I suspect people (not billionaires) are realising that they can get by with less. And that the planet needs that too. And that working 40+ hours a week isn’t giving people what they really want either. Tbh, I don't think that's the case. If you look at any of the relevant metrics (CO², energy consumption, plastic waste, ...) they only know one direction globally and that's up. I think the actual issues are Russian invasion of Ukraine and associated sanctions on one of the main energy providers of Europe Trump's "trade wars" which make global supply lines unreliable and costs incalculable (global supply chains love nothing more than uncertainty) Uncertainty in regards to China/Taiwan Boomers retiring in western countries, which for the first time since pretty much ever means that the work force is shrinking instead of growing. Economical growth was mostly driven by population growth for the last half century with per-capita productivity staying very close to inflation. Disrupting changes in key industries like cars and energy. The west has been sleeping on may of these developments (e.g. electric cars, batteries, solar) and now China is curbstomping the rest of the world in regards to market share. High key interest rates (which are applied to reduce high inflation due to some of the reason above) reduce demand on financial investments into companies. The low interest rates of the 2010s and also before lead to more investments into companies. With interest going back up, investments dry up. All these changes mean that companies, countries and people in the west have much less free cash available. There’s also the value of money has never been lower either. That's been the case since every. Inflation has always been a thing and with that the value of money is monotonically decreasing. But that doesn't really matter for the whole argument, since the absolute value of money doesn't matter, only the relative value. To put it differently: If you earn €100 and the thing you want to buy costs €10, that is equivalent to if you earn €1000 and the thing you want to buy costing €100. The value of money dropping is only relevant for savings, and if people are saving too much then the economy slows down and jobs are cut, thus some inflation is positive or even required. What is an actual issue is that wages are not increasing at the same rate as the cost of things, but that's not a "value of the money" issue.

The important thing is that the doomsday device runs Linux

Not our. i talk, and you talk. it is our discussion. It’s a discussion you are trying to have i am not trying to have, i am having it. here you are, replying to me. why are you trying so hard to prove that a discussion is not a discussion? it does not make sense. I labeled as a layman’s guess. yeah. and since i am more knowledgeable than you in this particular regard, i contributed some information you might not have had. now you do and your future layman's guess can be more educated. that is how the discussion works. and for some strange reason, you seem to be pissed about it.

So first, even here we see foundation money and big tech, not government. Facebook, Google, etc mostly love net neutrality, tolerate encryption, anf see utility in anonymous internet access, mostly because these things don't interfere with their core advertising businesses, and generally have helped them. I didn't see Comcast and others in the ISP oligopoly on that list, probably because they would not benefit from net neutrality, encryption, and privacy for obvious reasons. The EFF advocates for particular civil libertarian policies, always has. That does attract certain donors, but not others. They have plenty of diverse and grassroots support too. One day they may have to choose between their corpo donors and their values, but I have yet to see them abandon principles.

Damn, I heard this mentioned somewhere as well! I don't remember where, though... The CIA is also involved with the cartels in Mexico as well as certain groups in the Middle East. They like to bring "democracy" to many countries that won't become a pawn of the Western regime.

I wish the batteries were modular/interchangeable. You could just pull into a station, remove the spent battery and replace it with a full one, the spent one can then just get recharged and stored at the station for the next user to change out. You could even bring some extra ones in the trunk for a long trip!