Replying to Avatar Final

Reflecting on this, likely given the poster, bait tweet, but a good discussion to be had:

You should be free and able to use what you want. What's not valuable to somebody may be valuable to somebody else. I'm a complete nobody with a normal life and I use GrapheneOS, Monero, I2P, LUKS etc. like this picture says.

However, there is a different conversation to be had that you could use this same image with. Many people treat software choices like a subculture purity test. Software choice is treated like Console Wars or sports teams.

There are certain groups of people who use things simply to be performative rather than just being honest that it is a preference. It serves no relevance in their threat model to use what they have to (counterargument: threat model doesn't need to be your sole reasoning to use something anyway). Some like to believe you need to be part of a certain group and you need to follow the rest of the trends of that group to fit in. Used Linux? Now you got to use Firefox.

It's fine to say GrapheneOS is superior to something (we say that a lot). What is not fine is believing you are a superior person for using it, same with any other software. Classical FSF bros, Reddit users, and performative activists stink up discussions like skunks with this attitude. Every major project has this problem.

If I had to TLDR this, then: Don't be sheep. Use everything in your preference, not to just reflect looking like others. You shouldn't see all these and be like "I want to use all of this!!", because really, you likely do not.

I find people who are overly paranoid and mentally insert themselves into situations like a main character much worse than the people above though. They are easy to manipulate and ignite into self-sabotaging because they keep hunting for answers to made-up problems, nonexistent threats or jump to conclusions without evidence.

When they aren't able to agree to facts, they'll end up lowering their tolerance to what is believable. You can easily trick someone who is paranoid by feeding them sweet whispers of contrarianism and mutual aggravation against a certain threat of theirs and they'll trust you.

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