[smbowner]

When you say you don't use any of them, I think you're being fairly narrow with your definition.

It's pretty hard to dodge Amazon and Google on today's internet. Are you prepared to shut yourself off entirely from those services?

Would you be willing to block the Amazon and Google blocks of IPs? You're free to do this. Is it really a choice though?

[jeoeo9jrkr]

No because I don’t have to take ownership for choices I have no control over.

I don’t have to block them because some site will still funnel it to them as a middle man. All blocking indirect access to my data will achieve is me wasting time thinking I can.

I can directly avoid their services and personally generate no emotional buy in, staying indifferent to their literal existence, and politically flexible then on Sanders or whoever taxing them billions.

The only framework that has social merit/weight, IMO is the legislative one. Not a corporations interest in gaming our agency for their feudal trade schemes.

I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have. I’ll politically support ones that seem sensible: m4a, education, engineering at scale to support those initiatives.

Outside that the reasons for providing institutional support of trade seem contrived. The ideology of long dead men exported into the limbic systems of the living.

[smbowner]

You're making my point for me when you say this.

> I don’t have to block them because some site will still funnel it to them as a middle man. All blocking indirect access to my data will achieve is me wasting time thinking I can.

These tools and services are everywhere. It's simply not true that you can live outside of them in a modern internet.

If you do somehow escape entirely, the people in your life still haven't.

In what sense have you made a choice here? Or are you living outside of the zeitgeist entirely? The conversations and politics of the day are happening on Twitter with or without you. Very real policy is happening in 240 characters.

> I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have.

Ok... But the culture is shifting. POTUS has Tweeted every single day since announcing that he'll be running for office. Twitter has an effect on your life.

Not having a twitter account doesn't change that. Not using Facebook directly doesn't change the fact that their tracking pixels are all over the internet. Not using gmail doesn't mean your email isn't being mined on the back end.

Putting your head in the sand and saying "it doesn't effect me" isn't true.

>The only framework that has social merit/weight, IMO is the legislative one. Not a corporations interest in gaming our agency for their feudal trade schemes.

Ok?

>I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have. I’ll politically support ones that seem sensible: m4a, education, engineering at scale to support those initiatives.

Ok.. But you are still playing in the same sandbox as the rest of us. And this sandbox is very influenced by FAANG companies and the policies they offer.

> Outside that the reasons for providing institutional support of trade seem contrived. The ideology of long dead men exported into the limbic systems of the living.

Ok?