originating internet-connected network.
HTTP reverse proxies? Still fine, they pass the origin IP along.

VPN that routes all traffic through it? You're getting locked up and they're throwing away the key.

"New legislation mandates that we no longer offer the VPN connections necessary for our remote workers to access the company intranet off premises. Starting immediately, all employees are to return to office 7 days a week. If this does not work for you, please reach out to HR and they will accept that as your resignation in lieu of a written document."

— Meta (the corp pushing the age verification laws), probably.

I was being sarcastic by the way.

Anyone with a shred of humility and critical thinking skills should realize that cutting corners to chase short term profit is being "penny wise, pound foolish".

For the well-connected, that doesn't seem to be necessary to fail upwards into leadership positions, unfortunately. Even ignoring the glaring orange example, there are people like John Riccitiello who managed to skull-fuck the reputations of both EA and Unity and still walk away with a new job lined up.

Right, but you're not thinking like a MBA.

It hasn't happened yet, historical trends suggest it won't happen, and more importantly, that's perfectly good profit going out the window. The shareholders will be pleased to know that we reduced operating costs by 10% this quarter, and I'll reach the target for my bonus.