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Not sure why you get downvoted, maybe bots problem is huge problem that should make users concerned? As for me, when facebook tried to force me to send scan of my ID over email in order to unblock my account I decided I benefit more by not unblocking it :) Facebook way was probably the wrong way to ensure your users are real human beings, but either way I like not to be verified when online.

Agree with everything you say. I mentioned WWII because during WWII Polish elites were systematically slaughtered by both invaders (Nazi Germans and Soviet Russia) - example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion, but also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre act of mass murdering of Polish officers who were mostly coming from Polish elites...

I have very similar thoughts about wars, I believe the mainstream narratives are only sliding on the surface of real underlying reasons behind wars.

I'm 36, was fascinated with electronics since I was 6 (I got Russian imitation of Atari - in the country where I come from computers were very expensive until 2000's). My cousin got a Pentium 386 when I was 12 and that's roughly when I wrote my first program - I still remember it as if it was yesterday, it was Q-Basic, I understood probably less than 5% of what I was doing and I wanted to write a program which would take password and let me in only when password is correct. At the time I was imagining computer programs like buildings with rooms. I wanted to have my own computer so I could do stuff with it - I was reading books about programming and taking notes until I was 16 (I understood close to nothing, but I was so on fire I did not care much). And when I finally got my first computer first thing I did was not o write a program but to play games, only when I got saturated and bored with games my fascination to computer programming came back.

I'm on about the same constant level of fascination since then, but it's not exactly the same thing that fascinates me. I was first fascinated by simple idea that I can build things I want and nobody can stop me from doing whatever I wanted to do. Later I was fascinated with data structures and how I can use them to do clever stuff (I was even taking part in programming Olympiads in my country, with no major successes - I was never taking it serious enough, it was always fun and not work). I remember my first job - I could not believe somebody will now pay me to work with computers. And so with my first job my fascination started to shift towards actual complexity I was building for my employer, I was thinking how do I make stuff which I can guarantee will work and in the same time I will be able to easily handle if anything stopped working. I was so under-qualified and there had been days I could spend 20 hours in a row battling silly problems and rewriting things to improve them. Later I started working with the team and fascination shifted towards security and scalability of solutions. I had privilege to work with many different persons, some not motivated (and not even hiding this).

Now I'm a simple programmer doing day-to-day work, there are days I'm not impressed with my performance, especially when I have to work with technologies I don't love - when this happens I try to rewire my mind to enjoy the tech I don't love. I won't name particular technologies no to get down-voted ;) for me to identify what exactly makes me feeling mentally blocked was the first step, the second step was to make a mental effort to like what I didn't like. Sometimes I could achieve this by building something on my own with these tools I did not enjoy, other times taking a break for a few days to recharge my batteries and come back with fresh mind. I also have dreams and ideas to build something on my own but to fulfill these dreams I need to remove some road blocks which require money, so earning and saving money motivates me for that simple reason. In the same time what demotivates me most is to get paid for the time I was not delivering much of the value. When I have such day I don't despair but instead remove main sources of procrastination and start fresh next day. My aim is to be happy with myself if I was my own employer.

The reason I wrote this whole story is that sometimes I go back with my memories to remember how was I feeling back then. This can also empower me and help me find ways around my mental blockers.

I'm not sure what do you mean, where I live there are cases of people who had been prosecuted without valid reason and was sentenced to years in jail. Such situations are awful since innocent human being was put through suffering and by the system which should protect innocent people. But this is not rule that governs juridical system, people do make mistakes - you cannot judge whole system by mistake made by random Joe, no system would stand such test. I prefer to be judged by state judge than by angry crowd or self appointed police. Mainly because even state judge and police are accountable for their actions, whereas crowd or self appointed guards may be difficult to find after actions are done.

In country where I live it is prohibited by law to promote fascism. So I think you are not right by saying company can do business with fascists (i.e. to promote fascism) if they like so. Such company would be dragged to court and owners would probably go to jail.

If coup is what he really have done then he should sit on his trial, right? This is very heavy offense, judges should decide and if they rule him guilty he should go to jail. It's judges who should decide if he is guilty or not, not AWS or Twitter.

As I understand those who were involved in any crime are going to be chased and put in front of the judge.

If you made death threats from your telephone to the point your neighbors threatened to discontinue their phone service because of the unwanted negative attention. The phone service would cut you off.

Not really, you would have police visiting you, probably followed by court action since death threats are punishable offenses. And yet, the phone company does not have right to cut your line off, unless judge ruled to do so (well, they could terminate your contract without the reason but then you would be able to go to court over this and phone company would end up covering all of the damages you claim).

I recently purchased PinePhone.

It is not consumer phone, it's in development stage - so for many people I think it would be too rough.

But for me it's brilliant. I am only making calls, texts and occasionally taking a photo. I don't need any productivity software (not even email). I am experimenting with "de-smartphoning" myself - I found myself constantly distracted even by presence of my phone. And now I'm calm :)

If you run a social network, you need to decide what posts to allow on your platform. Every platform needs some moderation, lest they be overrun with spam and porn and scams.

Agree, spam/porn/scams are problem on this kind of platforms. But social media is only tiny part of tech in general, and also spam/porn/scams is not really political. And I guess, if in example somebody posted hateful content or content that is bringing damage then this is what our juridical system should handle?

If you develop artificial intelligence, you need to determine what applications of the technology are ethical. Is it okay to sell to authoritarian governments? What about the US military? What about individual police departments?

Most of the times I - as an engineer - have no say when it comes to those issues - from my experience these are business issues, not technical. And I guess these issues are probably influenced by politics, to some degree.

If you develop hardware, or run servers, you need to consider your impact on the planet.

I'd say same as above - it's business to decide what to do about those issues. We as engineers think about efficiency - and had been thinking for decades, as far as my experience goes. I was always taught to build things that consume least amount of electricity, things that get from A to B with least effort. And Mr X or Mr Y being a president had no influence at those principles.

I humbly don't agree with the statement that technology is politics - it does not make me a better software developer if somebody or somebody else will be a president.

Even though there is an overlap (i.e. taxation, regulations and policies) and we could talk about this since these are the things that impact revenue. But discussion about politics outside of those things that affect us directly is leading to flame wars and unnecessary arguments that bring us nowhere.

Personally I feel even talking about taxes/regulations brings us nowhere as we have no way to influence them.

I'm reading HN for quite some time now and there is no a day go by that I would not see a political post.

I'm not American so I don't really follow facts of your political leaders or your racial/gender problems that your government is trying to address. I consider myself neutral and I would love to see no political posts on HN. They tend to spread into flame wars and as far as I can see bring no real value apart from people venting here..

And I think for that reason you should ban everyone who does politics, either if they hate or love one side or another. Strictly no politics. I love HN for its tech stuff, not political.

I meant the original comment, that soon there will be no PC that runs Linux - I do hope for this because I feel this would be perfect business opportunity for somebody to come by and build PC's that run Linux and sell them for $ :)

If people buy it then, well, they are fine with it.

I don't think people have much choice these days. If you want a smartphone then you will either get something from Apple or from Android people. There are other choices but are they mainstream? In my local shops I can't see anything else. Android or Apple.

That's why I'm buying PinePhone and going to waste lots of my life to make it fit my needs, but I hope once time is spent I will be happier human being ;)