I believe it did happen more than once. The reason why life on Earth has developed into such complexity is that the primordial soup, where life developed out of, has been cooking undisturbed from events like supernovae and such that would have wiped out everyhing (Earth istself as well as the whole solar system) nearby. Life could develop over several billion years, and cosmic events like asteroid impacts didn’t wipe out all of life. Remaining life startet over again.

If life developed on another planet with similar features like earth, it could have been wiped out by a nearby supernova, by a collision between two planets and similar events, before it got any more complex.

Over the past year, TikTok has been cutting trust and safety staff worldwide, often substituting those workers completely with automated systems.

This is the whole reason AI is forced upon everything. AI promises to reduce cost, because workers dont’t need to be paid, because they aren’t needed anymore.

For the same reason McDonalds introduced AI-powered ordering at their drive-throughs, which have failed horribly, and thus, are depreciated for now.

Or car rental companies that use AI to detect damages after returning the vehicle (which also have a high failure rate).

It’s basically the Chatkontrolle (Chat Control - wiretapping into ones communications under the guise of child protection and terrorism), that was prevented successfully so far, but with a different name. This ist just another attempt to introduce mass surveillance.

You are right. From what I saw Linux-based OSs have come a long way. The issue with Linux is when it comes to professional environments, that are not IT-related: There are niche programs that are used in certain professions that were written to work on Windows computers exclusively. They are not availiable for other OSs, because they are not wide spread or popular with non-professionals. Also, Microsoft Office (especially Outlook and Excel) is very dominant within the professional field - up to a point that it can’t be changed easily. All this does not apply to users who use Linux computers outside a professional enviroment, as there are alternatives for popular programs and services already.

I can relate. It is like those tool bars that were installed automatically if you weren’t attentive while installing software when Windows XP still was around.

They like to suffer, I let them.

Me too. I always suggest to them to install UBlock origin (or any ad blocker compatible to their browser), along with add ons that get rid of cookie consent banners. If they follow my advice, I will invest my time into helping them to make their OS a little bit less annoying (e.g. switching off telemetry data and uninstalling Copilot). If they can’t be bothered with at least installing an ad blocker, I will not waste my time on them. They clearly want to suffer.

Edit: The screenshot displays a Windows Vista UI. These Toolbars must have been aorund also while Windows Vista was around. I didn’t know that, because Vista made me settle into the other walled garden.

Primary source

Unfortunately, EU can’t kick out contries that go completely against EU values.

Yes, all these email services want you to pay up for them. I think this is the price tag for privacy.

I have switched to Mailbox org a couple of years ago. I had a freemail provider before that. Unfortunately, this providers’ data got leaked, and therefore I got pwned, luckily only resulting into a tsunami of spam. The entry-tier with Mailbox is 1 € per month (= 12 € per year) which is compareably cheap in my opinion. Of course, it depends on what features you desire - more features cost more money. They also offer a free trial for 30 days (but it is wise to start the free trial at the begin of a month, as far as I recall).

The process of switching the email provider took me at least 6 months, where both the old and the new email adress have to exist simulatiously.

If you need to register quickly to an online service, i can recommend Temp-Mail org. Its free, but you need to have the tab opened for the registration process, as all data (including the free temporary email adress) will be deleted once the tab is closed. I used this service to register with my home instance, because back then I didn’t want to expose my real email adress.

You should look into this

Sounds like this guy, who did something similar. He was convicted in 2015 to a life in prison. It went all over the news back then.

Other than having a quiet shift, he wanted to put himself into the role of the hero who safed the patients, as far as I recall. In order to do this, he manipulated the patients’ medication and thus, a medical emergency was provoked, where he steps in and saves the patients’ life. But it went wrong oftentimes and the patients died. That’s how they got onto him.