Yes, sooner or later it’s probably not a good idea to keep kids away from the internet.

My little niece is still way too young at 5, but I’m already thinking about it because at some point she’ll come into contact with the internet anyway.

That’s why I’m asking here — I’m already trying to gather some good ideas for a few years down the line.

Thanks for the advice, I’ll keep that in mind as an uncle.

You can’t start using Linux early enough. It’s not about my daughter, but about my niece, but I’ll keep that in mind when she’s old enough.

You’re exactly my kind of guy. For me, it’s not about my daughter, but about my little niece, who just turned five.

When we’re together, we go out to the woods, to the lake, to the playground, to the bookstore, the museum, to the zoo, or something like that.

Until further notice, I have no intention of putting her in front of a screen.

I’ve just planned that at some point, when my niece is much older, I might build a weather station or an irrigation system with her using a Raspberry Pi or something like that.

But that’s still a long way off.

Am I obliged to sacrifice my time to correct nonsense? I don’t think so.

Do your own due diligence if you don’t believe me.

I just don’t feel like responding because it would take some effort to refute all of that. I think anyone who does even half a decent amount of research will quickly realize that it’s either simply wrong or cherry picking. It’s pointless anyway to try to convince people who are so entrenched in their opinions.

But hey, it’s good to know that people are impressed just by mentioning a few random sources.

You’d be better off reading the Wikipedia article about Orwell instead of forming an opinion based on random social media comments.

Not sure if we are talking about the same George Orwell here or how you came to the conclusion that he was a “right-wing POS” - he was definitely not.

I wonder what George Orwell would have to say about all this… nvm, he already said everything there is to say.

He had his guys as has your President.

And that is what concerns me. I’m from Germany btw - it feels almost like a flashback from history class.

It is for now…

You think Hitler was the mastermind behind the German reich?

I’m aware.

What I am concerned about is whether undesirable citizens will soon simply “disappear,” as is the case in Russia, for example.

All good points, but I’m not at all sure that will matter. These things are only relevant if there are still elections.

Here are a few points that suggest to me that Drump is planning to turn the US into a dictatorship where there will be no more elections.

• It is an open secret that Drump is preparing to declare himself president again or again be candidate in a mock-election (Putin regularly gets elected as well), which would be a violation of the Constitution.
• After his last term in office, he already attempted a coup, which, as you say, was not punished as such.
• He is building up a secret police force through (barely) hidden tax increases in the form of ubiquitous tariffs – namely the ICA, which he is staffing exclusively with loyal followers.
• He (and his followers, who cannot hope for impunity via the “the President is king” Supreme Court decision) are already disregarding applicable law and court decisions. It’s unlikely that they would do that in such a manner if they would fear to be prosecuted once a new administration comes along (they would be because what they do is so brazenly illegal).
• He is already persecuting political opponents (such as the judges who convicted the January 6 insurrectionists).
• He openly calls for the persecution of dissidents, including among the civilian population (most recently Bruce Springsteen, for example).
• He has already brought the media (both traditional and, in particular, social media) into line, as evidenced by the completely inadequate coverage of the massive 50501 protests, to name just one example among many.
• Even without the unlimited powers granted to the president by the Supreme Court, the US system is highly vulnerable to a coup by the incumbent government due to the concentration of power in the hands of the president (he is commander-in-chief of the army, can declare a state of emergency and is then also commander of the police and National Guard etc.).

The list goes on – even though Drump has only been in office for six months. If this continues, and I am convinced it will, the government will soon make civil resistance impossible – as in Russia, where by no means everyone is a Putin supporter, but his opponents have been silenced by force.

Of course, I don’t want to paint a picture of doom and gloom, but unfortunately I am honestly convinced that Drump wants to replace what little democracy still exists in the United States with a dictatorship. And he is not even doing it by himself - I think he is just a straw man for the guys pulling the strings (the one percent who all support him).

I completely agree with you except for one thing: I don’t think things will get better – at least not on their own. On the contrary, I think the situation will actually get much worse, because I believe that US institutions have long been infiltrated, as exemplified by the Supreme Court’s absurd ruling that the president is above the law. This has, in my opinion, nothing to do with democracy anymore.

Nevertheless, I wish you all the best and am keeping my fingers crossed for all the good and decent US citizens.

Edit: I’m from Germany and I post things like this because of our history, which is well known in the US too. Don’t do as we did back then, act while you still can!

Another appropriate word that comes to mind is traitors.

I see, the land of the free. It’s really a a great democracy you’ve got going over there.

Drump is even worse in that regard, or am I mistaken? I think he’s worse in every regard imaginable.

This US administration is truly a danger to the entire world.

Could you please finally lock Drump and his henchmen up for all their crimes and put some halfway decent people in their place?

I completely agree with you about Mastodon. I’m also not at all convinced that it’s a suitable replacement for Twitter for the masses.

When it comes to monetization, I just meant that I think it’s necessary for any Fediverse application if the Fediverse ever wants to have any chance of somewhat competing with mainstream platforms. After all, earning potential is, imo, the basis for professionally created content.

Not that the Fediverse necessarily needs all of that, but it does if you want to reach the masses, because they demand content in a quantity that simply cannot be provided free of charge (on mainstream social media it is paid for via ads).