The age restrictions for Discord were implemented already in my country a few months ago, that’s why I know it works that way

For what it’s worth, I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and online grooming, and IMO this policy does not make vulnerable kids any safer at all. As a kid, growing up, I was desperate for any validation and even kindness because of my neglectful/abusive home situation and that need was exploited by adults who provided me the emotional connection I needed/wanted, which was then twisted into a romantic/sexual relationship. That’s the risk, and all it needs is a basic chat functionality - once it has started, the groomer can very easily “help” the young person bypass any and all “protections” through any number of methods, including just switching to another platform.

The reality is that most kids are far more at danger from abusive adults in their lives - their parents, family, friends, teachers, etc. - than they are at danger from the Internet. The reason I was vulnerable to abuse online is because I was already abused IRL. If you (or anyone) has concerns about their kids safety online, by far the best thing you can do is just to be there for them, be a trustworthy, kind and loving adult in their lives. That way, when creeps online talk to them, they won’t be needy for the attention, they won’t be vulnerable, and if something makes them uncomfortable, they’ll come and talk to you about it.

Anyways, went off on kind of a tangent, but I hope it’s helpful/informative anyways.

Discord age restrictions prevent an underage user from viewing - but not sending - nude pictures.

This isn’t to protect kids. It’s to enforce increasingly authoritarian control over the web.

The reality is that there never will be, because the feature set offered by Discord is functionally impossible to provide to the public without charging a subscription fee most users would be unwilling to pay. It’s a doomed business model, where enshittification and being acquired is inevitable.

Agreed, Matrix works fine as a toy, but it breaks down after a year or two with even a moderate amount of chat.

To be fair, destructive scanning isn’t like they destroy it for no reason - to scan a book quickly you need to remove all of the leaves from the binding (this operation is usually irreversible) and feed them into an automatic document feeder scanner. If you need high quality scans of a physical book it’s really the only way to go.

I strongly recommend against using bluetooth connectivity unless completely necessary. Bluetooth is used for tracking, monitoring and detection. It is very precise. Your position can be triangulated with it and tracked in real spacetime using hardware that costs literally less than $5 without any warrant, license or restriction.

I strongly recommend getting USB-C adapter for headphones and opting out of smart wearables which rely on bluetooth.

I doubt LLMs are being used much for COBOL, if anything it’ll be used in a “replace this COBOL with Java”. COBOL is used as legacy code and most of it has already been rewritten in Java.

As someone who knows COBOL, I’d say, don’t bother. People over exaggerate the availability and remuneration of COBOL jobs. Maybe they used to be well paid or there used to be lots of jobs, but it’s pretty much a myth these days.

At a certain point, you’re fucked anyways - if the administration goes even further fascist eventually they’ll connect you to SOMETHING, even if it’s some asshole ex co-worker telling the Gestapo they once overheard you speaking critically about President Tucker Carlson. Opsec is important and should be taken seriously, but we need to always keep our security and safety in perspective, and always keep in mind that the security/safety we feel from the status quo is 99% illusory.

Most of these apps were probably put together in a massive rush in response to people suddenly becoming aware of the threat that ICE poses. My guess would be that the most egregious security flaws are a result of vibe-coded (i.e. AI generated) code where it really shouldn’t be.

Trump isn’t the problem, the problem is twofold - firstly, Trump won the popular vote, meaning that at least half of active voters voted for a totally incompetent fascist. This suggests a slightly more competent fascist would be even more successful.

The second problem is that the system that makes fascism inevitable will remain in place and no amount of voting will ever dismantle that system, because the powerful & wealthy ruling class work very hard to ensure the system that keeps them wealthy & powerful stays that way.

The only way to change the system is to dismantle it completely.

My point is that we need to recognize that Fascism is already here and that we need to accept that democracy has failed us here. We need to fight for a better world, we can’t just vote our way out of this.

Clapping our hands and saying “I do believe in Democracy!” won’t bring it back.

if you’re still scared of china at this point the propaganda has unfortunately broken through and taken root in your brain stem, i’m sorry, there’s very little any of us can do to help you

mate… the US is by far the most evil country on the international stage, the whole china scare stuff was the US telling everyone what they’ve been doing to US-owned social media all along… this is nothing new or surprising, if you’re just now waking up to this reality I’m sorry you’ve been asleep for so long, but I’m sorry to let you know this is gonna get worse before it gets better. The only chance the US has of avoiding falling deeper into fascism is to have a socialist revolution.

People’s trust in democracy SHOULD BE 0%. It’s all fake, it always has been. It’s an illusion of control for us, so we don’t resist and try to break free of the open-air prison we live in.

Revolution is the only way out.

yeah, 100%, and there is no satisfaction in being proven right for this shit, the vindication is absolutely hollow. It sucks for everyone.

Should work fine, I run it on Steam with proton 10! Good luck & have fun!

what if we abolish capitalism?

Yeah but good luck getting it working reliably on modern Windows. Runs great on Linux. It’s probably the last truly great C&C game, if you ask me. C&C 3 was alright too I guess…

They exist in several countries but are most active in the US, the UK, Canada, Oceania, and Europe. Which is still, indeed, a disproportionately problematic but still relatively small part of the world, but also probably most of the userbase of Lemmy