Can you be sure you’re not already living in such a simulation?

*Unplugs spark plug wire with kinky intent*

I can imagine a new AI hellscape where LLMs are run on human brain cells in a test tube. So you’re never quite sure if you’re talking to a mere algorithm … or an enslaved proto-human who might be conscious and whose entire existence revolves around answering your inane online queries.

Wait for something really important and urgent to come up, and just before the deadline, call in sick for a couple days. Then turn your phone off, don’t check your email, etc.

When you get back into the office, perhaps opinions about needing additional IT staff will have changed.

Time to dust off ye olde DVD burner.

I should make a Schrodinger’s Linux.

Every command you enter has a 50% chance of being ignored, and the output of all commands is hidden and come with a 30s delay, so you never know whether the command was actually executed or not.

They all have to be inserted rectally, but the Linux pill vibrates and comes with free lube.

Windows pill you have to pay extra for lube.

Wait a minute … you’re trying to redpill me!

Really, though – is that not true?

There is already no expectation of privacy and anonymity anymore. Cameras are already everywhere, more and more of them interconnected and tracking your every step. If you want privacy and anonymity outside of your own home, you need to be wearing a mask, and maybe taking measures to disguise your gait and physical proportions as well. Having slightly more or slightly fewer cameras out there isn’t going to change that whatsoever.

Okay, then. I wish you the very best of luck in destroying every camera you see. Hopefully you’re wearing a mask and unidentifying clothes every time you go out.

If you see a ring door bell, they aren’t hard to kick or rip off the wall.

It is a bit more difficult, however, to do that without being caught, since they’ll probably have camera footage of you doing it.

Eh, you’re already on a dozen cameras every time you go outside. Security cameras, state surveillance cameras, doorbell cameras, cameras all over every modern car… What’s a few more?

A set of FOSS smart glasses powered entirely by local hardware and software that you own and control? That would be kind of neat.

Anything connected to and under the control of a big corporation, though … miss me with that shit.

Allegedly, they changed that because idiots were going to their work computer and expecting “My PC” to open the contents of their home computer.

And don’t worry, the mega-corp that has constantly lied about things in the past promises that all the data from the integrated app that gets sent back to company HQ only gets used for training better chatbots (probably) (maybe) (possibly) (unless it’s, like really good blackmail material). And every single thing you’ve ever typed into Notepad surely isn’t just sitting there on a company server, waiting for a subpoena from an increasingly authoritarian government to gain access to…

(And, of course, that program you coded in Notepad? The fact that it was used to train Microsoft’s next chatbot, which then went on to magically write code strikingly similar to yours to be integrated into the next Microslop project without notifying or compensating you in any way … purely coincidental, of course. It’s not stealing – it’s training. Running it through a chatbot first magically removes all copyright protection from your code.)

“We investigated ourselves and found no evidence of wrongdoing” in 3… 2… 1…

Be the change you want to see in the world and go post some better content, then.

I’ve never understood the blind rage you and others have for this artist.

Eh, OP’s post seems more ‘mild annoyance’ than ‘blind rage’, but okay.

In the grand scheme of things, they don’t really care about piracy.

Yes, they could greatly reduce piracy by making their service affordable, available, and convenient … but they would lose more profits from doing that than they currently do from piracy. They know enshittifying their service will result in increased piracy … but they also know that it will result in extracting increased money from the people who do pay. And, overall, their profits are still higher despite the higher piracy levels.

(Heck, in some ways piracy has been shown to be overall beneficial. To some degree, it’s free advertising, helping media spread through word of mouth. And maybe while they missed out on a media sale or subscription, they still end up making money from that pirate with a merchandise sale or something.)

I was about to say… Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I haven’t had the slightest issue with Linux audio. Ever.