To continually focus on what happened a century and a half ago in a totally different region of Africa than east Africa and to simultaneously be unable to speak about what is happening currently here feels like the conversation is being guided. Like if one speaks about the inhumane practices of the mines in Congo which are 80% owned by Chinese companies the conversation immediately shifts to something that happened in the past and/or some other region of Africa. It’s like we can’t even communicate about anyone having bad behavior in Africa except for America or an EU country. Clearly no country is anyone’s friend and for sure no one is friends with any African country. Just look at the media coverage of Gaza vs the coverage of the concurrent genocides in Africa, namely Sudan and Ethiopia. It’s absolute crickets in the global news. That’s to say Africa is just a fun talking point for people to feel better and not actually a place people care about.

Not where I live. Few people even have smartphones and there’s no garbage trucks.

The most lucrative would be dogs, cats, or horses.

Support what you use. It’s best to be involved

Rule of thumb is two days or two poops, that’s the time to shower.

I live in east Africa and for some reason people here have a focus on western slave trade and seem to mostly ignore middle eastern slave trade that’s still active to this day. There’s a strong anti-west focus and somehow bad things done by anyone else mostly gets ignored or if it is brought up then the conversation quickly shifts to what western powers have done. It’s almost as if it can’t be spoken about.

You’re better off getting better friends. Let them fade out of your life.

Number one thing is knowing where and when not to be somewhere. If this is more so about a woman and avoiding a sexual abuse then literally having an object visible is a strong deterrent aka like an umbrella. Usually attackers will avoid everyone except for who they think is an easy target.

Pema Chodron’s Welcoming the Unwelcomed is good. So is nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg.

I mean we can install data sensing butt plugs into every last citizen and get even more data and even more security.

Yes and no. Like towns have town halls where such issues are voted on or debated. There are most definitely actions individuals and more importantly communities can take to stop the spread of distributed surveillance. There are already laws about filming in private locations aka it’s currently illegal for someone to be filming in a public restroom or in your house or in a business they don’t own.

Yeah it’s a more jarring and immediate concern than the amorphous state level data collection and profiling concern of distributed systems although both boil down to privacy concerns. Like its one thing to have a dash cam in your car or a household security camera or even for a business to have internal and external security cameras it’s another thing all together for the state to have a distributed camera network accurately tracking everything you’re doing or for an Individual to be illegally recording in private locations to make compromising content.

How do we feel about flock or similar camera networks around the world? Like yeah a dude with cameras on his face is one issue and then there’s the systemic distribution of millions of cameras which is arguably worse but feels more normal to many.

I think we’ve run afoul of two issues. How do you define Marxism-Leninism? Through which means do you know its correctness?

If you know its correctness through implementation and then measuring the results then that’s science testing a hypothesis. For example I know my nose is between my eyes because I can measure through my senses and test that idea repeatedly until I have statistical confidence that’s the location of my nose. If for some reason the location of my nose changes then that information can be updated with testing and measurement most likely through my senses.

If you know through some other means like spiritual revelation then it’s still the case that the concept will have measurable outcomes we can use to test and compare with other concepts to verify its correctness.

Yes designer babies are totally going to be a thing. The ethical discussion we had about this in college boiled down to it being ethical if and only if an individual could choose to undo and redo the changes as they desire.

I’ve run into that argument from the deaf community. It’s a tough one, should a community of people have more of a say over what health outcomes are chosen than the parents of said child?

Ultimately technology should make whatever one wills be (short of causing suffering to other minds). Anything less than this is insufficient or otherwise broken technology. Theoretically if we had sufficient technology one could take any form whatsoever they desire at any moment with any senses they desire and so on. Now it’s a quite far fetched concept short of us gaining the ability to digitize our minds or otherwise inhabit simulated realities. To achieve this in physical reality would be quite difficult.

The issue you’re really getting at is the unequal spread of technology and our current technological limitations. Minds should be maximally free to experience whatever they desire short of causing other minds suffering.

You’re correct, the best aspect of science is the self revision built into it unlike other systems. The problem with a lot of political philosophies is they suffer from the same blindness but don’t have a system that is ultimately self revising. Once again if what you are saying is true then it will be shown through repeatable measurement, and testing. There’s no need to depend on feelings when we can have facts. If Marxism-Leninism is the most optimal form of governance for producing human wellbeing then a system designed to discover the most optimal form of governance will reproduce it. Putting political philosophy before science is putting the cart before the horse, aka Marxism-Leninism is a good hypothesis we can test using a stronger mental construct called the scientific method.

Yeah most countries have been seriously lacking on the HDI and environmental impact aspect of what I consider to be the best optimization for human wellbeing. Production is amazing, more food, better medicine, more efficient energy sources but it has to be for a reason, not just to do it. Of course capitalism tries to quantify this through market demand but unfortunately people and governance are easy to game if one has enough capital aka people can be convinced either directly or through ignorance to support markets that are harmful to their wellbeing and the environment.

It is, I mean unless we start forcing people to adopt kids they don’t want to adopt or something else I’m not sure that will change anytime soon. As for me in my family it’s more like accidental adoptions aka a more distant family member can’t take care of their kid whose 10 then someone else takes them in. It worked that way with family friend’s kids as well. It’s not like official legal guardianship or adoption, more so an informal familial help.

I mean yeah the scientific method and the tools of science, namely mathematics are indeed branches of philosophy, so is aesthetics but that doesn’t mean science is aesthetics even though they both are philosophy. Now if the claim that Marxism-Leninism is “correct” aka is the most optimal form of governance for producing human wellbeing then of course a system dedicated to finding through scientific enquiry the most optimal means of governance will scientifically prove it is through all possible measurements. There’s no need to have feelings when we can have proof, quantifiable, measurable, repeatable proof. Once again science and specifically the scientific method doesn’t need hand holding, the process will derive the most optimal means of governance regardless of people’s seemingly infallible worship of this political system or that political system.

Maybe a terminal based browser like lynx, w3m, links2, browsh and the like. They are html only so it is going to limit the websites you can easily or reasonably access but it’ll work with an infinitesimal data connection.