I mean, I’m a tech retard, but it does sound to me that you’re doing your best and no one can ask anymore or you or anyone else who has started their journey away from American tech and influence.

I, myself have made some the low-tech changes such as gtfo’ing all the mainstream social media platforms and boycotting streaming of all kinds (even European ones, but that’s more because I find streaming to be peak depravity when it comes to modern day consumerism) and I have stopped using American search engines and browsers (with the occasional exception of DuckDuckGo). Besides that I don’t buy American products at the store if I can avoid it. I know it’s not gonna affect America in any way that I no longer buy raisins from California, but to me it’s a matter of principle, and while they won’t feel it, local competitors definitely will. There’s a cola brand in my country that has absolutely exploded in popularity since Trump threatened to annex Greenland. This brand had such a big demand that they ran out of indregients for production and had to upscale.

This has become part of my joy and excitement for the future, because it’s not really about hurting America, it’s about building up Europe and nothing motivates me more than to realize that my shopping priorities and me joining communities like Lemmy and switching to Ecosia etc is me supporting alternative that will give a voice and/or financial growth to people who actually deserve it.

But yeah, I think you’re doing a good job with the initiatives you’ve been taking. It’s inspiring to me! And oh man, what I would give for a good old button phone xD I was planning on getting one of those after my current phone dies, but my spouse made some very good arguments for why I will need a smartphone in the future so I’ll have to figure out how the hell I’m gonna do that once my phone dies. Because there are plenty of European alternatives, but I run into the same issues as the picture posted above haha. There are alternatives, but those are made to accommodate the elderly generations in my country and as my spouse said: once they die off, these low tech alternatives will be phased out too and we will all be expected to use smartphones for everything. 🤪

We all do our best to navigate this tech-jungle. I can’t poopoo anyone doing their best and having to use American tech or services here and there. It’s hard to fully escape it right now, but it will become easier in the future! ❤️

In my world it’s the same thing, but I get what you mean. I have an android phone and the only reason I haven’t switched to something else yet is because it’s a relatively new phone (bought it in 2022) and I’m the type to keep my phone until it dies of old age or it breaks beyond repair. Until this one croaks, I’ll be stuck with android for awhile, but good on you for switching.

Depends on the kind of bitching, but yeah. I don’t think our European leaders aren’t aware nor unwilling to make the changes. They very much are. It’s just taking a long time and terminally online people don’t really understand that because they have gotten too used to getting everything immediately.

I am not just talking about cloud providers. I am talking about all American tech. The whole thing. That’s why it won’t happen over night, but it will happen and is already happening. That’s why Peter Thiel is out there having his weird little religious psychosis and claiming that Europe will fall if we don’t stay with America. He’s scared. He and Trump squeezed too hard on the Greenland issue, thought too highly of their status and power and now they will have to witness the consequences of threatening your own allies over and over. It is done and they know it and now they are scrambling, but the only tactic they know is threats so fneh.

I am very confident that we will see a new tech boom in Europe that will fill in where American tech used to be. So while a lot of things are terrible right now and America seemingly is desperate to self sabotage because success got boring or whatever, I am genuinely excited for the future of Europe. It’s not going to be easy or painless, but we are moving in the right direction in many areas and I see all the bad waves of far right ideologies as a phase. It may take decades, who knows, but Europe is moving in the right direction and I have never been more proud to be one than I currently am.

America will also come to its senses when trump and his morons have been kicked out of power, but the damage done to that nation will be felt for decades to come. I think that when I’m a senile old lady, America will still be dealing with the consequences of electing trump in the 2020s. That’s what I think.

It’s going to take some time to change the entire system. Remember that up until recently, while not super ideal, we still thought that the US, at the end of the day, was our allies. It’s easy to sit and be a captain hindsight, but until recently, it was the smartest thing to keep things as they were, as to not put extra financial strain on everybody. Now we have no choice and I for one am very happy that we are making the move to separating ourselves from America because I have hated the US since Bush and always felt they had too much influence over on us in Europe.

At the same time, I’m not gonna sit and piss and moan about all the American tech we still use or when European countries honor weapons deals they made before America went insane. Change is slow, frustratingly slow, but we are moving. It is happening. It’s just not gonna happen over night to appease impatient people who have no idea how big of an ask it is to have all European systems switch to open source. That is going to take years and a lot of money, but it is happening. My government has already had an entire department switch to Linux to test it and I believe that they will continue to make changes in that direction as the years pass.

But sure, one can also bitch about the current state of things not being perfect and up to your personal standard. Thats also a strategy.

True. I remember two ads specifically in my country that pissed me off so much I vowed to never purchase anything from their company. Both were phone service providers.

One was an ad where the guy gets the message of the ad out in 5 seconds and then the rest of the ad is him sitting in silence for 25 additional seconds, eating some food. That ad pissed me off enough to contact the company and let them know what I thought.

The second was this stupid bint sitting in a pink room, smugly wringing her hands and going: Oooh, you really want to get to your video, don’t you? Here it comes! 🤪

I was like: I don’t give a fuck if your phone service provider is the best in the galaxy. I will never use it ever.

Technically I have a third ad that made me despise charity for life, but that was before the time where ads online were what they are today and this ad did not show up online. I’ll tell the story anyways because this is the type of ad that every charity should avoid if they want people to donate:

Rewind to 2012. My boyfriend and I were dirt poor. Literally had to borrow money from our parents to have enough for food. He was a full time student and I was sick with a mean depression at the time.

We get some birthday money. I forget who it was from and who it was for. Normally, we would spend birthday money to pay bills but this time there was a tiny bit left over and we decided to go to the cinema for once. Have a date night. We only had enough for tickets. No snacks. No drinks. Just the tickets, but we didn’t care because the fact that we got to go to the movies felt like a massive luxury.

Ads pop up on the big screen. One of them is this close up of an African child with flies on his face, looking real sad. Across his face a text appears: “How much was your movie ticket?”

That singlehandedly made me boycott that specific charity for life. Fuck them forever. Worst part is that i used to actually volunteer for that charity and help them collect money by going door to door once a year with a friend. We collected so much money for those assholes. Haven’t bothered with volunteering since. It wasn’t solely that ad that turned me off charity, but a series of gross experiences that just made me fucking hate charity and the vultures who use it to scrape money from normal everyday people who think they are helping little impoverished children in third world countries.

I have seen similar charity ads on social media after the terminally online realized that there is a neverending war in Gaza. So many ads with obvious scammers prematurely blaming you for skipping their ad and leaving them to suffer. My reaction? 🖕👁👅👁🖕

There for sure are good and honorable charities out there and I have no ill will towards them, but I see the vast majority of charities as guilt tripping scams where they try their best to make people feel ashamed for being born in a privileged country and wringing money out of them while exploiting children in poor countries who will never see a dime.

In short: I hate ads too and the more they annoy me, the more their company or charity ends on my permanent shit list.

royalty dictatorship