Bit of a nuanced take, a trimmed down copy-paste from another comment of mine prior. Tl;Dr: he’s a product of the system that left the system.

Snowden was an individual that worked in the intelligence community in the mid-2000s. In this era, the American populace was so afraid of terrorism they signed away freedoms for national security. In this post 9/11 world, patriotism was a given, almost nationalistically, if you were American. It’s fair to say that a highly nationalistic media and culture can influence the individual to embrace those mentalities more… even if it perverts your true best interest. Snowden likely viewed service to the NSA as patriotic, and in support of his fellow Americans. While he started off supporting it, he soon saw immorality, and decided to resist against them with what I see as an effective measure. I feel that for most whistleblowers, this logic applies. I wanna say “Good job, but still shame on you for taking the job to begin with,” yet this system we’re in can cause us to support things we otherwise wouldn’t like.

Looking to modern issues: The manipulation of individuals, mass surveillance, leveraging of government by powerful. Critisizim of these was always there, but where it was pointed at and pursued sure felt a lot different after Snowden.

So, different mentalities express themselves in different places. For my workplace, talk about AI as an innovation happens more often. In my day-to-day, all the talk is concern about a new datacenter going up in our community. In the internet, people seem largely against AI. I find it to be a symptom of certain environments leveraging a different thought process.

I think it’s pretty fair to say, the internet overall cares deeply for expression and humanity, to which AI has fed off of to train, and now regurgitates in inhuman speech. This affects us all, and makes the overall internet experience worse. Oppositionally, AI has allowed businesses to streamline workflows. No more fluffing up an email with bullshit to “sound professional,” just have an AI do it for you and save the time. And as for local datacenters, no shame if you don’t know what they do to communities, but I don’t think you’d believe a Lemmy comment if it’s your first time hearing of it.

Not gonna lie chief, this seems like a negative stereotype. Men are just as guilty of this.

You’re trying to spell check a farmer. We simply do not care.

I know its a joke, but man I just bailed hay yesterday and I’m really feeling it. My nephew had his first time bailing, fella looks like a bit of a twig, and I could tell he was struggling with it. As is usual, I had to pickup the slack, just as my family did when I was new to bailing as a kid. Bet he can’t wait until the next field is ready next week.

This the type of shit that he’d name “The Trump Dollar”

Got librewolf, turned the settings a bit more strict than what comes base so cookies and site data don’t even get saved. Makes me feel good, with that level of ease.

Quick disclaimer, some of this sounds more snarky than I wanted, so apologies in advance. Also Tl;Dr: this isn’t another pandemic, just a new disease.

Real talk, I only heard of it yesterday. Thing is, and the internet reeeeaally doesnt like this sorta thing… it isn’t a big deal. It only takes a few searches through studies to see, and even then there’s articles that do a deep dive that explain how this virus works that are just openly found on google without much digging at all.

So, what it has going for it is that the virus started off as a plague. That meaning that it transmitted itself from animal to human. Exceptionally rare chance, yet our immune system is not setup to deal with it as we’ve historically never been exposed to it. Looking into this specific virus, there are several strands we’ve identified. The vast majority of which have an insane death rate, save for a single normal-rate strain for a typical cold.

Here’s the kicker. The type that’s spread without incredible difficulty is the type that’s akin to a normal, run of the mill cold. The high death rate strains are simply not easy to get. Yet when people share info about it, what’s mentioned is how contagious the low-death rate strain is, and the death rate of the more dangerous ones that don’t spread easily. Looks like a nightmare so it grabs headlines, but really it’s not all too horrible.

Worth noting: Thunderbird also has this vulnerability. TailsOS users who care heavily about opsec are probably seething rn.

I do not know the internals as far as desired, but USPS was developed to be completely self-reliant, as in no funds should be extracted or provided to/from any government’s budget. Massively oversimplifying here, this means that managers are incentivised to push workers they do have, and avoid hiring new workers where extra aid is needed. Throw in a burecracy that does incentivize lower performing carriers to be promoted, and now there’s a a management issue.

For those looking to get into the postal service, the crappy management is a hurdle to deal with, and the hiring procedure is a manifestation of that.

Not to stray away from it, as some people enjoy it thoroughly, but USPS tends to be a very finicky place to work at. It often doesn’t lead into career growth, the workplace can get bogged by bad management, and the phrase “Going Postal” happened enough to become a common concept.

Ahh, reminds me of the gym membership I’d started just a few weeks ago. Small town thing, I knew the owner by name, yet they used an online service that required every little detail of your personal life to sign up, like why use such a thing? I asked him that, and its just because it’s convenient for his small-scale company to use.

Turns out, it didn’t actually care if your info was right, save for a card to charge. Put in some random driver’s license number and guerilla mail email, just sucks I didn’t have a knockoff phone number.

It really makes you wonder, why need all that? I know the answer, I just wish I could see it with my own two eyes, what all data brokers do dealings for that info.

One passed, the other has yet to be presented. These legislators have no clue how they’d even do it, but circumventing the scan is also made illegal.

So yeah, flashing Open-Source firmware is something they dont like either, but fingers crossed they just choose to not allocate resources to enforcement. Wouldn’t be surprised if this 3D printed missile mentioned in the article above comes up ad a taking point during the legislative hearings.

Washington state already started making moves against it, as an attempt to prevent 3D printed firearm components. Specifically, it requires 3D printers sold within the state to have firmware-based scanning to cancel prints it suspects are used for firearms, alongside criminalizing the possession of files ruled as ‘firearm compoments’.

One bill is in the House, the other passed into law. Gonna make it a real rough ride ahead for tinkerers into 3D printing, especially if we’ve gotta design around “Oh boy, I sure hope my pencil holder doesnt get flagged as an illegal item.”

Edit: One of two bills passed: HB2320 and HB2321. HB2320 is currently law, and HB2321 is awaiting presentation to the House.