these are just some random things i yell about. they are mostly opinion.

technology.

the proliferation of disposable technology (and/or the notion of planned obsolescence) is necessarily an ephemeral trend. the difficulty in continuing to manufacture complicated parts, as well as sourcing scarce minerals, will only lead to an increase in supply chain issues unless we begin demanding devices that are designed with longevity in mind, both in robustness and in serviceability. paramount importance should be placed on replaceable batteries.

the design of applications and operating systems with ever-greater requirements cannot continue indefinitely. currently (2022), mobile operating systems and browsers should be able to run adequately with 4GB of system memory but if these requirements are left to grow unchecked, it will lead to ever-greater amounts of resource usage. we are already at the point where flagship phones have specs that are equal to or greater than entry-level PCs, yet flagship phones that have aged several years aren't even worth $100.

device manufacturers should be required to allow unfettered development of software and operating systems by end users. this includes providing software to flash/modify UEFI and bootloaders. if a device is manufactured with a specific operating system, they should be required to provide at least 5 years of software and security updates.

the device you have is almost always enough -- unfortunately, a lesson i've learned through experience.

if you don't pay for it, then (generally speaking) you're the product, not the customer. the web is "free" because of ads, tracking, affiliate links/referrals, and a few people who pay actually for things. if everyone blocked all advertising and never paid for content, the internet would collapse. consider supporting creators however you can (patreon, merch, affiliate links, etc). i put this up here at my own expense for my own inscrutable aims. there are no trackers and no ads here. weirdos like me are the exception.

nfts are a grift. if you're excited about them, it's because you're either a grifter or a mark. this is probably true for all crypto.

politics and economics.

america is fucked. i don't know how to fix it. i don't know if it can be fixed, reasonably. almost every major institution needs drastic reform (see: healthcare, education, workers' rights, criminal justice/law enforcement, elections, environmental protection, power, general infrastructure, etc). the two-party system is basically rigged to perpetuate itself indefinitely. districts are gerrymandered to hell and back. i think that everyone knows, on some level, that america is fucked and it's not getting better any time soon. we're stuck in an arms race to fuck our neighbor before they fuck us. i used to keep a text file open on my personal computer with everything that i'd do if i ever had dictatorial control of the united states; a wish list of reforms, if you will. i stopped because it got too long and too depressing to behold.

there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. we are required to participate in capitalism in order to survive but that does not justify it. we should prioritize "less unethical" spending -- buy sustainably produced goods, buy local, buy in bulk, buy things with minimal and biodegradable packaging. for higher-end goods, buy things that can last a long time with proper maintenance. in the long term, we should prioritize the overthrow of capitalist systems.

philosophy.

there is no such thing as free will. our brains engage in such a high level of autonomic function that we can't sensibly say that some unseen "we" has causal control over our actions. our brains process an inordinate amount of sensory information and regulate our systems beyond creating and maintaining the sensation of the specious present, which itself is merely a useful confabulation. our memories are notoriously imprecise and we frequently act before thinking, then remember deliberating and choosing to do what we did. moreover: our bodies are purely physical objects (matter and energy explicable in the language of science) and therefore operate within those nomological boundaries. whether or not determinism is true, the laws of nature can fully explain the states of every part of our bodies from one step to the next; if free will were also true, we would expect that there should be some states where that was not the case. given the very minute scale at which these interactions occur, the forces needed to exert our will upon them would be both immediately apparent and bizarrely unlike anything else that exists.

nothing has a meaning or purpose beyond what you make of it. some people despair over this, and that's their choice. i choose to view this as liberating. we are not required to "make something" of ourselves or our lives. that doesn't mean that we don't have responsibilities (e.g. ethical considerations).