#reasons of having https

[wernerherzogs]

What would be your ideal Buddie fic??

sorry if it'a s cop out answer but there isn't just one... it depends on what i'm in a mood for on any given day! sometimes it's a 10k pwp (x), sometimes it's a porny piece doubling as a character study (x), sometimes it's a devastating canon divergence story that's pretty much Literature (x), sometimes it's a canon divergence that maybe shouldn't work, but does (x), sometimes it's a fun au (x), sometimes it's a perfectly sized slice of life oneshot (x). you know?

[elderly-scrolls]

tentatively made an art blog after 14 years on this site...it's not properly set up yet but yeah if u mostly just wanna see my art then this blog is for u

[incorrect-league-of-villains]

Dabi: I can’t fucking stand you.

Geten: You don’t have to stand, there’s a chair right there.

Dabi, sitting down: Fuck you.

[gemini-queen42]

RAGHHH CRK OC BE UPON YE

this is actually my second crk oc, my first being Mold Cookie but I don't have any recent/updated art of her so- ANYWAYSS- meet HTTP cookie! The cookie you accept when entering a new website!<3

And below cut is my VERY rough rough (typos and all) idea of her backstory/lore rn:

[tompoose]

if you had to smite from the earth either nixon or garfield who would you eliminate. history will continue unchanged except if you smite nixon all the nixon memes disappear and if you smite garfield the orange cat goes with him

I would sacrifice anything that is dear to me to scrub this animal from all the veins of culture that it has slithered into. I was frustrated with the Garfield comic strip from the twentieth of August, 2024.

Jim Davis has given up trying to claw from the mud. He has drawn a cat looking at the reader and telling a wet joke. By making Garfield a mere static image to surround text, Davis has taken the work of his heart and lowered it to the level of the borders that surround a pop up window. My feelings on this topic eclipse and obliterate any other nuances to your question. If ever presented a shot at this king, I would take it.

[eternalstrigoii]

can I ask /gen/ why you'd write for Joan and Bert?? I dont want to be rude

Yeah, absolutely!

This comes in stages, ngl. Stage one being that Lola Kirke and Peter Dreimanis are both incredibly talented and gorgeous, and I lowkey highkey fell in love with both of them almost as bad as I did Jack-as-Remmick. (I listen to way too much of his music now. No shame in my game.)

Stage two being that I didn't even think about them as characters until I did a deep dive one night. I read a few articles discussing how Ryan built them up as characters instead of just leaving them to be surface-level secondary-antagonists, and I took those crumbs and started asking a few too many questions that other interviews (I am struggling to find the link, but I will -- the other is Lola's red carpet interview) decided to confirm. (This is not to say that my fanon interpretation is in any way Ryan's vision -- we were left deliberately Not Knowing on a plethora of things because he wanted us to talk about them, consider them, and ultimately harken back to the tagline of the film -- We Are All Sinners.*)

Stage three: The Yao Interview. The concept that vampirism changes you, but not completely. The implication that, while early on it appears to be incredibly deliberate puppeteering on Remmick's part, by the time the I Am Your Way Out scene occurs (I will give you a precise timestamp when I get a copy of the steelbook in two weeks; roughly ~30 seconds to a minute of footage), it doesn't seem like he's really pulling strings. (Granted, he has so many more vampires to contend with. I see the argument from both sides, I really do.) Bert and Joan arrive with Stack and Mary -- both couples laughing and in constant contact with their partners. Especially -- and I am going to expand upon this in a separate post because answering your question and proposing my theories are separate things -- considering how we were introduced to them, Joan and Bert. They do not stop touching one another. They are tactile, intimate, exhibiting public affection as opposed to simply occupying the same space in turn. And I am Prince Stolas when it comes to subtext, show and tell, and authorial / creator intent. I know this was deliberate, I just do not precisely know how.

Stage four is technically stage three in the timeline of events: Lola's Tiktoks. The tweenager who used to parry between heroism and villainy for Victor Creed is still alive and well in me, and when I get a crumb of tragic backstory, I whittle away at it like I'm going to find the essence of the characters buried in there. I think about her as a developed character and start sincerely understanding why Remmick would run the risk of adding people he despised** to his ranks -- because they are wrong, horribly wrong, but that doesn't mean they have no path to redemption.

Stage two into three was when I actually started writing about them (albeit unpublished). You have to start with what you're given and work your way inward. Yes, they're villains, yes, they were terrible people -- are they still? Did sharing memories with a thirteen hundred year old vampire who likely witnessed the first colonization of his homeland, let alone all of the brutality and systemic, institutionalized violence perpetuated to that day after, shift anything? Did losing their child?

And, finally, stage five: Ultimately, because I am not Ryan Coogler, everything I do or write for them, or Remmick, or anyone else is going to be an AU***. As rooted in reality as I may try to make any single work, I am creating transformative art of another person's vision. I am choosing to see the good in fatally flawed characters for narrative purposes. It may not hold water for you, and that's okay. But I'm still going to do it.

I would end this with I hope you don't think less of me for it, but that is beyond my control. I am shoving guilt in a trunk and padlocking it shut; I love you, but I don't have to prostrate myself for the right to pretend. I hope you'll join me on the journey anyway.

[dailyg3]

Could I request Alphabittle if you haven't gotten a request for her already? She's my favorite g3 pony!

I have posted her before, here ^_^

[knightobreath]

ok ii wiki editors. thats not what was happening and you know that

[welcometoqueer]

I haven’t really seen any of the more recent U.S. election news hitting tumblr yet so here’s some updates (now edited with sources added):

There’s evidence of Trump cheating and interfering with the election.

Possible Russian interference.

Mail-in ballots are not being counted or “recognized” in multiple (notably swing) states.

30+ bomb threats were called in and shut down polling stations on Election Day.

20+ million votes are still unaccounted for, and that’s just to have the same voter turnout as 2020.

There was record voter turnout and new/first-time voter registration this year. We definitely should be well over the turnout in 2020.

U.S. citizens are using this site to demand, not only a recount, but a complete investigation into election fraud and interference for the reasons stated above:

Here is what I submitted as an example:

An investigation for election interference and fraud is required. We desperately need a recount or even a revote. The American people deserve the right to a free and fair election. There has been evidence unveiled of Trump cheating and committing election fraud which is illegal. There is some evidence of possible Russian interference. At least 30+ bomb threats were called in to polling places. Multiple, notably swing states, have ballots unaccounted for and voting machines not registering votes. Ballots and ballot boxes were tampered with and burned. Over 20 million votes that we know of are unaccounted for. With record turnout and new voter registration this year, there should be no possibility that there are less votes than even in the 2020 election.

Sources (working on finding more links but if anyone wants to add info, it’s appreciated):

FBI addressing Russian interference and bomb threats:

Emails released by Rachael Bellis (private account, can’t share original tweet) confirming Trump committing election fraud:

Pennsylvania's Centre County officials say they are working with their ballot scanner vendor to figure out why the county's mail-in ballot data is "not being recognized when uploaded to the elections software:”

Wisconsin recount:

[ID:

Multiple screenshots and images.

The first is a screenshot with a link and information for contacting the White House directly regarding election fraud. The instructions include choosing to leave a comment to President Joe Biden directly and to select election security as the reason.

The screenshot then instructs people to include any or all of the following information in a paragraph as a comment to the president:

32 fake bomb threats were called into Democratic leaning poll places, rendering polling places closed for at least an hour.

A lot of people reporting their ballots were not counted for various reasons.

This all occurred in swing states.

This is too coincidental that these things happen and swing in his favor after months of hinting at foul play.

Directly state that an investigation for tampering, interference, fraud is required, not just a recount.

The second image is from the FBI Twitter account that reads:

The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains. None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far. https://t.co/j3YfajVK1m — FBI (@FBI) November 5, 2024

The next four Gmail screenshots of an email sent to Rachael Bellis from Chris T. Spackman that read together as follows:

Dear BELLIS, RACHAEL E., The Dauphin County Board of Elections received a challenge to your absentee ballot you applied for in the November 5, 2024 General Election. The challenge argues that a provision of the Pennsylvania Election Code takes precedence over the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which requires states and counties to permit U.S. citizens who move overseas to vote by absentee ballot for federal offices based on their last U.S. residential address.

The full text of the challenge that was filed appears below this email.

You may respond to the challenge in any of the following ways:

1. Call the Bureau of Registration and Election at (717) 780-6360;

2. Email a statement to the Bureau at Election election@dauphincounty.gov. Any statement you submit regarding the period during which you lived in Dauphin County, any family or connections that you still have here, and why you are now residing abroad would be read into the record.

3. Appear in person at a Board of Elections hearing scheduled for Friday, November 8 at a time to be determined in the Commissioners Public Hearing Room, 4th floor of Dauphin County Administration Building, 2 S 20d St, Harrisburg, PA 17111. The meeting is also likely to be livestreamed on Facebook on the Dauphin County channel.

Sincerely,

Christopher T Spackman

TEXT OF CHALLENGE BEGINS

Dear Dauphin County Board of Elections,

I am submitting this challenge to an absentee ballot application pursuant to 25 Pa. Stat.

3146.8(f).

25 Pa. Stat. 3146.8(f) Any person challenging an application for an absentee ballot, an absentee ballot, an application for a mail-in ballot or a mail-in ballot for any of the reasons provided in this act shall deposit the sum of ten dollars ($10.00) in cash with the county board, which sum shall only be refunded if the challenge is sustained or if the challenge is withdrawn within five (5) days after the primary or election. If the challenge is dismissed by any lawful order then the deposit shall be forfeited. The county board shall deposit all deposit money in the general fund of the…

The rest of the forwarded email is cut off.

The last image is a screenshot of the official statement from the Centre County, Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners released on November 6, 2024 that states:

Centre County Working with Ballot Scanner Vendor to Export Election Results.

(Bellefonte, PA) -Centre County Elections Office is working continuously to provide mail-in ballot data in order to post unofficial results.

To this point, all ballots have been scanned, including all mail-in ballots.

Centre County's Election team and IT team have identified that the data are successfully being exported from the mail-in ballot scanners, but that the data is not being recognized when uploaded to the elections software.

Centre County's Administrator, John Franek, Jr. stated, "We have not stopped working, and we will continue to work until unofficial results are posted and reported to the Pennsylvania Department of State."

As a next step, Centre County has begun working with the equipment vendor to adjust configurations to make the two systems-the mail-in ballot scanner and the elections software where data are uploaded -compatible with one another.

We will provide updates as we make progress.

/end ID]

[haircarecetres-blog]

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TELOGEN EFFLUVIUM

Telogen effluvium is a temporary hair loss problem. In this hair growth is again possible. Telogen effluvium is caused due to excessive stress taken or exerted upon an individual. As soon as the individual completes his stress period and leads a normal life. Lack of zinc, iron, and vitamins is a common cause of Telogen effluvium. Since hair loss in the Telogen effluvium is temporary, hair restoration procedures are not that advisable. Because removal of hair restoration destroys the new hair grown on the scalp

ANAGEN EFFLUVIUM

Anagen refers to the stage in the hair cycle where the hairs are still growing. In Anagen effluvium, hairs in the Anagen stage start shedding. This means new hair growth is there but those hairs that are newly growing too are shedding. Boils and fungal infections on the scalp cause Anagen effluvium. Hormonal imbalance and stress can also cause this condition.

ALOPECIA AREATA

Alopecia Areata is a kind of hair fall problem in which hair fall happens in a start — stop — restart pattern. Hair fall problems in general if started once in a lifetime will persist for a long time resulting in complete or partial baldness. In the case of alopecia Areata, it is different. It means, doesn’t happen continuously. Instead, the hair fall problem starts and then stops after some time. Then again starts after some days, months, or years and then again stops after some time, and again the same repeats. Another important thing you should know about alopecia Areata is that hair fall, in this case, is not because of a problem with the hair. It is caused because of an acquired skin infection that affects skin areas, causing hair fall.

TRACTION ALOPECIA

If you look great with dreadlocks, then be ready to get hair fall soon. And that hair fall problem is traction alopecia. If your hair styling involves pulling hair for a long time, then you should fear traction alopecia. Traction alopecia is a hair fall problem caused when hairs are tightly pulled for long periods. Traction alopecia stands at a different position among all other hair fall problems. Because it is not caused by any medical condition but is caused due to human effort to pull hair to make themselves look great.

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[fullhalalalchemist]

🚨KOSA is back and being pushed heavily in congress right now

I really hate to do this, but KOSA, the bill that is a mass censorship and surveillance bill that will specifically censor all LGBT content online to "protect kids", is back.

KOSA advocates have brought in support from Elon Musk (I wish I was making this up) and are trying to get him to get Donald Trump to speak out in support of it. (And they lie and tell us it's not an anti-queer bill 🙄). The reason so is because the holdouts that are stopping this from passing are...republicans. It's GOP House leaders Steve Scalise and Mike Johnson. If they succeed and put this in an end of year spending bill, it will be near impossible to get it out and it will most likely be passed. Pro-KOSA advocates were on the hill today pushing hard to pass it. They have a lot of support behind them. There is only two weeks left in congress, so if they don't succeed, it's over.

The ONLY way this bill has stalled so much so far is because of calls driven to congress. It has worked and can still work. Please, spread this as much as you can and call House leadership and spread the word! You don't have to be from their district. You can pretend to be GOP. It doesn't matter, just call and voice your opposition. Trump and Musk clearly have a lot of sway over these people and I'm really scared they will succeed at the last minute!!

Here are their numbers: Scalise: 202-225-3015 Johnson: 202-225-2777

If you don't know what to say, use either call script! It takes less than a minute, I swear.

SOURCE: https://x.com/omaseddiq/status/1866621865793314845?t=9pJm-QRdqJg30E_rVuhINw&s=19

[diogeneswannabe]

[anasbs]

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We are exhausted. We are starving. We are weak.😥

Our bodies are shrinking, and the signs of malnutrition are showing clearly on our faces and frames.

My brother and I struggle every single day just to find water.

Even when we do, it’s dirty and not safe to drink.

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Flour is now either unaffordable or simply not available.

We can’t even buy bread to survive.

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Your donations no matter how small could be the reason a child wakes up tomorrow.

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🔍 by association in this post

please donate to save our lives 💔

donation link:

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[plaguedocboi]

Why do so many cephalopods die immediately after reproducing?

Okay so the physical reason is that mating triggers a change in their brain chemistry and hormone levels that essentially poisons them and makes them behave strangely and stop eating. If the gland responsible for this change is removed, the cephalopod continues as normal and lives for many months after laying eggs.

But the evolutionary reason is the end-Cretaceous extinction. Cephalopods used to have a pretty huge variation in lifespan, ranging from a few months to over 200 years (https://www.iflscience.com/ancient-paperclipshaped-sea-creature-could-live-for-200-years-57685)

Large, long-lived cephalopods were hit hard by the mass extinction and those who survived did so by being short-lived and reproducing quickly, so they were selected for as cephalopods recovered from the extinction event. The most ancient species, the nautilus, can live for several decades and mate many times, hinting at the high diversity of life strategies that cephalopods used to have.

So yeah, the reason octopuses usually only live a year or two before self-destructing is because of that fucking asteroid.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla accused of hacking odometers to weasel out of warranty repairs

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me at NEW ZEALAND'S UNITY BOOKS in AUCKLAND on May 2, and in WELLINGTON on May 3. More tour dates (Pittsburgh, PDX, London, Manchester) here.

A lawsuit filed in February accuses Tesla of remotely altering odometer values on failure-prone cars, in a bid to push these lemons beyond the 50,000 mile warranty limit:

https://www.thestreet.com/automotive/tesla-accused-of-using-sneaky-tactic-to-dodge-car-repairs

The suit was filed by a California driver who bought a used Tesla with 36,772 miles on it. The car's suspension kept failing, necessitating multiple servicings, and that was when the plaintiff noticed that the odometer readings for his identical daily drive were going up by ever-larger increments. This wasn't exactly subtle: he was driving 20 miles per day, but the odometer was clocking 72.35 miles/day. Still, how many of us monitor our daily odometer readings?

In short order, his car's odometer had rolled over the 50k mark and Tesla informed him that they would no longer perform warranty service on his lemon. Right after this happened, the new mileage clocked by his odometer returned to normal. This isn't the only Tesla owner who's noticed this behavior: Tesla subreddits are full of similar complaints:

https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/1ca92nk/is_tesla_inflating_odometer_to_show_more_range/

This isn't Tesla's first dieselgate scandal. In the summer of 2023, the company was caught lying to drivers about its cars' range:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Drivers noticed that they were getting far fewer miles out of their batteries than Tesla had advertised. Naturally, they contacted the company for service on their faulty cars. Tesla then set up an entire fake service operation in Nevada that these calls would be diverted to, called the "diversion team." Drivers with range complaints were put through to the "diverters" who would claim to run "remote diagnostics" on their cars and then assure them the cars were fine. They even installed a special xylophone in the diversion team office that diverters would ring every time they successfully deceived a driver.

These customers were then put in an invisible Tesla service jail. Their Tesla apps were silently altered so that they could no longer book service for their cars for any reason – instead, they'd have to leave a message and wait several days for a callback. The diversion center racked up 2,000 calls/week and diverters were under strict instructions to keep calls under five minutes. Eventually, these diverters were told that they should stop actually performing remote diagnostics on the cars of callers – instead, they'd just pretend to have run the diagnostics and claim no problems were found (so if your car had a potentially dangerous fault, they would falsely claim that it was safe to drive).

Most modern cars have some kind of internet connection, but Tesla goes much further. By design, its cars receive "over-the-air" updates, including updates that are adverse to drivers' interests. For example, if you stop paying the monthly subscription fee that entitles you to use your battery's whole charge, Tesla will send a wireless internet command to your car to restrict your driving to only half of your battery's charge.

This means that your Tesla is designed to follow instructions that you don't want it to follow, and, by design, those instructions can fundamentally alter your car's operating characteristics. For example, if you miss a payment on your Tesla, it can lock its doors and immobilize itself, then, when the repo man arrives, it will honk its horn, flash its lights, back out of its parking spot, and unlock itself so that it can be driven away:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

Some of the ways that your Tesla can be wirelessly downgraded (like disabling your battery) are disclosed at the time of purchase. Others (like locking you out and summoning a repo man) are secret. But whether disclosed or secret, both kinds of downgrade depend on the genuinely bizarre idea that a computer that you own, that is in your possession, can be relied upon to follow orders from the internet even when you don't want it to. This is weird enough when we're talking about a set-top box that won't let you record a TV show – but when we're talking about a computer that you put your body into and race down the road at 80mph inside of, it's frankly terrifying.

Obviously, most people would prefer to have the final say over how their computers work. I mean, maybe you trust the manufacturer's instructions and give your computer blanket permission to obey them, but if the manufacturer (or a hacker pretending to be the manufacturer, or a government who is issuing orders to the manufacturer) starts to do things that are harmful to you (or just piss you off), you want to be able to say to your computer, "OK, from now on, you take orders from me, not them."

In a state of nature, this is how computers work. To make a computer ignore its owner in favor of internet randos, the manufacturer has to build in a bunch of software countermeasures to stop you from reconfiguring or installing software of your choosing on it. And sure, that software might be able to withstand the attempts of normies like you and me to bypass it, but given that we'd all rather have the final say over how our computers work, someone is gonna figure out how to get around that software. I mean, show me a 10-foot fence and I'll show you an 11-foot ladder, right?

To stop that from happening, Congress passed the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Despite the word "copyright" appearing in the name of the law, it's not really about defending copyright, it's about defending business models. Under Section 1201 of the DMCA, helping someone bypass a software lock is a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine (for a first offense). That's true whether or not any copyright infringement takes place.

So if you want to modify your Tesla – say, to prevent the company from cheating your odometer – you have to get around a software lock, and that's a felony. Indeed, if any manufacturer puts a software lock on its product, then any changes that require disabling or bypassing that lock become illegal. That's why you can't just buy reliable third-party printer ink – reverse-engineering the "is this an original HP ink cartridge?" program is a literal crime, even though using non-HP ink in your printer is absolutely not a copyright violation. Jay Freeman calls this effect "felony contempt of business model."

Thus we arrive at this juncture, where every time you use a product or device or service, it might behave in a way that is totally unlike the last time you used it. This is true whether you own, lease or merely interact with a product. The changes can be obvious, or they can be subtle to the point of invisibility. And while manufacturers can confine their "updates" to things that make the product better (for example, patching security vulnerabilities), there's nothing to stop them from using this uninspectable, non-countermandable veto over your devices' functionality to do things that harm you – like fucking with your odometer.

Or, you know, bricking your car. The defunct EV maker Fisker – who boasted that it made "software-based cars" – went bankrupt last year and bricked the entire fleet of unsold cars:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/10/software-based-car/#based

I call this ability to modify the underlying functionality of a product or service for every user, every time they use it, "twiddling," and it's a major contributor to enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Enshittification's observable symptoms follow a predictable pattern: first, a company makes things good for its users, while finding ways to lock them in. Then, once it knows the users can't easily leave, the company makes things worse for end-users in order to deliver value to business customers. Once these businesses are locked in, the company siphons value away from them, too, until the product or service is a pile of shit, that we still can't leave:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/26/ursula-franklin/#franklinite

Twiddling is key to enshittification: it's the method by which value is shifted from end-users to business customers, and from business customers to the platform. Twiddling is the "switch" in enshittification's series of minute, continuous bait-and-switches. The fact that DMCA 1201 makes it a crime to investigate systems with digital locks makes the modern computerized device a twiddler's playground. Sure, a driver might claim that their odometer is showing bad readings, but they can't dump their car's software and identify the code that is changing the odometer.

This is what I mean by "demon-haunted computers": a computer is "demon-haunted" if it is designed to detect when it is under scrutiny, and, when it senses a hostile observer, it changes its behavior to the innocuous, publicly claimed factory defaults:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/18/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

But as soon as the observer goes away, the computer returns to its nefarious ways. This is exactly what happened with Dieselgate, when VW used software that detected the test-suite run by government emissions inspectors, and changed the engine's characteristics when it was under their observation. But once the car was back on the road, it once again began emitting toxic gas at levels that killed killed dozens of people and sickened thousands more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-did-volkswagens-deception-cause-in-us.html

Cars are among the most demon-haunted products we use on a daily basis. They are designed from the chassis up to do things that are harmful to their owners, from stealing our location data so it can be sold to data-brokers, to immobilizing themselves if you miss a payment, to downgrading themselves if you stop paying for a "subscription," to ratting out your driving habits to your insurer:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

These are the "legitimate" ways that cars are computers that ignore their owners' orders in favor of instructions they get from the internet. But once a manufacturer arrogates that power to itself, it is confronted with a tempting smorgasbord of enshittificatory gambits to defraud you, control you, and gaslight you. Now, perhaps you could wield this power wisely, because you are in possession of the normal human ration of moral consideration for others, to say nothing of a sense of shame and a sense of honor.

But while corporations are (legally) people, they are decidedly not human. They are artificial lifeforms, "intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic" (as HG Wells said of the marauding aliens in War of the Worlds):

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/14/timmy-share/#a-superior-moral-justification-for-selfishness

These alien invaders are busily xenoforming the planet, rendering it unfit for human habitation. Laws that ban reverse-engineering are a devastating weapon that corporations get to use in their bid to subjugate and devour the human race.

The US isn't the only country with a law like Section 1201 of the DMCA. Over the past 25 years, the US Trade Representative has arm-twisted nearly every country in the world into passing laws that are nearly identical to America's own disastrous DMCA. Why did countries agree to pass these laws? Well, because they had to, or the US would impose tariffs on them:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/03/friedmanite/#oil-crisis-two-point-oh

The Trump tariffs change everything, including this thing. There is no reason for America's (former) trading partners to continue to enforce the laws it passed to protect Big Tech's right to twiddle their citizens. That goes double for Tesla: rather than merely complaining about Musk's Nazi salutes, countries targeted by the regime he serves could retaliate against him, in a devastating fashion. By abolishing their anticircuvmention laws, countries around the world would legalize jailbreaking Teslas, allowing mechanics to unlock all the subscription features and software upgrades for every Tesla driver, as well as offering their own software mods. Not only would this tank Tesla stock and force Musk to pay back the loans he collateralized with his shares (loans he used to buy Twitter and the US predidency), it would also abolish sleazy gimmicks like hacking drivers' odometers to get out of paying for warranty service:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/turnabout/#is-fair-play

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/15/musklemons/#more-like-edison-amirite

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[lorenzobane]

I know there is no end to horrible news we're getting out of the White House these days, and so many people are suffering. But this is really important and so monstrously, horrifically evil that it is making my stomach turn.

They want to defund and eliminate PEPFAR. If you don't know what PEPFAR is, it is a program that funds HIV/AIDS treatment in poor countries. "As of September 30, 2024 , PEPFAR has enabled 7.8 million babies to be born HIV-free to mothers living with HIV. The program has also provided critical care and support for 6.6 million orphans, vulnerable children, and their caregivers so they can survive and thrive."

This was actually a program started by GWB and was literally the only good thing he ever did. And it has helped so many people. This is just. Beyond evil. Beyond cruel. Even if they have the medicine from PEPFAR at clinics, they're not allowed to distribute it.

They've already paused it. Doctors are worried that it will create a new treatment-resistant form of HIV because it'll be pausing treatment for so many people.

This program has saved 26 MILLION lives.

It has such a tiny, tiny part of the budget. Them cutting this program will do nothing to balance the budget. There is no logical reason for this except abject cruelty. Please, please, please call your lawmakers- especially if you have Republican Senators and House members. Remind them that this was a program created by a Republican president.

I don't even know. I just. We can't just let it die in darkness. At the very least, spread the word. Talk to your normie friends about this. Talk to your non-political friends and ask them if they think a program that makes up less than 1% of the budget should be cut if it has saved MILLIONS of lives. We may fail but we shouldn't let it die without a fight.

Here is a link to find your House member: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

And your Senator: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm