If mastodon is to be the poster child of the fediverse it needs to drastically simplify the requirements to run and maintain an instance. There should be a single binary, self-updating, single-user instance.It's the tragedy of the commons. The core problem to crack is how to make the costs bearable by the users themselves.
Last week, during the Schuman Forum, Josep Borrell presented his first report on the implementation of the "Strategic Compass". The idea is to coordinate the pooling of national armies, including intelligence services, in a spirit of integration rather than cooperation. Emmanuel Macronβs project now buries that of Charles De Gaulle and the French Communists. The "Europe of Defence" now appears to be a slogan aimed at placing not only the operational forces of the EU member states under the authority of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), now the US General Christopher G. Cavoli, but also at taking control of all the financing decisions that were previously the responsibility of the national parliaments, and even of the decisions on armaments and organization that were the responsibility of the member statesβ executive bodies. Thus, the Union is organizing a common army without knowing who will command it.Note the seizure of control for finances. That's a key part of any actually successful coup.
In a multipolar world, shared responsibility for security can be a virtue that reduces the burden on Americans without increasing threats to U.S. interests. It is not security that we would give up, but the illusion that we are β and have to be β in control of developments far away. For too long, Americans have been told that if we do not dominate, the world will descend into chaos. In reality, as the Chinese mediation has shown, other powers are likely to step up to shoulder the burden of security and peacemaking.Needs to be said, as this hallucinatory hyperventilation about what will happen if we don't win in every shithole everywhere is the mainstream opinion.
These [name redacted] would-be censors are different. They have no sense of humor, no imagination, and exactly one distinguishing characteristic: they know whatβs best for you. Anti-disinfo work suits them because they all have a Poppins streak that quietly gets off on binning your digital dirty bits (after the voyeuristic thrill of logging on to watch them in secret, with special credentials, which they rub with pleasure in evenings). Theyβre the vilest kind of snobs, and when they finally were forced to show their real selves to the public β and here I feel safe in thanking Elon Musk for making that possible, via the #TwitterFiles β the public rightfully recoiled from these arrogant power-worshipping mediocrities.The mediocrities will never stop until egalitarianism, that deranged impulse to make everyone as lame as them, is rejected in toto. War will empower them anew; they have simply slunk off to the shadows temporarily. Still, Matt has the right attitude:
We donβt have to concede to a future of always being at war somewhere abroad, and with each other at home. We donβt have to put up with a government that doesnβt tell us anything. Most of all, we can go back to enjoying life, on our own terms, without stressing over an endless succession of panics invented by politically insecure losers. We can do so much better, and we will, because this place is ours to run, a fact the singing censors should never have let us remember.Ultimately you just have to keep striking the root over and over. Never ever stop, and keep breathing in and out longer than the bad guys.