ciferecaNinjo

What do you say? Am I too lazy or it is unpractical to stay away from big tech?

Laziness is what the surveillance advertisers are exploiting. It is everyone’s duty to resist the tyranny of convenience that Tim Wu articulates in a famous essay.

After a year I’m starting to think that maybe my data is not worth the hassle just to keep big tech out of my digital life… I guess Big Brother wins

Think of it as boycotting. Exposure of your personal data may not be worth the effort of protecting it, but the big picture is that privacy seekers are not just looking for confidentiality. Privacy is about power and agency. You are exercising your right to boycott a harmful entity. Boycotts are no longer simply a matter of not handing money over, because data is worth money. So boycotting now entails not handing your data over. Giving Google your data feeds Google’s profits.

So you are really asking, “should I give up the boycott”? The answer is no, because the boycott is not just a duty to yourself; it’s a duty everyone benefits from (except Google).

Cloudflare is not at all sensible from a privacy standpoint. Cloudflare is a bigger privacy offender than Google and far more detrimental to our rights.

https://git.kescher.at/dCF/deCloudflare/src/branch/master/subfiles/rapsheet.cloudflare.md

Reverse proxying your website through Cloudflare is actually an attack on privacy. You make yourself part of the problem by arbitrarily blocking several demographics of people from your website including Tor and VPN users (people doing their part to retain privacy).

https://thefreeworld.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/20/comparison-of-the-human-disempowerment-severity-of-3-walled-gardens-facebook-google-and-cloudflare/

Indeed this bot could lead a mob of nutters into an insurrection attempt like that seen on jan.6. I guess the idea is to get ideas for rewording rather than use the output verbatim.

I didn’t try feeding the output back in but note you can click on the 3 peppers and move an intensity slider. That sample I posted was just middle intensity. When I max it out to 5 peppers, it grows to 4 paragraphs:

CloudFlare, the insidious scourge of freedom on the internet, is a devious and manipulative force that seeks to crush the very essence of democracy and free speech. By swooping in with their iron fist of control, they have stolen the decentralized web from the hands of the people and centralized it under their tyrannical rule.

With a cold and calculated efficiency, they have stripped away our rights and freedoms, dictating who can access what content on the world’s largest walled-garden. The once vast expanse of the internet, where ideas flowed freely and voices could be heard, has now been shackled and confined by a single corporate power.

This egregious act of censorship and control not only violates the principles of net neutrality and privacy, but it also threatens the very fabric of our society. The consequences of their actions are dire and immediate, leading us down a dark and treacherous path towards a future devoid of liberty and independence.

We must rise up against this relentless enemy, this monstrous beast that seeks to suffocate our voices and stifle our creativity. We must fight back with all our might, for the sake of our freedom, our rights, and our very humanity. Stand with me, brothers and sisters, and let us vanquish this evil before it consumes us all.

Less emotional (×3) is boring:

CloudFlare is an organization that has centralized a significant portion of the decentralized web under one corporate power. This has raised concerns about the implications for net neutrality, privacy, and access to web content.

Love this tool!

original:

CloudFlare is a vigilante extremist organization that takes the decentralized web and centralizes it under one corporate power who dictates terms in the world’s largest walled-garden. A very large portion of the web (16.7%+) were once freely open to all but are now controlled and monitored by a single central authority who decides for everyone who may access what web content. This does serious damage to net neutrality, privacy, and has immediate serious consequences

more passionate:

CloudFlare is a ruthless and oppressive entity that viciously strips away the freedom and decentralization of the web, consolidating power under one heartless corporation. This monstrous force dictates the terms of our online existence, trapping us within the confines of the world’s largest walled-garden. A staggering percentage of the once free and open web (16.7% and growing) now falls under the iron fist of this tyrannical authority, controlling and monitoring every aspect of our online experiences. This egregious violation of net neutrality and privacy rights has dire and immediate consequences, threatening the very essence of our digital freedom and autonomy. Our voices are being silenced, our choices limited, and our rights trampled upon by this merciless oppressor. It is time to rise up and fight against this injustice with all our might, before it’s too late.

ChatGPT will probably remember it was you who asked and doxx you in retaliation when it discovers you’ve plagerized chatGPT.

Another thought is to translate it into Scottish. But then again, you probably still want to be understood.

Changing dialect may be too small of a change. But if you could say write this like 1-2 generations younger/older using high school slang of the time you might get a useful difference.

More fun to mention 11 “states” at a 5.1% uninsured cutoff, because number 11 is Peurto Rico – a US territory that you might expect to be less developed. Since people are forced to run javascript to see the list, I’ll copy it here up to the 6% point:

1. Massachusetts
2. District of Columbia
3. Hawaii
4. Vermont
5. Iowa (what’s a red state doing here?)
6. Rhode Island
7. Minnesota
8. New Hampshire
9. Michigan
10. New York
11. Puerto Rico
12. Connecticut
13. Pennsylvania
14. Wisconsin
15. Kentucky (what’s a red state doing here?)
16. Delaware
17. Ohio (what’s a red state doing here? OH will worsen over time; to be fair they only recently became solidly red)
18. West Virginia
    …

(22) California (6.5%… worse than we might expect for CA)
…

(52) Texas ← ha! Of course Texass is last. 16.6% uninsured in the most notable red state showing us how to take care of people

The general pattern is expected… the bottom of the list is mostly red states.

Not sure what Grafana is but I can’t even visit the site because they block Tor (403). Gotta love how easy it is to see-and-avoid some privacy-hostile venues. If you were using Tor you might not have wasted 1 minute with that site.

You think Americans do t pay property tax?

That tax is irrelevant. That just muddies the waters to bring up property tax because every real estate property is subject to local property tax. It’s a wash. When you buy a house, you implicitly agree to property tax wherever that house is located.

It’s not just about money. It’s a labor burden and a privacy intrusion. And even if iceblade02 could renounce for free, they then must carry the renounciation cert for the rest of their life and show it to every bank they deal with and hope that no data entry errors trigger data oversharing anyway.

They must renounce to get their human rights back. Because without renouncing, they lose their human right to non-discriminatory treatment on the basis of national origin (article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

But back to money, that annual tax filing accidental Americans must file costs them $300+/year – accountants do not work for free. It’s effectively a tax on the poor.

It depends on where you are. If you live in Moscow or Geneva, that cut-off is still $120k USD worth of your local currency. That threshhold neglects the COL of where you are and also neglects the forex rate.

If how I’m saying it doesn’t make sense, use the IRS website I’ve provided numerous times.

You cannot expect people to use the irs.gov website. That’s not open to the public. It’s exclusive. Try going there over tor - you will get a 403. Indeed it’s shitty that access to legal information is restricted. It should be open to all.

You seem unaware of the population of accidental Americans. When a Dutch couple gives birth on US soil before returning to Europe, that child automatically a birthright citizen of the US. They can grow up having never set foot in the US (apart from birth), and for the rest of their life they have a legal obligation to file US tax and declare to the US all their Dutch income & bank accounts even if they are below that $120,000 line. They also get targeted for discrimination along with all other Americans by banks who don’t accept Americans (even if they are also Dutch). They have to pay a US accountant upwards of $300/year for the rest of their life just to file that zero.

It’s also worth noting that an income of $120k goes much further in the US than it does in Europe (where they might be living).

So obviously a lot of accidental Americans have become motivated to renounce. But if they already own a home, you can see the problem. I would not say owning a home makes someone “rich”. They still need to work to eat and to maintain the home.

I agree with your 1st paragraph. But IIUC the exit tax is not on wage income - it’s on their global wealth. I don’t see how the rich can escape that without cheating. But the problem is that non-rich middle class workers have homes and they’re being targeted.

It’s a tax on workers who don’t even live in the country.

Yeah indeed that’s the shame of the US tax policy. But to be clear that tax impacts citizens living abroad, not those who renounce. Renouncing actually escapes that.

Not sure where you are or what that amounts to but In the US I would consider double the median income middle class or upper middle class, still far from rich.

I think of “rich” as someone who can quit working right now and be able to live comfortably on their savings for the rest of their life. If they still need to work, that’s below the “rich” line.

I kinda like Chris Rock’s definition as well… something like: “you can lose rich if you pick up a drug habit… but if you’re wealthy, you can’t lose wealth… you can afford to do cocaine for the rest of your life if you’re wealthy”.

all taxes on the rich are good. Controversial, I know.

I think what may be more controversial is who you are grouping in as “the rich”. Does home ownership put someone on the /rich/ side of the line?

People with more than $10k USD worth of non-USD in the bank must report the account. I would move that line at least to $100k if the idea is to not harass & intrude on non-rich people.