Exactly what I was thinking lol

Right? It’s insane. I have been doing infosec since the 90s and it is wild how everyone back then was arm waving and doomsaying and talking about digital pearl harbor and all that… while nothing all that big was happening.

I mean they were right. But compared to the last ten years? Holy sweet baby Jesus. We’ve had dozens of digital pearl harbors. One after another.

And still most companies don’t take infosec seriously enough. Just as it is with any externality (climate change, pollution, people’s well being), anything beyond purely growing profits is low priority. So they are making the same mistakes, coding the same bugs, falling for the same social engr attacks. Over and over again.

Meanwhile there’s a huge profit incentive for the criminals and huge benefits for state level attackers, so they’re throwing everything they have at it.

If I’ve been involved in less than a couple dozen breaches by now I would be shocked.

Is anyone still alive on the planet who hasn’t been the victim of at least one data breach?

Hang a Trump flag and see what happens.

• yes, shocking no one
• They never did
• Racists actually believe that some people are “below” them and so they don’t really understand what “racism” or “bigotry” means. They feel they have a right to force others into their “rightful place” below them in their imaginary hierarchy. They believe they have a right to force people to conform. They refuse to empathize with those they loathe and so their actions are borne out of malice and cruelty.

I wonder what drives that kind of thinking? I am pretty sure I figured out at least by my second election if not first that the realistic choices are usually shitty and shittier. And I was politically a total idiot back then.

To be fair, one can argue that probably nobody really expects a “perfect” candidate. I imagine some are looking for a fairly good one, but find that the available options fall far short.

So it is probably more like “good is the enemy of the-sucky-but-not-criminal-fascist-traitor” lol.

Mind you I am a progressive but I’m also practical and see the long game, now that I’m middle-aged and finally getting a bit of a clue.

If we progressives want to pull the rank and file core DNC neoliberals left, we need a 20-50 year plan. We need to be working at the grassroots level to donate time and money to progressives at the local and state level, run for office ourselves even if it is just for a school board or city council post. We need to influence curriculums to tell more of the truth about unregulated capitalism, the benefits of socialized healthcare, organized labor, history. We need to discuss progressive ideas more in public discourse. We need to lobby for many things to get us out of the quagmire of regulatory capture, corruption, etc: oligopoly busting, campaign finance reform, etc.

And we need to focus on the elections of Senators and Representatives, because that’s where the power is at, really. The president isn’t going to get much done without Congress. And won’t get much done with them unless we have enough progressives instead of reagan-era conservatives in Democratic clothing (Manchin, Sinema, etc).

It took 50 years for the GOP to fuck everything up. It will probably take 50 to get it back in line.

That’s only as long as the GOP doesn’t get in power. If they do, they have told us they will increase the power of the executive branch which brings us closer to the autocratic model of governance that the original drafters of the Constitution were keenly interested in avoiding.

They will appoint partisan loyalists in key government positions which means brain drain and probably defacto repeal of various laws. Sort of like what happened with Ajit Pai in the FCC, the bullshit with USPS thanks to Louis DeJoy (remembering the decades of attacks on USPS by the GOP because if it ain’t privatized they cant get richer and oh it has to turn a profit despite being a fucking social service…), and the hobbling of the EPA under whoever that was.

I could go on but I’ve rambled enough.

It’s good to have solid plans like this!

Not familiar with Witmer but I would love to see someone like AOC or Sanders in power.

If they weren’t convinced by the Trump presidency, Jan 6, theft of classified materials, “grab em by the pussy”, the shady shit with Russia, Roe v Wade being torched, and the 2025 project, nothing will.

Yeah if they haven’t figured out what the consequences could be, someone telling them isn’t going to help. They’re already way too uninformed to have any real context or else their philosophy is one that is more concerned with the symbolism of an act than the real world outcome thereof.

I think it comes down to how one handles the Trolley Problem. Some folks feel that the most important thing is reducing the number killed even if it means effectively being a murderer by making the trolley kill one instead of letting it kill 10.

Others feel the act of doing nothing and permitting the death of 10 is morally superior to actively killing 1 (or, I guess that is what they believe?).

I am in the former camp and I cannot understand the latter camp at all. Maybe because I care less about whether I am a murderer (and I guess the 1 person) than I do about making sure 10 people aren’t killed.

Voter fraud is exceptionally rare. Instead, worry about disinformation, propaganda, voter suppression, and what the GOP does this time, if it loses the presidential election.

Certainly hearing the same tune over and over again. Seems like it could be a propaganda effort. It is a little hard to believe lots of people are this…obtuse?

I guess it is possible that if someone doesn’t consume any (reliable) news and has zero understanding of politics and how it matters to the everyday peon, then they might not have learned anything during the Trump presidency.

The adults in the room need to do whatever we can to get people to vote and donate time or money to campaigns. Local, state, and US Congress elections matter the most.

Do whatever the fuck you want.

So what candidate has your favor at the moment?

Or are you just not going to vote?

My plan for when I am in my 70s is to not be a traitorous lying sack of shit so I won’t get thrown in jail and die there. That fucker has been dodging consequences for decades.

Unfortunately, I suspect human tendencies for tribalism and prejudice will not completely vanish anytime soon. Which means reactionary assholes will always be around and we should never let down our guard.

For countries that are currently more progressive, beware. Education and entertainment are the first things they attack. By the time they’ve gotten enough power to rig the courts and control the reality of their followers, they’ve become an enormous danger.

It’s not meant to make logical sense.

It is so, so much better here, in so many ways.

Here:

Convinced?

Or a Republican. This one has shown his true colors before.

Well, I’ve been to Donetsk and Mariupol a decade prior to the Putin’s invasion (in 2014). Those two towns (less than a days drive part by slow Ukrainian bus, the latter on the coast) are now smoking craters thanks to shitbag loser Putin. All the cool people I met at the churches (now rubble) and the ones that went with us to see the Sea of Azov on a gray day including that dude showing off his Lada Niva… are probably all dead now.

I’ve heard the same Putin song and dance already. I bet he’d love it we actually bought into this bullshit and cut funding to Ukraine. And his Trumper lackeys seem to be serving him well.