Yeeeees. We need more to to hop on this train and move away from conglomerates and towards digital sovereignty. But go Lyon!

Publicity stunt or not, this is the right move. If I wasn’t so skeptical or even suspicious of companies, I would even call this a noble attitude.

Yup.

That’s what I thought. The curse is in the fact that he can’t technically have the boulder remain balanced at the top. He would be free if he could get it to stay up there, but no matter how much and how hard he tries, the stone will always role down. It’s been a long time but that is what I remember from it.

Anyway, the sysyphus myth is supposed to illustrate what we today can also call Sysyphean tasks. Like brushing our teeth, getting a hair cut, cleaning the house, etc etc because no matter how many times we’ve done them, we’ll always will have to do them again and again until we die. The meditations of the philosphers always have to contend as to how Sysyphus or more accurately we accept that life sentence.

I’m not sure that is necessary to go that far, unless one wants to. Both Volla and Jolla phones and Fairphone 5 version with /e/os are all degoogled out of the factory. Sailfish and Ubuntu touch are great Smartphone OS options. If you haven’t tried it on someone else’s phone, you should, they’re both really great.

But I completely support people using dumbphones. Getting away from the hassle and hustle of an app centered world is quite refreshing.

I’ve degoogled my Samsung Android quite a while ago. And, no, I don’t have Google Play Services in the background either. Completely degoogled. If you don’t know how to jailbreak it to remove the apps entirely, you can just deactivate the apps and uninstall the updates from them. It will free a lot of space and memory and your battery will last longer. My phone is over 5 years old and the battery lasts over 4 days. Although I only have two non-system apps installed, voyager for Lemmy and Pixelfed. And when I travel and need directions I install Herewego or Mapy. I take turns between them. When I don’t need them, I uninstall them. And that’s it. No Meta shit (no, not WhatsApp either), no youtube, nothing. I do my banking in person. Malware is getting too good too fast with A.I. as a sidekick for hackers. This is a huge cybersecurity concern all over. One can risk it out of convenience, I won’t. If the bank gets fucked on their end, the money is ensured, if I get fucked on my end, it isn’t. It’s that simple.

Anyway, there are decent European alternatives for both Smartphones and Dumbphones. And yes, we should support them. Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft are some of the worst companies out there.

I supposed the answer theses days is just the latter. I was really deep into youtube at one point, but I realised that the YouTube algorithm regardless of what I did was always trying to rage bate me. I follow a lot of environmentally conscious news and subsequent activism and solutions. And on YouTube, the algorithm was always throwing me climate deniers, flat-earthers or doomsday preppers because permaculture for instance has been invaded a lot by this last subgroup I mentioned. Didn’t matter how much I clicked do not recommend this channel. I started experimenting with it and realised this was a feature in the expeience. So I decided to take a break from youtube, and started feeling a lot less anxious and less on edge in daily conversations. So I just deleted the account.

Not all of the channels and content creators I liked are on Nebula. Not at all. But Nebula and Curiosity stream alongside it as a package is a much ealthier and less deranged place to be for me. But I don’t use them all that much either anymore.

Peertube is interesting for me and a specific subgroup of us that land here on Lemmy, I think we are their very tiny core audience. As fediverse believers I guess. But I doubt that peertube can grow. The model is not profit driven, and therefore people who make their livelihood from youtube will never transition to it.

I just reclaimed my own intention online. I only use non-algorithmic driven platforms. I want to drive my experience and only go where I decide to click and not be “influence bombed” with suggestions. So, no Meta for me either. No reddit anymore either. For the same reasons. That place has been a shit show for a long time now like YouTube. I have a Pixelfed account and a Lemmy account and that’s it. This Lemmy account is recent but is only because Lemmee is shutting down, and that is where I was registered until a couple of days ago. Not even paying for Nebula or any streaming service anymore.

I’m sharing my experience, not trying to convince you of anything. We all have different needs, expectations, and should make our decisions according to our contexts. And YouTube has really incredible people in there. But to me it was too much like trying to find diamonds in a cesspool like situation. But that was me.

But if you’re struggling with some form of anxiety, I really suggest you take a break from it all, even Lemmy. At first you’re gonna feel really bored and restless, but not long after you are gonna feel a lot calmer. It really feels like detoxing.

If you’re fine, then ignore this last bit. And I hope you keep being fine.

Cheers.

I suggest you check the degoogle communities here on Lemmy, or the reddit one (idk if you still use reddit) for the alternatives that suit you. I’ve degoogle for quite a while and never looked back. I don’t even use YouTube anymore. But us that degoogle, don’t necessarily choose the same alternatives, as we have different needs, requirements or skills. And there are a lot of options, especially if you are willing to pay for services as you obviously are given your predicament.

If this is due to you owning a small business and this has been your chosen service, the shift can be a bit daunting, but many people have degoogle their small businesses with no problem and even saved money afterwards. This depends on what you end up choosing.

I’m sorry for the situation you’re in. Take your digital sovereignty back as a response to this type of corporate decisions. And remain vigilant. As some of the alternatives might become as corrupt one day.

Good luck on whatever your decision may be.

The DSM contains a wide range of disorders and illnesses, and just because one can find a diagnosis cataloged in the DSM does not mean it is naturally inherited or genetically predisposed. Any diagnostic deriving from trauma such as PTSD as a quick example would not fit genetic predisposition. But Narcissism can indeed derive from genetic predisposition if found in correlation with another clinical profile such as psychopathy, for instance, which research really found genetic predisposition for. Psychopathy will always contain Narcissism as a “feature” (for a lack of a better word) of the profile. But Narcissism as an isolated “feature” can be learned behaviour or accidentally re-enforced environmentally. Examples would be parents who immensely spoil an only child or learned behaviour by imitation in a setting, such as growing up in Hollywood, just to name two basic and obvious examples. Not to mention that sociopathic beahaviour is encouraged by capitalism, which is also intertwined with perceived Narcissism. It’s a mess. Nature VS Nurture always is. This is all surface level of discussion, obviously. We could spend hours and hours on this. I hope I wasn’t an annoyance though. Just thought to chime in between the two sides to say that is more nuanced than it is either one or the other.

As to this person in question… it’s just another tech bro shitshow trainwreck of a human being. As to what is the Nature or the Nurture in this mess of an individual, I’m not so sure. These Silicon Valley like settings definitely attract these profiles, but it also definitely re-enforces this type of behaviour. Through mirroring or even peer pressure, emulation of behaviour can become inherent behaviour over time. So, who knows?