I thought the same thing last night when this was first posted. Lots of "if they can't get this right do they even care about users" as if a slipped-up miscategorization of a marketing email is the same as an oil company leaking waste into a river.
I operate on the assumption they hold firm on their technical commitments of encrypted email, email obfuscation, decent VPN and a solid password manager.
Call them out on mistakes, sure, but this blog post was written like a manifesto for something so minor.
Yeah, I've always been surprised at how negative HN can get about Proton. They're not perfect, but man at least they're trying to fight the privacy fight.
I've always had a very good experience with them. It's cheap, fast and their spam filter works well. Maybe 1x-2x a year I get an email from them about some promotion but that's it.
I always wondered if it’s just a few actually upset customers mixed with a ton of astroturfing by competitors pretending to be outraged proton customers.
File under "some business bro had this classified in the wrong newsletter". I don't see the big deal and I don't extrapolate this into some systemic disease with marketing emails.
Privacy-conscious apps and communications tools need to be developed, and we need to build the consensus that privacy is important.
edit: Anyone know why Briar doesn't have the feature for known contacts to be a "courier" for other contacts?
Background: Briar is the encrypted messaging app that works over tor, local wifi and bluetooth. If Alice sends a message to Charles but she isn't connected, the app will hold it until it detects Alice and Charles are in proximity.
My desired feature: If Bob is a verified contact with both Alice and Charles, Briar should be able to hand the message from Alice to Bob, and then deliver it to Charles.
The Constitution is not fine. You are correct that it is not being enforced properly, and IMO we have a coup being staged in real time.
We should have rolling term limits for SCOTUS.
We should have ranked-choice/multiple-choice mechanisms for all elections to facilitate a true multiparty system.
We should further regulate money and transparency in spending vis-a-vis political advertising.
We should ban gerrymandering.
The Senate should be weakened or entirely removed. I am aware that is theoretically the only thing that is not amendable, but it's a flaw that we have it in any case.
The Electoral College should be discarded.
And clearly, impeachment should be easier than it is - or else maybe we just have the dictatorship we deserve? Thanks, GOP.
Your democratically elected president (or, rather, the group behind him) is undoing whatever was left of the democratic apparatus. There is no counter power in place. Executive, legislative and judiciary are de facto one.
You seem to operate on the belief that democratically elected leaders can't do harm to democracy, while history has times and times again proved you wrong, and that to me is what's insane here.
> He's the democratically elected president of the US
“Dictator” and “elected” are not incompatible. In fact, the term originates as the title of an elected (not directly by the citizenry, but then neither is the US President in any case) officer, and the term has nothing to do with how you got into power, but with what practical constraints it is exercised.
I mean sure. But he's not even doing anything dictatorial. Most of his actions are well within the laws of the United States. Not more than any other president.
If the reports are true, the proceeds from selling Venezuelan oil are going into his own Qatari bank account. That's third-world tinpot dictatorship right there.
Those takes are informed and level headed. We have a wildly unqualified Secretary of Defense who was appointed only because he advocated in his book "American Crusade" for a crusade against the "American Left". A Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts described us as in the middle of a second American Revolution that will remain bloodless if the left allows it. And he said that before the election.
The DOGE project was a wildly unconstitutional overreach of the executive branch, shutting down or severely crippling agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without the approval of Congress.
Republicans are letting Trump act like a dictator to accomplish things they want outside of the guardrails of our democracy. There are plenty more examples out there if you choose to pay attention.
> There is no dictatorship ... He's the democratically elected
The first part does not follow from the second. It's much easier to become dictator when in power, e.g. after being democratically elected. It's a common route. See also Self-coup / autocoup (1).
Of course, nothing like that could even be attempted in the USA! (2) /s
https://fairvote.org has info on Ranked Choice Voting. It is, to me, the single most bang-for-buck reform we should have in government.
A voting system where voters give preferences to multiple candidates on a ballot takes away the "spoiler effect", where a candidate too similar to the two main candidates will split the vote.
We need a freer market of political parties for a number of reasons. People need to feel like political change is possible. The two main parties need more pressure to evolve or die within their section of the political spectrum. Allowing more political parties to exist allows splinter parties to have a chance. Imagine a "sane Republican" party, or a progressive party, or some hybrid-centrist party that likes unions and public education but doesn't like massive social services, and so on.
MAGA would be polling at 15% or less, I think.
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SCOTUS term limits is just an idea I heard once. Most other democracies have it in place.
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I am skeptical of the Senate's utility in a modern federal government - the difference between the population of Virginia and Rhode Island was far less extreme than the difference between California and Wyoming today. The electoral inequality is too much.
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Electoral college has to go for obvious reasons, as does gerrymandering.
Uhhhhh... What? Are we living on the same planet? The Senate is absolutely terrible. Not only is it breathtakingly undemocratic, the modern rise of the filibuster raising the threshold to 60% makes it even harder to pass any legislation.
The weakness of the Senate has abetted the expansion of the other two branches as Congress has ceded most of its lawmaking responsibilities. But there are still limits. There are so many other knock on negative effects too: inability to pass laws leads to more enormous omnibus bills, increasing the influence of lobbyists.
Simply deleting the Senate entirely would go a very long way to improving the structure of the US govt.
Edit: incidentally, the main thing I've learned over the years about this topic is that most Americans (not necessarily you specifically) have simply never questioned the received wisdom about the US Constitution that they learned in grade school and are maybe even incapable of evaluating it dispassionately.
In a hyper-partisan age, it seems good to have some collegiality and requirements for cross-partisan cooperation.
If we can't agree on anything then maybe we shouldn't do anything. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Why are so many people so desperate to move here if things are going so badly? Much of the discontent is performative. How willing would you actually be to give up your spot and switch places with someone in Guatemala?
Maybe we need filibuster-style restraints for the executive too. Executive overreach is a major complaint people have about the current structure, correct?
None of your opinion on the power of government requires the people to be cut out of the equation.
One could have a "small" federal government while having a popular vote for president and a reduced/discarded Senate.
And no, not everyone likes it when the federal government is "too big". Personally, I support social welfare and research programs at the federal level, as well as food safety and many other administrative functions there too.
I'm less supportive of "big government" when the executive declares itself the arbiter of the Constitution and all foreign wars and treaties.
Why does social welfare need to be handled at the federal level? There seems to be no explanation for why people insist on this other than that it must be so.
Even as of today, California gives aid to many states who fundamentally disagree with California's culture. Make social welfare state level and some states will simply starve.
It's like insurance: we all need to pool together and help everyone. And for it to work, we can't complain that some people get more help than others. It's a safety net, not floor. If everyone hit the net, the entire thing collapses quickly.
2nd reason is that people can move between the states easily. Imagine the logistical disaster of having a California worker work for a New York company. Which social security does this workers wages get deposited to? What if the worker moves to Arizona? What if the New York company opens a branch in Florida and that worker's department operates out of there?
It's a mess across state lines, and traditionally we have state disputes handled at the federal level.
> 2nd reason is that people can move between the states easily
There is no requirement that states have to let anyone in without any action. California can easily levy a tax so high that only contributing people can enter. They don't want to....
Social welfare needs to be handled at the same level that mobility exists, because otherwise all destitute people will bumrush the nearest jurisdiction that is giving out generous welfare benefits. The issue is most often seen at the city level (e.g. Bellevue “encouraging” homeless to go to Seattle), but more generous policies like housing-first will need to be federally administered to prevent the most generous states from getting bumrushed.
I have a duxtop induction burner and I notice it gets hotspots where the coils are. I wonder if the breville control freak is worth the money or it has better granularity of its heating element.
But yeah if I built a new house, I would have an induction top.
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