Outside of extremely extenuating circumstances, this isn’t a worry. We already have proof-of-concept tech like DART to divert asteroids, aerospace engineers can use this to get governments to fund them even better, asteroid goes behind the sun for 3 years, asteroid diverting technology advances even further, in 2028 when the path of travel becomes more precise the chance of hitting us gets revised down to zero, and we’ve advanced our technology should anything more serious come our way in the future

I also feel like a lot of people have a lot of barriers to plotting an assassination, besides the obvious “it’s illegal” and “they’ll kill you for trying” and “who has the time and money to plan an assassination.” To give people some ideas of these barriers, I personally:

• Am trans, so if I tried anything it would immediately be used as a Reichstag fire moment to start rounding up and killing trans people (I suspect the social minorities who will be most affected by the Administration will suffer the worst consequences for even trying to resist)
• Am too young to own a gun in my state (you need to be 21, I suspect some people have the opposite reasoning as well, ‘I’m too old to be an assassin bc I have kids to look after’ or ‘because I’m entrenched and needed at my job’)
• Since I have PTSD I don’t trust myself to own a gun
• I think I can contribute more to the world alive than throwing my life away to be a political assassin. Specifically, I’m very passionate about healthcare reform (obviously universal healthcare, also focusing more on preventative medicine instead of waiting for people to get so chronically sick the pharmaceutical industry can harvest money from them for the rest of their lives, also giving people diet & lifestyle recommendations to treat the underlying cause of their issues instead of just drugging them up to combat their symptoms of disease), and think I have a greater chance of making an impactful change by devoting myself to that

In conclusion, the most convenient person to plot a political assassination is a 25-35 yo straight white man well trained in firearms with tons of money, mentally healthy enough to get a firearm yet crazy enough to throw their life away, ideally recently unemployed so they have nothing to lose.

So… a security guard affected by the mass government downsizing?

I would say AOC has a very emphasized presence in media that often allows her to break through into headlines despite corporate media’s tendency to never cover anything good a Democrat does ever and instead push this narrative that ‘if Democrats can’t manage to pass some legislation it’s Democrats fault for not doing enough and if Republicans do something awful it’s Democrats fault for not stopping them.’ The stereotype goes if Democrats hold rallies across all 50 states it’s radio silence, but if Trump breathes it gets 24/7 news coverage at work to normalize him, etc.

To be honest I’m a bit guilty of this too. I don’t actively search for what members of Congress are saying/doing, and I originally only watched AOC’s video because it was being shared around on social media. That being said, I decided to search around a bit to see what members of Congress are saying:

• Here’s Bernie Sander’s YouTube, he’s been talking about oligarchs lately
• Ilhan Omar saying Trumps executive orders don’t have support from GOP in Congress on CBS News
• Ayanna Pressley at a rally speaking out against Musk
• Plently of complaining from inside the halls of Congress like from Greg Casar

TL;DR: I would say AOC is probably the best at messaging directly to the people, and perhaps other members of Congress aren’t quite as effective as her, but a lot of them are still doing something even if we don’t always hear about it

I genuinely think the type of social media you use in your youth has a very strong influence on the type of person you become:

Instagram/Snapchat: Average, slightly sociable

Reddit/Tumblr: Insightful, knowledgeable about niche topics/social issues (respectively), better at writing, worse at socializing

Twitter: Argumentative, not really capable of cohesive long-form thought, great at one liners though

TikTok: Mindless beasts conditioned through a variable-ratio positive reinforcement algorithm to uncritically believe whatever thoughts China wants to insert in their brains: “The US is awful!!” Heck yeah! “Because of this, we’re going to not vote/vote for Trump!” Wait, what?

I watched AOC’s “What’s Happening & How You Can Take Action” video and thought it was really impactful, so much so I decided to write up a summary of the insights, copy pasted below.

TL;TR for what you can do about it:

1. Know your rights and teach other people their rights
2. Contact your representative
3. Help organize for Florida special elections to elect Gay Valimont & Joshua Weil

Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:

1. If something like war ever breaks out, engage in simple sabotage when you can. Short preview of link: “Whenever possible, arrange to have the fire start after you have gone away. Use a candle and paper, combination, setting it as close as possible to the inflammable material you want to burn”

However, we’re not currently there yet. We don’t need to wait until things get impossibly bad before taking action. If you think all that stuff like “contacting representatives” & “organizing for elections” will do is slow our collective downfall, then realize that a slowed downfall means more time to organize a resistance and more time for vulnerable groups to escape the country.

Also, feel free to copy-paste this excerpt anywhere if you’d like!

TL;TR End

Insights from “What’s Happening & How You Can Take Action” by AOC:

Executive Orders are not that powerful: For all the Executive Orders being signed, know that they’re not actually as powerful as they might seem. Congress can block Executive Orders, courts can block Executive Orders (you might have heard of this being done for the EO ending birthright citizenship), and they’re essentially more limited in scope/permanence than actually signed laws. In fact, much of the EOs Trump has signed are meaningless or completely unconstitutional, which is not a pointless distinction, because as mentioned before, courts are blocking these EOs.

Fascist dictators thrive on perceived power instead of actual power. They want to “flood the zone,” pump out so much terrible nonsense the populace becomes overwhelmed and docile. Don’t believe them, don’t become docile and don’t consent in advance. The reason Trump is using Executive Orders instead of actual laws is because he knows he only has a slim majority in the House (218R-215D, ie 2R’s could flip a vote, 2 vacancies in FL to be voted on 4/1, 1 R departure in NY-21 to be up for another special election)/Senate (53R-47D/I, ie 4R’s could flip a vote), and he doesn’t want his perceived power to crumble, such as when 3 GOP Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski blocked an Obamacare Repeal Bill “Health Care Freedom Act” from going through in 2017.

(In this case, by erasing this womans history NASA is doing a little thing called complying in advance.)

Action Being Done by Democrats: Apparently Trump did a bunch of stuff while Congress was on recess, and they only got back in session Feb 5th, which was why there hasn’t been much news from democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently released a 10 objectives plan for House Democrats to obstruct the administration

What You Can Do: While I’m sure we’re all positively exhausted with everything going on, at a minimum, you can know your rights regarding ICE Raids: Don’t let them in without a Judicial warrant signed by a Judge, don’t answer their questions even if you are a citizen, don’t talk to them without a lawyer. If you have extra energy, you can:

1. Educate people on their rights by printing up Know Your Rights Cards to hand out
2. Contact your Representatives urging them to obstruct Trump nominees while Elon is invading the Treasury
3. Help Organize for the Florida special elections 4/1 for the House of Representatives. While it would be difficult for these +30R seats to flip (Note in the Jan 29th Iowa special election for Senate (a state Trump won by +21) actually flipped to Democrats), even switching a +30R district to a +10R district lets Republicans know their policies are unpopular and they should think twice before supporting Trump’s policies. Additionally, there will eventually be another special election to fill a House of Representatives Republican vacancy up for grabs in NY-21.
4. Help Organize for other Swing Elections near you

Additional stuff that may be useful eventually:

1. If something like war ever breaks out, engage in simple sabotage when you can (short preview: “Whenever possible, arrange to have the fire start after you have gone away. Use a candle and paper, combination, setting it as close as possible to the inflammable material you want to burn”)

However, we’re not currently there yet. We don’t need to wait until things get impossibly bad before taking action. If you think all that stuff like “contacting representatives” & “organizing for elections” will do is slow our collective downfall, then realize that a slowed downfall means more time to organize a resistance and more time for vulnerable groups to escape the country.

Contacting your Representatives: To contact your representatives, you can make a short 2 min phone call to their office, which will either be picked up by a staffer or go to voicemail. Representatives listen to phone calls when trying to get a sense of what their constituents care about, but other forms of contact (email, text, etc) are by and large ignored. Additionally, you should say where you live, because representatives only care about what their constituents think, not outside people. Note that the voicemails only record up to 2 min so be brief. You can find your representatives phone numbers at https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

To express your views to your representatives, the format goes like this: “Hi, my name is [Name] and I live in [City, State, Zip Code]. I wanted to ask for your support on [Policy, Bill, etc]. [Anecdote if you have one to be more personalized]. Thank you for listening, my phone number is [Phone Number] and my email is [Email].”

I personally have just called my senators to let them know I want them to vote NO on advancing/approving all Trump nominees, and that I supported them continuing obstructionist actions including the 30hr filibuster against Russ Vought, Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget pick. Florida 4/1 Special Elections for 2 House of Representative Members: Summary, trying to elect Gay Valimont (D) District 1 & Joshua Weil (D) District 6. You can sign up to volunteer on their websites (linked) if you’d like.

New York-21 Eventual Special Election for 1 House of Representative Member: Elise Stefanik ® will be vacating her seat to become the U.N. Ambassador for the Trump administration, after which within 80-90 days a special election will be held for a new House member. While it’s somewhat of a pipe dream, if Dems win all 3 of these House seats up for grabs, it puts the House at 218D-217R.

I hope this helped you get a sense of what you can do, feel free to copy-paste this anywhere if you’d like!

So, back in 2023 I discovered Lemmy, made an account, but after a bit quit again because I never checked it. I recently made an account again since Reddit has started getting really bad (tons of bots, tons of conservative posts on r/popular after the election, etc) and only recently started actually using said account.

I think using Lemmy requires a different strategy than using Reddit. On Reddit, if you wanted to subscribe to, say, a Linux discussion group, you would just go to r/linux, and there would be just 4 more even more niche subs you could join, like r/linux4noobs. On Lemmy, their are 6 main Linux groups and 14 niche Linux groups across several instances.

The first time I joined Lemmy, I subscribed to just one of these groups like I would on Reddit, but my feed didn’t have enough content so eventually I got bored. The second time around, I created I’ve just subscribed broadly to every community related to my interests, so I if I was interested in Linux I would subscribe to all 20 Linux communities.

I then hypothesized that if I did this for every interest (ex, say my only interests were Linux & Plants, or something), that discussion of topics that was more popular on Lemmy, like Linux, would drown out my other interests. To avoid this being an issue, I made 3 accounts for 3 feeds

• My “general account” in which I subscribed to nearly every top sub, so if I found I didn’t care about a certain topic on All I could unsubscribe instead of outright blocking those communities (that’s this account)
• My “interests account” in which I subscribed to my personalized interests like privacy or environment
• My “fun account” in which I subscribed to just meme, gaming, cats, etc communities

That’s all just me though, how do y’all use Lemmy differently from Reddit? I’m curious as to how I can git gud at Lemmy lol

For anyone who is undocumented (and people who are documented!), it’s important to know your rights regarding ICE:

1. Don’t open the door for ICE. They aren’t allowed into your house or workplace without a warrant signed by a judge.
2. Ask them to leave.
3. Stay silent. Do not talk to them without a lawyer.
4. If you ask you your immigration status, your citizenship status, etc, don’t tell them anything. Don’t even speak to them.
5. Even if you’re a citizen, still don’t tell them anything. ICE destroys communities, and every second of their time you waste is one less second they will spend destroying people’s lives.
6. If you are detained, ask to talk to your lawyer. Note that ICE doesn’t provide lawyers so make sure you get one in preparation.
7. Do not sign anything or give them any documents whatsoever without a lawyer in that room.

What with how Trump is pulling out of WHO and deregulating the chicken industry, if the avian flu becomes transmissible to humans, it will make COVID-19 look like childsplay. At which point things may get so dire vaccine hesitancy is likely to get you killed, and I’d probably recommend a quick plane trip to Canada to get vaccinated, if that’s even still an option…

The sad thing is, there actually used to be some areas in which you could trust the government. You could trust the CDC for health information, the FDIC with your money, the FDA for food regulations, the USPS to deliver your mail…

Nowadays, everything good about government will be getting axed and everything bad amplified. But what can you do~

I’d recommend Ubuntu. I’ve never tried Mint like others have suggested, but one of the strengths of Ubuntu is that it’s one of the more popular distros, which means if you want to install a program, it probably has an easy install version for Ubuntu/Debian, or specific instructions, or just a lot of people online who have had the same errors as you and can give you suggestions when something starts causing issues