In this cast we will discuss about our new approach to support our project forever. See tromsite.com/donate/
We only need 200 people to donate 5 Euros a month. Equal contributions by a handful of people, to distribute the financial support in order to make it sustainable and fair for all.
We will also talk a bit about the upcoming ZDay in Prague where we will present our project, plus a few more things.
Just bashing the billionaires and big corporations, is shortsighted.
People think that Musk, Bezos, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on are now the "evil" that we should stand against and defeat. In truth these entities are no different from most humans living on this planet and most companies. It is just that some are bigger players, some are smaller.
When Bezos launched his small business in the early 1990 he was praised for making books available for more people.
But look at where he is now with Amazon.com.
We are all forced to be scammers, liars, fake, corrupted. Do you think there is any difference between Musk and Bezos buying other companies to gain influence or to shut down the competitors, and smaller companies temporarily lowering the prices or bribing the local politicians to gain more of the same? There isn't. The practice is 100% the same.
"Regulating" Facebook
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Just bashing the billionaires and big corporations, is shortsighted.
People think that Musk, Bezos, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on are now the "evil" that we should stand against and defeat. In truth these entities are no different from most humans living on this planet and most companies. It is just that some are bigger players, some are smaller.
When Bezos launched his small business in the early 1990 he was praised for making books available for more people.
But look at where he is now with Amazon.com.
We are all forced to be scammers, liars, fake, corrupted. Do you think there is any difference between Musk and Bezos buying other companies to gain influence or to shut down the competitors, and smaller companies temporarily lowering the prices or bribing the local politicians to gain more of the same? There isn't. The practice is 100% the same.
"Regulating" Facebook, Amazon, Google and the like it's like plastic recycling. You give the false impression that it works, and you continue to do this, while more plastic is being wasted than ever before, and more billionaires and corrupted people are being created than ever before.
Unless we calm down and dedicate some time to understand that these problems (corporations, climate change, corruption, influence, billionaires, etc.) are HUMANS, and human behavior comes from the ENVIRONMENT, and the environment is that of TRADING, unless we understand that, nothing will ever change. Period.
You can chop the heads of Musk and Bezos, you can destroy Google, Amazon and Facebook, and then realize that absolutely nothing has changed. New billionaires and new monopolistic corporations will evolve out of the same trade-environment.
What can we do?
Provide humans with at least their basic needs as trade-free.
Humans NEED to have access to a decent life, without having to trade anything in return for this. We need calm, relaxed, and educated humans, in order to do anything more than that. There are no plants growing out of a soil that has no nutrients, moisture, and such conditions.
We need to make people understand that life is not about consuming more shit, but about enjoying the nature, discover, learn, explore. We need to make companies and billionaires obsolete. Because what Google and the like fear the most is not the competition (because they can buy that), but becoming irrelevant. When people do not see any value in what they "sell", in what they "do".
If only there was a documentary explaining all of these in great detail....
> When Bezos launched his small business in the early 1990 he was praised for making books available for more people.
This makes me wonder how many small businesses there are today that are being praised by everyone, people only seem to notice the problem with these businesses when they get too big, not realizing that if you kill one big business then there are hundreds if not thousands ready to replace that one.
> We need to make companies and billionaires obsolete. Because what Google and the like fear the most is not the competition (because they can buy that), but becoming irrelevant. When people do not see any value in what they "sell", in what they "do".
Right on point here, we should try to create a world where we don't have to rely on any kind of businesses to get our things done, instead of replacing one business with another.
Did you ever realize that the most popular browser in the entire world, is made and controlled by an ad company? And the most popular search engine....Same goes for the most popular "social networks". And mobile operating system....
Insane....
And now Google, who has the power to change the internet for the worse, is trying to do something that I had anticipated many years ago. You see, we think that we fooled these companies by using adblockers, or some interfaces like invidious and the like, but the truth is that we could do that because they allowed us to. As soon as these will threaten their existence they can throw massive amounts of money at it and make it difficult if not impossible to bypass these.
Example: since Google owns the search, the mobile operating system, maps, the most popular video platform and so on, AND they own the most popular browser in the world, they are trying to introduce some technical things into the browser and some of their websites to block the adblockers and more.
Basically if you visit Youtube.com via Chrome, then Youtube
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Did you ever realize that the most popular browser in the entire world, is made and controlled by an ad company? And the most popular search engine....Same goes for the most popular "social networks". And mobile operating system....
Insane....
And now Google, who has the power to change the internet for the worse, is trying to do something that I had anticipated many years ago. You see, we think that we fooled these companies by using adblockers, or some interfaces like invidious and the like, but the truth is that we could do that because they allowed us to. As soon as these will threaten their existence they can throw massive amounts of money at it and make it difficult if not impossible to bypass these.
Example: since Google owns the search, the mobile operating system, maps, the most popular video platform and so on, AND they own the most popular browser in the world, they are trying to introduce some technical things into the browser and some of their websites to block the adblockers and more.
Basically if you visit Youtube.com via Chrome, then Youtube first asks Chrome about you. Like...are you using an adblocker? If Chrome says yes, then Youtube can refuse you. Therefore you cannot visit Youtube.com unless you do what Youtube says you should do. In this case deactivating your adblocker.
Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain, but they often want or need to do it without paying directly. These websites fund themselves with ads, but the advertisers can only afford to pay for humans to see the ads, rather than robots. This creates a need for human users to prove to websites that they're human, sometimes through tasks like challenges or logins.
And this is their first point in their explanation. Of course they will fight for this. It will get harder and harder, if not impossible to block ads and trackers.
This is easily predictable when you understand that the main goal of humans on this planet is to trade. This for that. An evolution that results in big companies doing this sort of shit, even when they have more than enough.
I have been screaming about this for more than a decade. But most people do not listen. Do not want to talk about this. They make it look complicated (ad-based economics, surveillance capitalism, blah blah blah). In truth it is the same practice and incentive for Google as it is for the guy who owns a small grocery store. Stop thinking that this is an issue with big companies and billionaires. It is not. We are all, or most of us, scammers, charlatans, tricksters. On small or big levels.
What can we do about it?
First understand it. Understand why these things happen, because if you do not at best you can make some politicians approve some laws to try and stop these big players. And this does not work. We made a big book and a huge documentary all about this.
Second, try to use trade-free alternative platforms. See trom.tf/ - the ones that we offer. Or visit the Trade-Free Directory and search for some directory.trade-free.org/
We need to understand where the problem originates (trade) and inform people about it, but also try to use alternative platforms and software, so we don't depend on this motherfuckers.
I agree. Unfortunately there aren't many alternatives. I use Firefox for many years now, but except that, what are other options that are not Chromium dependent or dependent on Firefox who receives a lot of money from Google?
Opera is a multi-platform web browser developed by its namesake company Opera.[11][12][13] The browser is based on Chromium, but distinguishes itself from other Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, etc.) through its user interface and other features.
@rotfarm my knowledge about this is very limited, but from what I understand Google is proposing a method for web developers to verify the integrity of users who visit their websites, so if this proposal becomes a success and people started implementing this verification on their websites then you won't be able to access those sites from firefox, unless firefox also implemented this thing in their browser.
I really hope I'm wrong here and that it won't affect firefox users.....
@aral @rotfarm Maybe organizations like EFF would fight against this, that's my only hope now. If you actually think about it what Google is doing here is also anticompetitive in nature, other web browsers should be given the choice to not implement their design, but how can that be with a verification system like this being put on websites we visit.
@rotfarm Where “a lot of” = ~half a billion dollars every year = if Google stopped paying them tomorrow, they’d be bankrupt the next day = totally dependent on Google for their existence.
@aral so an important question here that needs to be asked......if there is an absance of alternatives, why aren't people making them? Is it defeatism? No profit? This doesn't seem to stop most FOSS projects from being made, so why not make a web browser?
@rotfarm A web browser is a huge undertaking. No reason why the EU couldn’t fund an independent organisation to make one, though. (Apart from lack of political will and a myopic insistence on framing everything through the lens of “The Single Market.”)
We need 200 people to support TROM forever. And they only have to give us 2 cups of coffee a month. See this - tromsite.com/donate/
Listen, for more than a decade we have created a lot of materials and tools. On the Donate page you can scroll through a summary of that. There is 1 human working full time for TROM (me, Tio), and we have 2 servers plus some 5TB of online backups. Unfortunately the servers and TIo need money to survive.
The goal is to find only 200 people who can donate 5 Euros a month. This is a very reasonable goal and it will make TROM fully sustainable, forever.
Think about it: everyone will contribute equally and a very small amount. And I also won't get rich. I want to keep TROM humble, real, genuine, and to make sure that those who support it are many and do the least amount
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We need 200 people to support TROM forever. And they only have to give us 2 cups of coffee a month. See this - tromsite.com/donate/
Listen, for more than a decade we have created a lot of materials and tools. On the Donate page you can scroll through a summary of that. There is 1 human working full time for TROM (me, Tio), and we have 2 servers plus some 5TB of online backups. Unfortunately the servers and TIo need money to survive.
The goal is to find only 200 people who can donate 5 Euros a month. This is a very reasonable goal and it will make TROM fully sustainable, forever.
Think about it: everyone will contribute equally and a very small amount. And I also won't get rich. I want to keep TROM humble, real, genuine, and to make sure that those who support it are many and do the least amount of effort.
I have a dream....and my dream, if I were to keep it realistic and down to Earth, is to (for now) achieve the "200 or TROM" goal. Because if I achieve that, then I can continue to create new things for the project, and to reach more people. In time maybe something bigger will spark.
But....if I cannot achieve this, I am going to fade away, little by little, forced to trade myself in this society and TROM will become irrelevant, and in a few years time hard to maintain. I have seen many similar organizations fading away and it is very sad to me.
The truth is that the only reason TROM is alive is because I had the motivation and financial support to continue. But for the past years the financial support has dropped so much that I can barely pay for the servers and I have no means to support myself other than doing some webdesign work for others. And that too is no more than 200 Euros a month.
This new donation approach will be the only one I will try. I am sick and tired of asking for support, so I put all of the eggs into that basket. And I will push this until I either manage to find 200 humans who are willing to give 2 cups of coffee a month to support the so many projects that we are doing, or I will fail while trying.
You know for the past 3 years I worked on the TROM II documentary. A new project basically. So I wonder what new projects I will do in the future. I started to write a book about The Internet and I think it is a unique overview of this complex subject. I then thought what if instead I would start a new video series and pick apart such complex subjects.... I then talked to Roma and Roko and others about it....what if we collaborate and make something cool together? I do not lack ideas or motivation, I lack money. And for that matter, not a lot. I need the bare minimum to have a life and nothing more.
Ok folks, let's see how this goes. 200 people is not a crazy number. There are hundreds, if not thousands who enjoy the TROM content or use our services, daily.
Let's see how many of them can and are willing to help.
"Nirav, Founder & CEO of Framework sat down with Frank Azor, Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions & Marketing at AMD to discuss partnership, innovation, and revolutionary design that brought this laptop to life!“
Yup, I was playing around with the configuration on their website....if I were to configure one that's similar to the one I have now, would be some 600 Euros more expensive....and mine is also a convertible one. So the difference is even bigger. Unfortunately. However I keeping an eye on this one.
TROMcast: TROM II - A Message to the Aliens (cast)
In this TROMcast we will discuss about the recently released TROM documentary "A Message to the Aliens".
The documentary description:
We live in a world where everyone is busy, everyone is consumed, everyone seems confused. Money, social credits, ads, data collection, prices and billionaires. Climate change? Who cares!
A one-marble world, floating in a giant soup of stars and planets, clustered in donut-shaped galaxies.
What are these humans living for?
In a 5 hour, 4 parts documentary, we try to explore their world, to understand what makes them human, what makes them enslave their kind, destroy their habitat, and be unaware of their place in this universe. But also what makes them so special.
Through the lives of 5 humans, we look at the culture that creates them, their struggles growing up on this planet, and where they are headed toward.
TROM II: A Message to the Aliens Year: 2023 / Duration: 4 parts, 5 hours We live in a world where everyone is busy, everyone is consumed, everyone seems confused. Money, social credits, ads, data collection, prices and billionaires.
Tomorrow the 12th at 7PM Madrid time, we will do a TROMcast about the recently released TROM II documentary: A Message to the Aliens. Everyone is free to participate. We will have most of the "cast" of the documentary and the live will go to our Peertube, here videos.trom.tf/w/n6jXRKRZi3Bnx…
You can participate via our live chat or join us for the video call (we will share the link shortly after the live will start).
Great video @Nick @ The Linux Experiment ! I totally agree that the modern ad-bloated internet is unusable and it will definitely become worse. It is great you demonstrate alternative federated networks and actively use those to share your content too, thank you for that. This is also a very good that you emphasize that YouTube content (or any other content) has never been free and it has always been in return for your data and attention (ads). That is a really good analysis, but I would also like to encorage you to look even beyond that, on the root-cause of this urge for profits, which eventually ruins everything - the incentive to trade. We have to build a society, which fulfills at least basic needs for the people for surviving in this world, so they can have more time to create something meaningful, share wi
Great video @Nick @ The Linux Experiment ! I totally agree that the modern ad-bloated internet is unusable and it will definitely become worse. It is great you demonstrate alternative federated networks and actively use those to share your content too, thank you for that. This is also a very good that you emphasize that YouTube content (or any other content) has never been free and it has always been in return for your data and attention (ads). That is a really good analysis, but I would also like to encorage you to look even beyond that, on the root-cause of this urge for profits, which eventually ruins everything - the incentive to trade. We have to build a society, which fulfills at least basic needs for the people for surviving in this world, so they can have more time to create something meaningful, share with others and enjoy what they are doing (including creating more content they like for the alternative platforms), rather than dying at somewhat jobs just to have food and shelter.
There are TROM project and @Tio, who has been arguing for more than 10 years already that The TRADE is the origin of the most problems humanity faces today and that we have to oppose ever-increasing persuit of profit. They recenly released a 5 hours long documentary, describing this problem in great details and discussing the possible solutions to it, such as trade-free movement. I would like to gratefully ask you to spend a bit of your time on it and help to spread the word, since it seems like you are not indifferent to the future of the internet and, I am sure, to the future of humanity too.
I am pleasantly surprised by @Nick @ The Linux Experiment 's conclusion and the fact that he had the decency and humility to accept that even what he does now, relying on ads, is not a healthy way of moving forward and that the best would be to perhaps support the creators via donations. Else the incentive is really bad. I was skeptical about this video but I gained more respect for the guy.
And I don't just talk about this, I have been creating content online for more than 15 years now. I wrote some 30 books, released 2 huge documentaries, made a lot of videos, and continue to do more. All scientific and sourced till they bleed. All free.
But fuck me, how in the fucking world can I "make it" when it takes me a year to write a book, 3 years to make a documentary....I can't pump 5 books a month and a documentary every week. Even if I wanted to rely on the ads-model, I would be totally fucked.
This is a complicated situation and there are
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I am pleasantly surprised by @Nick @ The Linux Experiment 's conclusion and the fact that he had the decency and humility to accept that even what he does now, relying on ads, is not a healthy way of moving forward and that the best would be to perhaps support the creators via donations. Else the incentive is really bad. I was skeptical about this video but I gained more respect for the guy.
And I don't just talk about this, I have been creating content online for more than 15 years now. I wrote some 30 books, released 2 huge documentaries, made a lot of videos, and continue to do more. All scientific and sourced till they bleed. All free.
But fuck me, how in the fucking world can I "make it" when it takes me a year to write a book, 3 years to make a documentary....I can't pump 5 books a month and a documentary every week. Even if I wanted to rely on the ads-model, I would be totally fucked.
This is a complicated situation and there are no immediate solutions, but we must be wise and think more broadly like @Roma is saying: what society have we built that we have to struggle to even survive and have no time to create good shit? Perhaps it is time to at least "demand" that us as humans have our basic needs met, for free, and then we can build communities, and content, and help others and evolve in a better direction. Because at the end of the day ads or money are not like energy sources you plug into the Internet machine to keep it working, they are "incentives" for humans. And they are bad incentives. Humans created the Internet. And if we take care of humans, they can take care of the Internet.
Basically, as long as the current model holds, I’ll use the platform it allowed me to access, to raise awareness about Linux and free software. Once it crumbles, or as it crumbles, I’ll try to adapt!
Despite the fact that humans have created so much misery, so much destruction, so many mountains of waste, and wasted so many brains for the past thousands of years, there is some hope in sight. But to understand and harness that hope, they must take a giant step back and look at their society from an alien perspective.
They have to let go of what they think is normal and try to undress the layered society they have created, to see the naked reality behind it all. Only then can hope be understood. Only then, the understanding of hope can become the bedrock for change.
There is only one, and one only. A few kilometers of crust layered with a few kilometers of atmosphere. A seemingly endless variety of plants and animals. And yet, the 8 billion humans inhabiting it are naively ignoring the fragility of this ecosystem. If Earth was an island, it would be the only one in a vast empty ocean.
Humans are the rulers of this world, with no corner left untouched by them. Rulers who think that they might be exempt from the rest of nature. But the destruction of this habitat is starting to have consequences that are impossible to ignore.
Despite what most people may believe, the human society, from China to the US, from Europe to Africa, and everywhere else, is based primarily, if not entirely, on a practice that dates back thousands of years. That practice dictates how humans treat others and the environment around them. What movies they make, what books they write, what products they create, who and what they care about, and what they prioritize.
From science to entertainment, or the day to day life, this old practice is a force that all humans are slaves to.
What does Romania, Russia, Latvia, Germany, and the United States have in common? A planet, and the human imagination. We imagine borders, nationalities, and differences. In truth we are all very much the same. We grow up in a culture, we watch the same TV, listen to the same music, follow similar traditions. We are “educated” and “trained” by institutions that are rarely questioned by the masses.
So how does a newborn human become someone in this culture of humans? And how does the human-invented world contrast with the vast universe we are part of?
I'd like to say that I felt a huge relief or happiness but the feelings were moderate at best. I sent a few emails to some people and orgs, let's see if the documentary reaches some. I am happy that we have 1k people subscribed to our newsletter and the "open email rate" is over 50%.
Anyway, these next days I'll focus on getting the word out about the documentary and see if we get any feedback. I also plan to make a TROMcast about it and I also work on a big article about the work that I did for the documentary and the reasoning behind the approach I have taken with it.
I also wanna focus on my personal life. Go out more, dive and see some sea creatures, and eventually stress about the money situation later this year :) .
But anyways, what makes me the happiest BY FAR is that this documentary IS DONE. And I can focus on new things. Maybe
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This is me after I released the documentary:
I'd like to say that I felt a huge relief or happiness but the feelings were moderate at best. I sent a few emails to some people and orgs, let's see if the documentary reaches some. I am happy that we have 1k people subscribed to our newsletter and the "open email rate" is over 50%.
Anyway, these next days I'll focus on getting the word out about the documentary and see if we get any feedback. I also plan to make a TROMcast about it and I also work on a big article about the work that I did for the documentary and the reasoning behind the approach I have taken with it.
I also wanna focus on my personal life. Go out more, dive and see some sea creatures, and eventually stress about the money situation later this year :) .
But anyways, what makes me the happiest BY FAR is that this documentary IS DONE. And I can focus on new things. Maybe new videos, new books, new projects. Let's see. But for the time being let's try to tell people about this documentary because I think it is a very important one. Objectively so. What we present there is real and important. So please share the documentary!
Ok people, the documentary is finally available. Please keep your expectations low and keep in mind that this documentary is made mostly by one human being, with limited resources. We have not used any stock footage (except maybe 2-3) so everything you'll see is real and genuine.
Also, keep in mind that this is not the beginning or the end of anything, but a continuation of our work for this TROM project. We will create more materials and projects.
It will be available for everyone, of course, and with proper English captions and sources. We are streaming it via our own video platform videos.trom.tf (Peertube) so there will be no censorship this time.
Keep in mind, this documentary style is very different from the first documentary. This is more of a "personal" documentary that revolves around 5 people, but it expands far more than just that, presenting an "overview" of our society from an alien perspective. Please keep your expectations low and keep in mind that most of the work was done by one single human being, from recordings to editing and so forth.
Also, we used no stock footage, so everything you see there is real. No fake bullshit.
Our TROM Discussions chat is now open, after some 8 months of silencing it in order to finish the TROM II documentary. Join if you want matrix.to/#/#chat:matrix.trom.…
You're invited to talk on Matrix. If you don't already have a client this link will help you pick one, and join the conversation. If you already have one, this link will help you join the conversation
If you refuse to be part of the trade society, say you refuse to trade your work and you give it away for free, because you want to be a good human, you are fucked. Unless you get support from other human beings, voluntarily, you could basically die. End up in the streets, be unable to feed yourself, and survive overall.
our trade-based society doesn't care about how much value you create, they only care how much money you make. And if you don't make enough money then you're fucked, there are no good support systems for people, no safety nets. So people are forced to work a paid job under the threat of poverty, they don't have a choice. How on earth can people consider these inhumane things as normal is beyond me, and yeah volunteers like yourself are struggling because of it.
The concentration of nice people at this meeting was off the charts :smiling face with smiling eyes: Thank you @Tio @Sasha and @Georgi for organizing it and taking care of us :hand with fingers splayed:
A bunch of wonderful humans who came to visit us. People who help this project, and people who are very good friends. So calm, so nice, so human.
A huge thank you to them all. Too bad we could not gather all of them for the meeting. But we will do more.
We mostly meet in order to have some good time together but also to work on some TROM stuff. We will try to work on the transcriptions for the TROM II documentary and a few other things, will see.
Looking forward to release the documentary in June. #tromlive
Alexio
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