The objective ought to be more engagement, not more users.

It seems like everyone is here to have snarky little “I’m more right than you” arguments.

I think you missed the joke.

You’re not just “disagreeing”. You’re trotting out GOP propaganda, much like a bot programmed to do so.

I’m having a hard time believing that you actually believe what you’re saying.

I think the reason why it’s so pervasive is that it taps into the romantic notion that things were better in the good old days, and people can overlay whatever meaning they wish.

My opinion doesn’t mean much since it’s been forever since I tried any other distro but I’m surprised Debian isn’t on the beginners list.

it might be a bit too involved for an absolute beginner to configure to perfection

I’m not really sure what this means? It might be more accurate to say it’s not the best distro if you’d like to tinker with your desktop experience.

Notably, nothing on the beginners list ought to be run as a headless server, but debian is perfect for that job. The reason I’ve become so enamoured with debian over the years is that I can use it on my desktop and on servers and it’s the same system - everything is exactly where I’m used to it being.

… but how could someone buy a new Audi during a blackout ?

It is if you control the judiciary.

Have you been to a shop in the last 20 years?

I’m genuinely curious how you envisage that everyone could pay cash during a power outage.

Items don’t have price stickers. Cashiers couldn’t reliable total up more than a few items. Customers couldn’t be given itemised receipts.

In an end-of-days style apocalypse, sure trade would carry on, but the existence of “cash” wouldn’t be relevant.

As I started off by saying, this is such a lame reason to argue for the existence of cash.

Because the equipment used to record sales uses electricity.

Do you really think the 12yo cashier is going to get out a pad and pen and rithmatic your purchase?

Well, our own government has never said anything about it. If they did propose it I guess our democratic process would find the best way forward. The same could be said of a great many things that will never exist.

Also collecting taxes ought to be easy and fair. If no one cheats then no one pays too much if they do not cheat. Besides that, there’s plenty of other measures that can be applied in 2024 to diminish tax evasion.

Does anyone actually want a cashless society though?

I don’t carry cash for the same reason I don’t carry my socket wrench. I use it for specific things at specific times but I don’t need it day to day. That doesn’t mean I think socket wrenches should be outlawed.

How often does that happen though?

Or… what if the power goes out, you can’t pay with cash or card.

Honestly if this is the best reason to carry cash then we should be cashless.

You could just write down the numbers.

Everyone is talking about radiation but IMO having food and water is more important.

In a large city, things would turn to shit within hours. There would be violence.

Honestly, if you don’t have a relative on a farm within a days walk, then your best bet is a refugee camp.

If cities are being nuked it probably is the apocalypse.

I think this is a misconception.

In the 90s it may have been true - windows was focused on user experience on the desktop. Pre- internet, security just wasn’t relevant.

Even in that era though, Linux was running on servers in universities et cetera managing many users.

I guess this is where the reputation arose.

These days I don’t think either is inherently more secure than another in a general sense.

For specific uses cases one might be more “reliable” than another just because it’s used more and therefore has more people looking at it. For example, the vast majority of Web servers are in a Linux environment, but the vast majority of on premise email servers would be Windows.

What I’m saying is, in 2024 the general security of each platform is going to be comparable, and only a very small component in your chain of reliability. Like if you develop a threat model, and write policies, and maintain behaviours in practice, the underlying security provided by the environment isn’t really that relevant.

Is it really too much to want enough resources to respond appropriately to all cases?

I’m absolutely ready to admit that I’m probably just too old to embrace this cool new thing but I’ve just never really been that excited about it.

To be absolutely honest, the idea that a corporation can control what I’m seeing in some altered or virtual reality just makes my skin crawl.

I understand that most people won’t feel the way I do. I understand that my preferences may be unusual.

It’s just not my thing.

No.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding something but here in Australia there’s no benefit to not having a contract.

With our largest telco the contract is really just repayments on the phone. 24x monthly repayments is always the same price the phone is retailing for outright. You could cancel the sim and just keep up the phone repayments if you wanted.