Those events and times inspired those books, but they didn't actually happen in those countries.
There is a core message about the nature of not just ingsoc but the other governments of the world as well, and their relationship with each that gets left out when talking about 1984. The overbearing surveillance capital state is all people think about, that's part of it, but why that state exists, the motivations of it's leadership, the sheer and terrifying brilliance of the architecture of their government. in many ways, I'm glad the leaders of major countries and political movements don't grasp 1984 well (or at all).
But I agree that in 1948, Orwell's frustration and experience was not just that there was a world war, but that it was the second one in his life time. War-time mentality does approximate the levels of repression he mentions in the book, but in any country, it doesn't quite get there. But it could!
That's the scary part, things like "facecrime" weren't possible in 1984, now not only is it possible, it can be done without humans being involved too much. We have all the surveillance, more than he could have even imagined. But not only that, we have the means to analyze all the surveillance data in real time and do something about it. The capability to implement a world much worse than the one in 1984 exists. The villains of our times and the people they rule over just haven't managed to negotiate the imagination and sophistication of a strategy to abuse it yet.
This is what I mean. just random people are doing the spying parts already. [SPOILER] a very similar scene is in 1984, except with the government behind the cams.
“Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.”
― George Orwell, 1984
I'm confused, are you saying Debian shouldn't abandon social media accounts? Are there people following distros on social media to where it's that relevant?
I am saying that if you have an outlet where your posts are getting 10 to 20 thousand impressions, the most impressions out of any other channel of communication you should not abandon it.
Being on social media is very relevant due to both content discovery algorithms being able to connect people who may be interested in the project with the project itself and because social media sites can have things go viral outside of your own personal reach. Your post can reposted or spread by other accounts easier if its originating from the platform itself instead of hopping someone sees it and copies onto the platform.
Mindshare matters, too. A big reason why small distros manage to get a foothold is because they're highly visible in places that get traffic (which then kicks off a virtuous cycle further increasing visibility). When existing Linux users get an itch to try a different distro, the ones that will come to mind to try are those they saw on reddit/youtube/xitter/etc, and Linux newbies are also going to be inclined towards these high visibility distros.
Holing up in mailing lists definitely isn't going to help with pulling in users or devs.
Speaking from personal experience which is admittedly quite old at this point, but it used to be the case that Debian definitely didn’t go out of its way to try to pull in devs. When I had a few small open source things myself I packaged them for RedHat (this is pre-fedora when RedHat didn’t have a commercial and free version, they just had “RedHat Linux”) and looked to package them for debian, given I was actually using debian for a few of my personal servers. I made the .deb packages just fine but found the Debian community were definitely not trying to attract devs[1]. I couldn’t get anyone from Debian to sign my gpg keys which if I recall correctly was a necessary part in getting my package upstreamed[2] and in the end I just gave up on it because I’m really not interested in joining a community that is so unwelcoming.
[1] although it was maybe specifically just me they weren’t trying to attract.
[2] to the point where I actually worked with someone in my day job who was a debian dev and he wouldn’t sign my key without me producing physical official ID like a passport or something. Just really bizarre level of paranoia like a government kyc process or something.
> I couldn’t get anyone from Debian to sign my gpg keys which if I recall correctly was a necessary part in getting my package upstreamed
You recall it incorrectly. You need that for becoming a Debian Maintainer and gaining direct upload rights, but for contributing a package you only need to have it sponsored by a Debian Developer.
People should only sign a key under at least two conditions:
The key owner convinces the signer that the identity in the UID is indeed their own identity by whatever evidence the signer is willing to accept as convincing. Usually this means the key owner must present a government issued ID with a picture and information that match up with the key owner. (Some signers know that government issued ID's are easily forged and that the trustability of the issuing authorities is often suspect and so they may require additional and/or alternative evidence of identity).
The key owner verifies that the fingerprint and the length of the key about to be signed is indeed their own.
--
...debian is INDEED old-school and slightly derpy (see their use of the condorcet voting method), but it has boded extremely well for their longevity. Debian exists for its users, and its users are generally developers.
Who's the adversary? That's the main question. If the US is, then a better choice of fighters won't make much difference. Most likely it's russia, and it's arctic warfare.
The smart move, both for canada and EU nations isn't to build up conventional military (although nothing wrong with that, if done in parallel), but to build up a nuclear force. First strike capabilities. ICBMs, ICBM deterrents, submarines and trans-continental bombers.
France and the UK have nuclear capability already, it will cost a lot, but it isn't impossible to achieve in less time than it would take to bootstrap military force that can conventionally take on either the US, China or even Russia.
The problem is, unlike Iran and North Korea, Europe and Canada don't yet see themselves as vulnerable as they really are. If a madman like current madman decided to attack the US's allies, nukes are not off the table. Matter of fact, not only do the insane people in the US with power crave such levels of carnage, they crave it. And in their minds, taking out a small city in europe or canada will save lives in the long run and is a quick way to achieve victory.
There is a reason the current dictator in the US is trying to bring the 'golden dome' and "dominating our hemisphere". I suspect in the long run, these people will really want to invade europe and "purify it" from those "pesky" brown people, after they're done with the US. ICBM capable (and by the numbers too) Europe and Canada is the most peaceful outcome for everyone involved. If denmark had nukes, there wouldn't have been any talk of invading greenland.
Currently, the US provides nuclear capability for nato to the most part. but if self-defense against the US and Russia is the priority for europe, preparing for land and aerial attacks makes little sense. A standing continental military for europe, or even a capable military for canada costs a lot of money, the US spends $800B, and China like $300B on military, that's going to hurt!
No one has ever even attempted the invasion of a nuclear capable country. If canada had nukes, they hardly need ICBMs, they could probably use trebuchet from across the border and attack seattle and new york state probably (just kidding of course)
The MP representing the NDP in this matter is also the MP who represents Canada's northernmost territory (Nunavut). They are clear on who the adversary is, like almost all Canadians are, it is the US. No one else is threatening our territory, whether it's threatening Canada all at once, refusing to officially recognize our arctic territory (even while asking for permission to go through it), threatening to attempt to encircle us by taking arctic territory from an ally that we (and the US, oddly) are bound by treaty to defend, or just pretending our prime minister is a governor of a piece of the states.
Russia is an afterthought at best. They don't border us particularly directly in the arctic. They don't have a modern navy that poses us an actual threat. Even the strongest part of their army - their land army - isn't able to successfully invade a neighbouring country at this point. We don't even have a land border with them.
If Canada has to defend itself from the US, it will be apocalyptic. I don't think it will matter much whose planes they have.
So I'd expect that the most important consideration would be joint operations with other NATO countries, against other enemies. Which does include the US at this point, but could also include the various threats that pop up, like Afghanistan. They are also part of a continual patrol against Russian and Chinese fighters -- which will also become apocalyptic if it proceeds to an actual fight, so they need a capable fighter in the hopes that the mutually-assured-destruction will stave that off.
I think that's a bit shortsighted. It's sort of an open secret that the current US admin is doing russia's bidding. Obviously America will lose a lot more than gain if it attacked or invaded Canada. There is nothing canada has right now that is inaccessible to the US, the US can deploy troops, bases, train soldiers,etc.. if it had peaceful relations with Canada. keystone XL is sifting canadian oil to US refineries, alaska benefits a ton from canada based supply chain and airspace, alaska strategically is extremely critical to the US, far more than any part of canada, because it's proximity to asia, the US itself and europe by way of the arctic, it is a major (if not the most important) logistics hub the US has in the western hemisphere (I'd say Ramstein in germany is the only other more important hub the US has). All to say that canada attacking alaska would be devastating to the US. If canada simply stopped all relations with the US, I'm pretty sure it will cause a major recession in the US, if not a depression outright. Again, all THAT to say that the hostility against canada is not being done on behalf of the american people but on behalf or russia. Similar to how the hostility against EU via greenland is meant to destroy nato for the benefit of russia.
Russia cares a lot about controlling canada and greenland because of their desire to dominate the arctic. They already control one half of it more or less, but as I mentioned earlier, the fastest way to europe from the americas, and even from eastern russia and north eastern asia to western europe is via the arctic. They want ukraine to dominate agriculture, and gain warm water ports, the arctic to control shipping lines and flight paths (including ICBM flight paths :) ).
With a presumed fallen global order where Canada and the US are not allies in the least, Russia has every reason to invade Canada, if they decide to control all of canada, that'd be an immense victory for them, outside of china no one can stop them from global domination at that point.
Strategically, what Ukraine is for europe, Canada is to north america.
Russia's arctic fleet supposedly is even superior to the US navy's from what little I've heard about the topic. Wars aren't that simple either, Russia hasn't mobilized or entered full wartime mode yet with Ukraine, it's still a "special operation". They're more than willing to mow down tens of millions more of their people. Another interesting aspect of a prolonged war is that they start building internal supply chains to build tanks, artillery, basic supplies,etc.. that is if their economy doesn't collapse, which it hasn't. Oil sales is still keeping them alive (in no small parts thanks to europe). But I'm sure putin is content merely controlling canada via the US as its vassal state.
> There is nothing canada has right now that is inaccessible to the US, the US can deploy troops, bases, train soldiers,etc.. if it had peaceful relations with Canada.
If Russia had the means to invade Canada and hold territory they might try it. They don't. It's not even within the realm of possibility. It's absurdist fantasy to imagine otherwise. Their military is simply far too weak and the geography too poor.
They could probably land some troops in the middle of nowhere by taking advantage of how slow politicians are to react to incursions. Only to have the troops die from bombs and accomplish nothing but scaring some polar bears.
A beachhead in the arctic is utterly worthless as a starting point for moving south - the logistics simply make it impossible (the north is really big and really empty and has lots of really shitty terrain to cross). Even if you suppose somehow Russia is in principle capable of the logistics, Canada isn't reachable from Russia by the arctic sea except through Denmark or the US - they'd need to be co-belligerents or conquered first (narrow exception of submarines and airplanes of course, but not in large enough quantity to matter). They have no means to "control all of Canada" even if the Canadian military, and the allied militaries with treaties guaranteeing mutual defence, somehow magically ceased to exist.
Meanwhile we've seen from Ukraine that they lack effective air defence against planes far more outdated than what Canada already has... and our military isn't going to magically cease existing. Whatever beachhead they could establish, it wouldn't last long.
All this to say that Russia simply isn't a threat to Canada. The only exception to this is that they have enough nuclear bombs to say "fuck the world" and cause nuclear winter or something similarly stupid - but there's nothing militarily we could ever do to prevent that.
I agree that the US is acting consistent with being a Russian puppet - but the conclusion from that is that the US might invade to the benefit of Russia - not that Russia itself is somehow going to magic up an army capable of an invasion directly across the centre of the arctic ocean.
You make good points, but my point wasn't that Russia would use a beachhead in the arctic, but that it can use flight paths through the arctic to project power in southern Canada. long-range missiles are one thing, but strategic long-range bombers with some in-flight refueling too. As far as an actual invading force, that I concede, they can't do that today, but who knows what they're planning, they have the manpower, the money and the lunacy to build up such a force. Their main advantage is the nuclear deterrent preventing others from invading them back. Canada has been left alone so far (by everyone hostile) because it has (had?) the US's protection, not because of it's fearsome military (although I know they're quite fierce on their own -- just not B52, nukes, ICBMs, aircraft carriers level fierce).
If I had to speculate, they won't try to take populated centers of Canada, but they might make claims to arctic resources and land, and just take it. Start bombing Toronto and Montreal if Canada fights back. They might even do it in the next few years if the US starts enough chaos elsewhere as a distraction. Once they take land, you're not getting it back, why? Back to my original point: They have nukes.
Canada is part of NATO, and if the VDV and the Spetnaz demonstration in Ukraine are any indication of the current level of Russian spec ops, any Nordic country, UK, France and Italy all have better trained arctic/Alpine forces than Russia. Individually.
If NATO survives, sure. And assuming they aren't busy with other distractions at home. The main thing that Russia has that none of the rest do (or so I hear, don't hold me to it), is icebreakers that are superior, and submarines that are also deployed all over the world, including arctic waters.
The key thing is that Russia has some capability. Not superiority, but capability, that's all it takes to make war feasible. Having superior manpower or firepower doesn't guarantee victory, as you can see with Russia and Ukraine. Familiarity, homefield advantage, and political will are very important as well.
They don't. Maybe icebreakers, although I seriously doubt that, but France naval capabilities are superior to Russia, without taking into account carriers and planes.
Fighting a war against the US is futile. Not saying it should be annexed but if it has to be anyone then it may as well be your neighbors who have a lot in common with you. Life in Canada would no doubt improve if it was a US territory.
You're not exactly wrong, but the net outcome can be favorable to the common man in the invaded country. Some takeovers of countries have been (relatively) peaceful as well.
Life in Canada would no doubt deprove drastically. The loss of healthcare. The loss of language rights. The loss of the right not to be harassed and gassed by secret police. Etc.
the goal is to make a war unpalatable to the us public. this is not very difficult to do, since the us public doesn't like it when their own soldiers die. having fighter jets that can be remotely shut down by the us makes it a great deal more difficult.
US citizen also not used to having war at their front door. I assume that would make a great difference.
But what the duck are people (including me) even discussing here? Within a year it has come so far that the US government alienated one of their most important allies and people discussing the possibility of a war against them.
I think this could be a scheme to get other countries to start paying for their own defense more, instead of relying on the US to do it. It is perhaps rude or undiplomatic, but it's supposed to be a kick in the ass. I remember Trump talking to EU leaders years ago to explain this to them, and nothing changed. Maybe now they got the message.
I agree! But I think bankruptcy is a foregone conclusion. Our financial situation over decades, facilitated by the rest of the world, has destroyed most industry in the US because nobody can afford to compete with foreigners while getting paid in "strong" fiat dollars. I expect it to end in disaster. The US needs to rebuild industry and eat its own dog food product-wise, but that will be difficult to get back to.
The Feb 2nd episode of the "The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge" podcast may be of interest to you, its title is "Should Canada Include Nuclear Weapons In Its Defence Strategy?", and offers a perspective on the subject.
Ukraine was invaded to begin with because they gave up their nukes in the 90's in exchange for territorial recognition and a promise of non-invasion from russia lol.
at the time the US policy was that if Russia used a nuke in Ukraine, they would lose pretty much everything outside Russia.
nowadays the gremlin from the kremlin can just turn up in the US and marines will lay down the red carpet. so I'm not sure the same thing can be repeated safely.
people care about results. Better processes need to produce better results. this is programming not a belief system where you have to adhere to some view or else.
1) Even when you move things to a server, or remove it from your device, evidence is still left over without your knowledge sometimes.
2) Evidence of data destruction, is in itself as the name implies, evidence. And it can be used to prove things.
For example, an ext4 journal or NTFS USN $J journal entry that shows "grok_version_2.4_schema.json" where twitter is claiming grok version 2.4 was never deployed in France/UK is important. That's why tools like shred and SDelete rename files before destroying them. But even then, when those tools rename and destroy files, it stands out, it might even be worse because investigators can speculate more. It might corroborate some other piece of evidence (e.g.: sdelete's prefetch entry on windows, or download history from a browser for the same tool), and that might be a more serious charge (obstruction of justice in the US).
Indeed, actions leaves traces, including the action of deleting data. It takes a LOT of expertise to be able to delete something without leaving a trail behind, if that's even feasible without going to extraordinary length.
Many times, the really hard problems that I ask AI to solve, it solves it not so well, and that just makes me more frustrated. If you're building that just need to barely work, that's one thing. if you need things to work securely, scale, and be really efficient, I don't see how AI changes things. To the contrary, it might spit out test-cases and sample code to test your hypothesis with, saving you time and frustration, letting you focus on the architecture and problem solving.
I think perhaps moving the goal posts to demand better quality and performance might force people who rely on AI to "think hard". Like your app works fine, now make it load in under a second on any platform.
What does water scarcity have to do with anything? Data centers don't use water. They slightly heat it, and then it flows back out to whatever it would have done anyway.
They need fresh water which is scarce unlike salt water, once they use it, it can't be used for anything else. They're competing with water supplies of municipalities these days. Not a big deal if you're near the great lakes or the missisipi, but a big deal in california, arizona, utah,etc.. and that's just the US. There are places that are becoming unlivable because of water supply issues, and datacenters are needing to be built near them.
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