This. If you read Reddit, a whole lot of comments go from Nazi parallels (which is partly justified, but as another comment points out there are also a lot of parallels with Orban's Hungary, Erdogan's Turkey, Putin's Russia, etc.) to 'Luigi'.
There are so many non-violent approaches that would be effective. First, there is the 3.5% rule [1]. Second, if 10%-20% of the general population would go on a general strike, pretty much all of society would come to a standstill and it would send a heck of a powerful message. One of the issues though in the US is healthcare tied to employment, combined with fire at will. It reduces preparedness of people to protest until it's possibly too late. So, it's simultaneously important to build/strengthen unions, etc.
Aside from that, and this is true for Europe as well, we need to heal as a society. People have divided themselves in stupid 'teams', fueled by politicians, foreign interference, algorithms, etc. Not woke enough? You are cancelled. Left-wing? You are cancelled (employer contacted and fired). We have to do a little less social media and go outside and talk to other people. Even if I disagree with people politically, there often a lot of common ground (we all want food, health, to be safe, etc.), we all like to talk about some sports match, and whatnot. We don't have to agree with each other, but we can at least try to understand and care for each other. Break the stupid tribe wars.
> First, there is the 3.5% rule [1]. Second, if 10%-20% of the general population would go on a general strike
FWIW, when the best case recommendations for a restoration of civil order and the rule of law involve very large scale society-wide civil disobedience...
...then maybe the comparison to Nazi Germany and authoritative dictatorships more generally are perhaps not as far afield as you're implying. Like, once your thinking goes beyond "just win the next election" things are kinda over as far as "democracy" goes.
(And FWIW I don't necessarily disagree: the existing regime's leadership, not just the White House, seem extremely unlikely to just walk out the door if they lose an election. It was tried four years ago and failed, the resulting loyalty tests have produced a very different cabinet this time.)
> Like, once your thinking goes beyond "just win the next election" things are kinda over as far as "democracy" goes.
Elections are not the only form democratic participation can take. We can take local action, coordinated action, talk to our representatives at various levels, and so on.
Your suggestions aren't really addressing the things people are actually worried about here.
If leadership-aligned politicians won't dare step out of line, and those opposed are systematically marginalized by the executive, other legislators, and the courts, then what good does that do? Deliberately neutralizing the opposition's power renders the opposition's ideas, efforts, and proposals useless, and the allied politicians will never disobey, so petitioning either of them to make changes is pointless.
I'm not saying any of that is completely true right now, but people are nervous that this is becoming true.
It seems abundantly clear that there will be no peaceful/rule-of-law transfer of executive power in January 2029 to anyone but a hand-picked Trump successor that wins an election. A democratic victory (or even a Republican primary winner that isn't appropriately selected) will be resisted at all levels of the executive, and... we'll just see. Whatever the result, the losing party will call it a coup and illegitimate, and such an administration will survive only so long as it can hold control of the government by authoritarian means.
It may even happen earlier. A lot of the kerfuffle around redistricting is being presented to right wing audiences in a way that would be very easy to spin as "cheating". What do we do if democrats win the house next year and Johnson simply refuses to seat the California delegation to keep power? Are we prepared?
Basically, the End of the American Experiment may have already occurred.
I'm not so quick to pull the trigger on that assessment. I think we're at point where the rubber band has ostensibly been pulled back nearly as far as it can go, and it may snap, or it might make a surprising move in the opposite direction in response to the tension. I don't think any of us peons has any meaningful control of which of those two things happens, but I think it will hinge a lot on how much big businesses are affected by the economic and political consequences of recent policy moves. No matter how much Trump might bluster about big businesses and such, he'll still fall in line if enough get pushed to the point of having to draw a line in the sand. Too bad it will probably be big business operating in pure self-interest and not some actual principled entity. Maaaaybe if there's enough economic pain among his base, that could point us towards a voter-driven repudiation to some extent. Even if they cement their power significantly, I don't think they could swing it with an outright rejection of their approach. I doubt that will happen though.
...then maybe the comparison to Nazi Germany and authoritative dictatorships more generally are perhaps not as far afield as you're implying.
Sorry, I was not implying they are far afield. We have seen this playbook in several nearby European/Asian countries in the last two and a half decades (I live in Europe). Of course, not all these countries did have a long democratic history, but they did show the fragility of democracy, you have to actively protect it.
Heck, even in the country where I live, which has quite a healthy democracy, a majority of parliament has just accepted a motion to request declaring antifa a terrorist organization because Trump did it as well (all Dutch experts, including former secret service personnel agree that antifa is neither an organization, nor terrorist). Some of them just to score a few points for the upcoming elections. Only a judge can declare an organization to be a terrorist organization, but it's all small steps in eroding the rule of law.
(Coincidentally, the next day 1500 right wing hooligans rioted in the streets of The Haglue the next day, burning police cars, damaging the office of a center-left political party and the parliament square.)
> Reddit, a whole lot of comments go from Nazi parallels to 'Luigi'.
oof. I certainly understand where Luigi came from, but I'd also say that Luigi represents an escalation that empowers the Trump regime. The general population's latent desire to see some "justice" metered out on the "elites" pushes those elites into cozying up to Trump. Because those elites know that if Trump chooses to go after them, even the masses against Trump aren't going to be terribly concerned with their plight.
This is why people say that "fascism is the failure mode of capitalism." When the rich and powerful get too fat off their structural advantages and society starts coming apart at the seams, capital will align with anti-democratic, anti-freedom, bigoted, and genocidal forces to suppress change rather than relinquish some wealth and power.
They would rather rule over ashes than join us in a little bit more of an equitable society.
I have nagging the suspicion that the knowledge that a good portion of the population wants them dead is a slightly more significant factor in pushing elites to the Republican side compared to the Trump administration's threats.
My point is they're not different factors, they're the same dynamic.
As for your comparison, the actual threat from more Luigis is small. There are at least thousands of CEOs at or above the level of Armstrong? And one death, over a seeming period of several years? And the motive wasn't just "elites bad", but very specific healthcare denials.
Meanwhile Trump is actively attacking many companies and institutions. Part of the pressure are the populist memes that makes the masses unsympathetic to their plights, even though they are the structure of our society.
> As for your comparison, the actual threat from more Luigis is small. There are at least thousands of CEOs at or above the level of Armstrong? And one death, over a seeming period of several years?
It's less about the murderer himself, and more about the high level of support he has. "Many of the rank and file in the Democratic coalition want you dead, but not to worry nearly all of them are cowards who'd never do anything about it." is cold comfort.
> And the motive wasn't just "elites bad", but very specific healthcare denials.
Do I really need to go trough Reddit to find you people calling for the murder of "capitalists", right down to landlords and homeowners?
I'm sure the elites (if we could call them that) prefer to seem like they are being pressured by the Trump administration. It's better for business and it's safer that way. But their compliance comes a little too easy.
You seem to be trying to make this into a partisan thing by invoking some imagined attribution to Democrats, when the outrage against elites is clearly pan-partisan. Also if anything it's rightism that tends to encourage individualist violence (and I'm saying this not as a partisan slam, but as a libertarian who sees the virtues in both philosophies)
You've also completely sidestepped the fact that Trump is actively attacking many companies and institutions. Sure, it's conceivable that some capitulating-institutional leaders were looking for an excuse to bring their institutions to heel, but it's not conceivable that they all were.
It seems like your goal is to absolve the autocratic authoritarians, and justify the elites cozying up to the autocratic authoritarians. So I don't see how continuing this conversation can be productive.
The 12 & 13 mini with their 5.4 inch screens are huge. The SE 2nd & 3rd generation at 4.7 is already too big. The 1st SE's 4 incher was probably a little too small, but a slightly bigger form factor combined with thinner bezels would probably allow for a screen of about 4.2-4.5 which should be perfect.
Not once do I remember thinking "I would like this phone to be thinner", yet I wish that this thing would have a bigger battery almost daily.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge was first with a thinner phone (and some Motorola that most people have probably never heard of?). But it is also quite misplaced, since they just released the 27 Pro, which moves the (stacked) logic board close to the camera to be able to fit a larger battery, going from 3582 mAh in the 16 Pro to 4252 mAh in the 17 Pro (both US eSIM capacities, 18.7% more!). But they also used the space to add a vapor chamber for better sustained performance.
The Air is just a different market. The Air and Pro optimize for almost the opposite:
- Thinness vs. battery life.
- Thinness vs. an additional GPU core.
- Thinness vs. sustained performance.
- One back camera vs three back cameras.
I like this year's line-up because there is much more choice: getting the absolute thinnest phone, getting an absolute performance monster with a large battery and plenty of cameras, or getting a great middle ground, which is almost as light as the thin phone, but has longer battery life, and one more camera, and no lousy 60Hz display this year.
I feel sorry for you. I have experienced their support in both Germany and The Netherlands and it's stellar. You can call them, get someone on the line in a few minutes and they will genuinely try to help you. One time there was an issue with a transaction (amount subtracted twice), within a few minutes of calling I was in contact with someone from their finance department who not only solved the issue, they also called back a few days later to verify that I got the refund and to check if I was happy with their help.
Another time my wife wanted Apple Care, but decided on the last day and the website didn't offer the option anymore. She called, they were really helpful and again called back a few days later to check everything is good on our end.
They are a big-tech company, but actually being able to call someone and getting swift help is refreshing.
Edit: I only now realize the accidental pun: you probably won't be getting 'Swift' help. :p
This works by signing an attestation using a hardware-backed key (which is in turn signed by Google). So, there is no way to emulate this in software, because your ROM simply does not have the private key to do so. Part of the attestation is information on whether the booted operating system was signed:
Again, since this is all hardware-signed, you could only fake this information if you were somehow able to extract the private key from the secure element. The primary weakness is that you could try to patch out the part of the application that asks for this attestation. But they found a solution to that, remote attestation. Instead of the app asking for the attestation, e.g. Google's servers or your bankcan ask for the attestation and for the reasons outlined above, your custom firmware is not able to fake this. If your bank, etc. implemented remote attestation, you can simply do not do banking on your phone anymore.
Perhaps true, but some modern OSes (like macOS and iOS) allow you to copy text from screenshots. And since the text quality of screenshots is typically good, it works well.
It is purely out of spite. They like to rant every time how the EU is blocking progress. They are using it to turn sentiment of iDevice-using EU citizens against the EU. It's interesting how Apple rolls over when an autocratic state (e.g. China) asks, but are trying to mobilize their users against regulators, do malicious compliance, etc. when it's democratic states regulating them.
As a Mac user since 2007 and iPhone user since 2009, this behavior of Apple disgusts me. (Yes, I know - vote with your wallet. I switched from Apple Watch Ultra to Garmin Fenix and do have a Pixel with GrapheneOS.)
This is mostly false. Most AI features are available in some EU countries. For instance, Pixel Studio and Pixel Screenshots are available in Germany, but not in The Netherlands. I think they are dragging their feet on localization (though much Dutch people would be fine with these AI apps only accepting English input).
How is it "mostly false"? I can't access the new google.com/ai (as a most recent example). Localization is not the issue, the EU is clearly singled out due to regulation.
I don't think it is laziness per se. It's a combination of having far too many models (just look at Samsung's line-up, more than ten models per year if we don't count all the F and W variants), using many different SoCs from different vendors (just taking Samsung again as an example, using Qualcomm Snapdragon, Samsung Exynos, Mediatek Helio, Mediatek Dimensity, sometimes even a different chipset for the same phone model per region), each model supported for multiple years now on a monthly or quarterly update schedule (Samsung: recent A5x, Sxx, Sxx FE, Z Flip x, Z Flip 7 FE, Z fold x, Xcover x, etc. are on a monthly schedule). This across a multitude of kernel versions, AOSP versions (for older phones), OneUI versions (for phones that haven't been updated yet to the latest OneUI).
The must have literally over tens of different models to roll out security updates for, with many different SoCs and software versions to target.
And compared to other Android vendors, Samsung is actually pretty fast with updates.
It's true that other manufacturers have smaller line-ups, but they also tend to be smaller companies.
Compare that with Apple: every yearly phone uses the same SoC, only with variations in simpler things like CPU/GPU core counts.
To me this is the ultimate failing of ARM as an ISA, the fact that you even need to consider "targeting" allows a deficient ISA like x86 to still stand head and shoulders above it in terms of OEM support (though perhaps not security)
> It's a combination of having far too many models (just look at Samsung's line-up, more than ten models per year if we don't count all the F and W variants), using many different SoCs from different vendors
> [...]
> This across a multitude of kernel versions, AOSP versions (for older phones), OneUI versions (for phones that haven't been updated yet to the latest OneUI).
Those are choices. If you want to do that, you need a process that can support it.
I suppose it could be that they just don't care and are deliberately screwing their users, but never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and all that.
>> Those are choices. If you want to do that, you need a process that can support it.
__need__ is doing a lot of work here. There is no forcing function to get OEMs to do this ASAP: 1) the market doesn't really care that much 2) there are no regulations around this (and even if they were, can you immediately recall a tech exec going to jail for breaking the law ... )
This. Pixels are not more expensive than flagship Samsungs. If people cared and bought Pixels because they get the security updates, then Samsung (and the others) would follow. But people don't care, so the OEMs don't do it.
It's kinda weird to single out Samsung here, because they are pretty good with security updates and they explicitly talk about long security periods in their marketing. They are not as fast as Pixel, but somewhere mid-range and up (A5x) get monthly updates and they are usually 1-4 weeks behind Google.
It's the other vendors that are the issue. Even Fairphone is behind a lot (and they only release one model at a time).
The "(and others)" part was about including the other OEMs :-). I used the Samsung flagship as a specific example because it is very expensive, and people who buy it don't have the excuse of the price.
Those are choices. If you want to do that, you need a process that can support it.
I suppose it could be that they just don't care and are deliberately screwing their users, but never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and all that.
I think for a long time Android users did not really care. Until a few years, Android security support was abysmal with many vendors only doing 1-2 years of updates. Users bought the phones and didn't care, so I guess it was a smart business move to not care.
This changed in recent years due to a mixture of the (then) upcoming EU requirement for supporting devices multiple years with security updates, Apple being able to tout this as an advantage, causing Google and Samsung to enter into a competition to promise the largest number of years of security support, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism
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