AccountMaker

joined 1 year ago
 

MetaGer, the privacy-focused search engine of the non-profit association SUMA-EV, will no longer exist in its familiar form. It will still be possible to use the token-financed service. Nothing will change for members and users who use MetaGer with a key. However, it is the ad-financed search that has ensured the main part of the revenue and thus the operation and further development. Unfortunately, this “normal” search is no longer possible as of today. This is just as dramatic as it sounds: it is no longer possible for SUMA-EV to continue to employ staff. All employees are being made redundant, as are the offices.

The reason is that Yahoo terminated our contracts unilaterally and without any notice on Monday. Upon request, we were merely informed that Yahoo would no longer be operating the business in Germany. For us as the operator of MetaGer, this means on the one hand that we no longer receive any advertising revenue, which has been used to pay for office space, servers and employees. On the other hand, we will also no longer be able to deliver our search results as part of the ad-financed search. Only with Yahoo did we have a central deal to receive search results in return for advertising. This no longer applies.

What happens now? MetaGer's supporting association, SUMA-EV, will continue to exist. It will also still be possible to buy a key for the token-financed search and search with MetaGer. With this model, MetaGer will still be able to query paid search engines and deliver the results without tracking as usual. We will also continue to work for SUMA-EV and MetaGer on a voluntary basis to ensure the operation of this small niche, but this will of course be on a very small scale and not what MetaGer is all about. MetaGer-Maps can also no longer be operated in this context. The plans to become bigger and to one day provide a really good alternative to “the big players” with its own index (or European index) have of course died with this termination by Yahoo. And that is what is really sad.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Interesting, I thought their beaks were just some hard material, like our nails. Didn't know that there's bloodflow there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

That is a big question which I am sadly not equiped enough to answer adequately, as I have not invested that much time into anarchist works. What I can give is an example from Kropotkin's book "Mutual Aid":

He mentions how in village societies every dispute was treated as a comunal affair. If no resolution could be found, the case was brought to a group of people (can't remember specifically how they were chosen), and they would pass a verdict and resolution. The disputing parties could then either accept the verdict, or they would be excluded from the community. By excluded I mean that they would not enjoy the hospitality and aid of other members, and would thus have to leave the community. So if you are deemed a problematic member and won't change accordingly, nobody would exert power over you, you would just cease to be a part of the community. Obviously if someone got violent, self-defence would be acceptible.

As for feminism, I know that there is a thing called "anarcha feminism", but I don't know any details.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

And that's very unfortunate that that's the most common perception of anarchism, because all anarchist theory focuses on how cooperation beats competition. The "anarchy" in the name means that nobody has rule over someone else, but rather all members voluntarily help one another because it's the most efficient and safest way of living.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

I always wonder with these whether they actually say something or someone posted just a bunch of random circles to screw around with people

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

English and my native Serbian.

Ich habe Deutsch in der Schule gelernt. Ich benutze es sehr seltsam, aber ich habe fast nichts vergessen, weil unsere Lehrerinen sehr sehr Böse war. Deutsch in der Schule hat meine Leben 10 jahren verkurtzt.

Έχω μάθει και τα Ελληνικά. Ένα από τα όνειρά μου είναι να διαβάζω τα κείμενα στα αρχαία ελληνικά, αλλά αυτό ήταν τρόπο δύσκολο. Γιατί αποφάσισε να μαθαίνω πρότω τα νέα Ελληνικα, καί σύντομα τα αρχαία είναι πολύ πιό εύκολα.

I can understand a fair amount of Russian, but I can't necessarilly speak it as well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well, this comic goes against what Plato wrote in the "Republic". In it, Plato advocated for a city/country/polis which had three classes: the ruling class, the guardian class (military) and the ordinary folk. The ruling class would be made out of philosophers (multiple, so not just one or a few), but by "philosopher" it is meant someone who spent many decades studying philosophy since they were a child. I can't remember the cut off age, but if someone were older than 13 or something like that, and they haven't began their philosophical education (which, besides things we would traditionally consider philosophy, includes things like astronomy and mathematics), they weren't eligible. So, by his own writing, Plato wouldn't be fit for the ruling class.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I should clarify what I meant by "no violence". I meant that, in the ideal scenario, communities build themselves up so that capitalists become less and less relevant, without exacting violence upon them. Of course, in the event that these communities get attacked by those same capitalists, defence is very reasonable.

The thing is when you tell people that we need a revolution, most picture storming various places, seizing assets and beating up some people in the process, which I think makes a lot of them distance themselves. Presenting a program which focuses on a peaceful development of society is I think much easier to get on board with.

There's a low to zero chance that any transition away from capitalism will be peaceful and without resistance, but I think it would be better to tell people that the we want to work towards creating a normal life, and we will encounter violent resistence along the way, than to focus on revolutions and overthrowing the ruling class. The end goal is pretty much the same, and the process might inevitably involve the same things, but the former is I think more palatable to most.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (4 children)

One idea I really like is slowly circumventing the need for big corporations by having services provided locally. People in a given community developing skills and aiding each other to make themselves as self-sufficient as possible. Then groups of these communities can interact and potentially provide things the other one lacks.

Or something like medieval guilds where people from each profession act together to practice their craft where needed, modified unions or something like that.

Essentially people willingly cooperating to be able to stand up to the capitalists. They have power because we depend on them, both their services and on money which they hoard. Through cooperation and mutual aid, their power can be significantly reduced, without a high risk of violence erupting.

Is this too optimistic and naive? Maybe, but I'm of the opinion that we'd in any case benefit if we started moving in that direction.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In what way? I use it from time to time to get movies and series. Is there any downside compared to other methods?

Genuine question, I'm not too familiar with the pirate world beyond pirate bay.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

My parents don't speak English, but I learned it as a kid by watching a lot of Cartoon Network. All the cartoons were in English, no subtitles or dub or anything. Somehow I assimilated the language without any external aid, and then learned the rest when we first got the internet and I started communicating with others via games.

So, if I had to teach a kid English, I'd just expose them to as much English as possible with plenty of context and encourage them to express themselves in English when they can. This is also a popular method how adults can learn languages, called tprs

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The meaning and ideas of solarpunk are still evolving, but the main themes are freedom, community, ecology and pragmatism. I won't go over the anarchic organisation of communities since I think you mistook the pragmatism for primitivism.

Solarpunk is not about primitivism and a return to a low-technological era, and neither is it a high tech cyberpunk spinoff, as some others think. Solarpunk is about using practical solutions that are also ethical and egolocially friendly. This often means not throwing stuff away, but fixing what can be fixed and reusing what can be reused, because mass production and consumerism is seen as a damaging force. So instead of trying to make up new tech and produce new things, solarpunk would ask you to first consider whether you can do something already with what you have, which means that a DIY approach is encouraged. However, if new technology can improve our lives without damaging everything else, it's acceptable.

And it is the complete opposite of thinking about the "good old days", as solarpunk is looking only towards the future. The 'punk' in the name means that when you look at all the doom and gloom in the future (capitalism, wars, global warming) you don't fall into despair, but instead try to play your part in your community to fight it and promote a lifestyle of mutual aid and a respect for nature, with whatever level of technology can give you the best results.

That was my attempt at a short presentation. We have a wiki and a manifesto if anyone is interested

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (3 children)

From what I heard, salt is usually packaged with iodine or some substances that prevent clumping that expire over time. So after some time the salt won't have those anymore, but it should be safe to consume. Salt cannot spoil because bacteria cannot grow in salty places.

Don't know how plastic containers relate to that sadly.

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