TROM

2022-07-12 02:28:13

How small we are, how big our eyes are

This is the first image released by the James Webb Telescope:

If you take a grain of salt, put it on the tip of your finger, and stretch your arm...that is the area of the sky that this represents.

Imagine how small we are, yet how big our eyes have become. Imagine how further we can see from one dim pebble. All of those ellipses of light and little dots, are galaxies. Billions of stars each, trillions of planets. Not enough grains of sand on Earth to match the number of planets in our Universe.

Such revelations should shake our species; our values should be reevaluated. Our priorities re-organized.

And yet, such astonishing truths, are a mere excitement for a select few; such images will become one of the trillions of images in the digital universe. On par with any other. Our society will fail to be moved in any direction; our values seem set in stone; our priorities will follow the same mindless and insignificant profits.

To say this is sad, is unjust. It is unbearable for anyone who understands all of this.

We have created a society of idiots. But we should know the cause by now. It is because humans ended up with a society that is based on trade. Trade this, trade that. You cannot survive if you cannot trade. And so, all of the humans are trapped in a nightmare. We can only wake them up, if we take care of them. Feed them, treat them, give them a shelter, a life. Only then we can hope to see them being curious about themselves and the world they live in. To focus on significant endeavors; to discover the universe, to understand their connection with nature, to protect what needs to be protected, to explore what is unexplored. To become a human species that has grandiose goals, and saner wants.

This is the only path forward. We have to march on the streets, we have to scream online, to provide humans with access to their needs, as trade-free. To decouple them from this hamster wheel, this nightmare. To give them back their brains. No change in politics or policies will do anything if all humans are consumed on a daily basis, for mindless trades.

Provide humans with their needs, as trade-free. Do it!

TROM is marching for this for at least a decade now. What are you doing? Where are you? We need you! #tromlive

Tio

2022-05-06 19:44:10

I am releasing a new project to, hopefully, make some money so that I can support our TROM project and myself. This is it -->> webape.site/

So. I provide managed instances for Mastodon, Peertube, Nextcloud, Friendica, and a few other services. On top of this I am making any kind of website in Wordpress. This is my "skill" and so I will try to make some money like this. I have to, I have no choice.

But listen.

I am not making a "business" out of this. I want to do a decent job at it, so I will only take 20-30 projects. Enough to sustain myself and have the time to focus on TROM, plus be able to properly manage these paid-for websites.

I tried to provide really cheap and very "tempting" offers, if anyone is interested, since I will only post once about this on my profile, the rest go on the Federated profile of the project -->> social.trom.tf/profile/webape

Here is what I offer:

Mastodon:

Peertube:

Nextcloud:

Wordpress:

I can setup huge instances up to 25TB of diskspace. And provide support over email or chat (Matrix).

If you think anyone may be interested, give it a share.

TROM

2022-04-27 17:51:53

If you are worried that yet another billionaire is owning a social (ad) platform (twitter) then we recommend our own social network that connects with millions of people across the fediverse. This is it : https://social.trom.tf

Fediverse is a network, much like email. So you can register with our instance (website) then you can communicated with everyone in the fediverse.

Our platform is based on Friendica with a custom skin (dark/light and different colors) to make things more modern and simple.

Here are the main advantages:

- it is trade-free (thus you do not have to trade your data, attention - ads -, currency, and so forth); it is purely free
- uncensored (your posts and thoughts are yours, so it is your responsibility for what you post)
- ability to block anyone and delete posts/comments
- it connects with different federated platforms such as peertube, mastodon, pixelfed and so forth (these are blog/video/image platforms)
- you can create big posts (no limitations) + format the text and add inline media
- it supports markdown
- you can follow any RSS source (think about your favorite website, you can simply follow that)
- it can connect with Twitter so you can auto and cross post to your Twitter account or follow Twitter accounts and interact with them
- auto discovery of contacts based on your profile
- several timelines (chronological, based on your activity, or even a global timeline of the fediverse)
- works with Mastodon's API so any Mastodon APP also works with our Friendica
- and more

Here you can find more details about it - https://trom.tf/social/

Take advantage of it #tromlive

TROM

2022-04-28 11:47:52

Diversity is not created by "capitalism"

Many people believe a fat myth of today's world, that capitalism (this trade-based system) is creating diversity. Look at how many chocolates there are, cars, gadgets, software, etc.. But this is a myth. The diversity is in the package/wrapper and not the product itself. Most phones are the same, nothing new for "new releases". Cars brought almost no advantage to transportation overall for the past decades. Products in the supermarket taste quite the same between brands, and clothes are recycled fashion trends. Movies and books are remakes or copy cats of whatever sells best. And so on.

Anyway, here is a search engine we made to showcase how 175 companies own pretty much everything in this world https://www.tromsite.com/tbf/

But I want to focus on 1 particular domain: software.

Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, VK, and maybe 3-4 more, are the ones that are the most used in the world. They do not communicate with each other and are very limited in terms of functionality. It means you choose one or another, or a bunch of them and manage them separately. They are trade-based platforms (you trade your data, currency, attention to them). Full of ads, full of censorship, full of crap overall.

On the other hand the Fediverse is a network of such platforms: Friendica, Mastodon, Peertube, Pixelfed, Funkwhale, and so forth. Look at the diversity here https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/ - these are made by different organizations and enabled by different people. A ton of diversity in terms of options.

These are video platforms, blog platforms, photo sharing platforms, platforms for musicians, live streaming, events, you name it. And all communicate with each other. If some organization has an account with Peertube (video platform) I can follow and interact with them from my social platform Friendica. How amazing! If I have a Peertube account and a Friendica one, I can easily setup so that when I post on Peertube a video, it goes on my Friendica too, as a post. The options are very diverse.

This "fediverse" is created not to be traded but to be shared. You will not find ads on these platforms (at least not on the vast majority of them), or data collection or any of that crap.

The MacOS and Windows vs Linux is yet another example of how diversity is actually achieved when humans do not sell their stuff and themselves, when you have a community of people who share their work and ideas. Linux comes in so many flavors for so many needs and wants. Look at this:

So if you look at software overall, the "capitalism" world, which is the trade-based world in which people make software to trade it (for data, attention, currency, etc.) is like a handful of options. But when the software is created for the sake of creating it and is shared and anyone can copy these, modify, redistribute, as trade-free, then real diversity is created and a better environment emerges overall.

We should take the software example and try to provide other goods/services in the same manner. But to do that we have to decouple humans from the trade-based society. At least when it comes to their basic needs. Else no one can have the time to engage in such things. Software is easy to create and maintain from the comfort of your home and in your space time, but is difficult when it comes to food or other goods and services. In any case there is still and abundance of such trade-free goods/services out there as we showcase here directory.trade-free.org/. But this is not enough.

So. If we want to create a wonderful society, we first have to decouple humans from this trade-based society by at least providing them with their basic needs as trade-free. That creates a good soil for the emergence of lots of trade-free goods/services, in a positive feedback loop. Imagine how much good we can create in this world. Imagine how much real diversity. Imagine how wonderful this could be.

#tromlive

Tio

2022-03-04 22:50:05

The Media War

These days I kept an eye on the current war, from 4-5 sources. DW (germany), Aljazeera (qatar), BBC (uk), Rt.com (Russia Today), and TASS (tass.com - russian news agency). So 2 are from Europe, 1 from Asia, 2 from Russia.

I was curious to see how they report it and how the information is presented.

What I've seen:

Aljazeera, DW, and BBC (ADB) kinda present the same things, the same story line. BBC seems to be more jumpy with the facts, as in presenting more information that even they say could not be verified. More politicized I felt. Also they add a lot of opinions from their editors. You kinda sense it is "Let's beat Russia now! Fuck them.". But seem to try to also be balanced in regards to "he said that, she said that" sort of thing.

So ADB showcases a lot of the horror in Ukraine and how Russia is doing a lot of bad things. They show footage and photos from the conflict, with the victims, with the refugees, with the people sheltering.

The Russian Media (RM) doesn't even call it a war, and their main pages are quite voided of any photos or videos of the horror of the war. Almost as if those dead people, sheltered, the refugees are not even existent. You can clearly see a bias in this regards. Their websites are full of "diplomatic" photos with the politicians that discuss these events.

Here are the ADB front-pages, in order:

And RM:

Clearly ADB is like "WTF people are dying, Russia is at war, Europe is at war". While RM is like "Russia is doing a special intervention to free up Ukraine. Calm down." Although ADB may exaggerate things and make them too bloody explosive, and they are for sure biased too, RM is clearly biased and being a jerk for not highlighting the human suffering.

As for what they are saying, ADB tells us that Putin is a lunatic and has no reason to invade Ukraine or fear NATO. Putin may start a WW3. They do not tell me why he fears NATO or how we came to this point very much. They tell me that what Ukrainians say is probably true and that Ukrainians are heroes defending their land. It feels like a clear fight between the good (ukraine and the world) and the evil (putin and russia).

ADB tells me that Russia is full of lies and Putin is a dictator basically. They say RM is full of propaganda.

RM tells me that this is not a war, but a "special intervention" and that Russia only attacks the Ukrainian military and not civilians. RM tells me that there are Nazis in Ukraine, but ADB seem to not talk much about it. Is it true and to what extent? Who knows for sure, but RM sounds like some 1930s Germany Nazi propaganda in my head - the irony...

So overall RM tells me that Russia had no choice, it got scared of NATO and NATO broke its promises + NATO is a bad bad guy. Tells me the USA is a monster and a snake. Does not seem to at all criticize Putin and Russia's actions. They do however present criticism (as quotes) coming from some politicians and such. But not criticism from their editors. They say that the other media is full of propaganda and lies.

So that's what it is...a bunch of things.

ADB: NATO good, USA good, EU good, sanctions good. Russia and Putin bad. Putin crazy, a criminal. Russia needs to be destroyed via sanctions.

RM: NATO bad, USA bad, EU a puppet of those, sanctions don't matter much. Putin has reasonable motives to do the "special operation" and all is going to plan.

My thoughts?

Very likely RM is full of shit. They may post some truths about NATO and the USA, but to not report much on the war itself and not even call it a war? The dead? The refugees? The crisis? Unacceptable. Where are the horror photos of the injured and destruction? So fuck off RM. You are a prostitute.

ADB should also be a lot more balanced and less emotional. Aljazeera seems to be doing better. But they seem to not address much the reasons why the invasion has happened and make it seem like Ukraine and the people there are saints and heroes and woke up one day with Putin and his army in their country.

Overall it can become a confusing mess if you want to stay up to date with the current situation.

What I am sure of is that:

• Currently millions of people are suffering because of Russia's invasion. Some dead, some scared, some have no home, or food, and so forth. That's awful
• Media is biased but the level of it makes the big difference; picking your sides should be a variety of a few from different parts of the world. I still think RM is a lot more biased to the point of fully propaganda. But they do point towards some things that the others do not talk much about and are true: how USA invaded other countries under a false pretext and killed and destroyed a lot without being sanctioned and such; but I feel they use these as distractions from whatever Russia is doing.
• Speaking of that, Russia is doing awful things, but is nothing that unique; USA and EU tribes, and others, have done atrocities too in the past and all are snakes and charlatans.
• Ukraine is not a saint.
• Ukraine does not deserve to be destroyed.
• It is all politicized and tribes + politicians take advantage of this. USA is like "OMG Russia is doing war crimes!". Fuck off USA, you are still doing these and more. And Russia pointing to that....Fuck off Russia, don't divert the attention from the crimes you are doing!
• Lots of money are made by arms dealers nowadays.
• Ordinary people who did not start this or fuel this, are going to suffer more than the ones who started and fuel this conflict.

What else? I don't know...but these are my thoughts for now.

We are thinking to do a TROMcast and invite some people from Russia and Ukraine to discuss the situation. Will see....

#tromlive

TROM

2022-02-22 12:56:38

Words and swords

Never forget this image:

We are tiny and fragile. And we are all on the same spaceship. Fighting with each other, polluting, destroying ourselves and the spaceship with its ecosystems, is a sign of a primitive species.

Technologically we are advanced. Morally, primitive still. We look for signs of intelligent life out there, but there seem to be none in here.

We have created a system of "politics" that is a mere fashion show. We do not know what is true anymore, nor that we ever knew. Science is here to help, but the incentive to trade made us merchants and consumers, so the value is in how much we acquire. Science is thus, mainly a tool to help us sell more. Build taller buildings for richer humans, make thinner smart-phones for stupid-consumers; better tanks and rockets to destroy the others: more plastic, more livestock, more of the same products wrapped in different wrappers, all on the backs of our capable technology.

Science tells us that we are all one, connected through evolution, entangled with the universe. Atoms, cells, planets. But who has the time to embrace this reality when we are all rats in a trade-race!?

Conquerors, emperors, politicians, are self delusional. Even their victories are momentary. We should, by now, go at war with cancer, pollution, biodiversity loss, homelessness, other diseases, asteroids....not with each other.

Your tanks and missiles won't bring peace.
Your lies and fake news don't exist.
Your words are swords, that only cut
A world of wars, online or not.

And even those who use no sword,
Their words are empty, their actions fold.

#tromlive