How is me “forcing” somehow worse than Microsoft actually forcing people to use their ad-pushing, data mining spyware of an operating system? My “agenda” is simplifying an elderly person’s computing experience, protecting her from phishing/scams and allowing her the freedom of not having to worry about one other thing.

Weird take, bud.

Hey of it works for your pop and you keep stuff out of a landfill I say that’s a solid win.

Yeah it’s a very good overall distro. Things work well and it’s familiar enough to pick up and use.

My 77 year old mother-in-law runs Pop cause of me and loves it.

I remember getting a “winmodem” working on Mandrake back in the late 90s and thinking I was the smartest boy alive.

Fun read, but the zinger of “it… Just… Isn’t… Important” really damages your argument.

The difference in knowing how our technological systems work versus just using them is how you wind up in a world where capitalist rule, intelligence dwindles and choice is stolen. We’re seeing these effects in real time. And it’s just not technology; take the electoral system here in the US. It stopped being about the functions of our government and became flag waving and baby kissing. Now our tax dollars kill children, the rich are all but unstoppable and we’re at each other’s throats all because we, collectively, let the systems work without understanding how and why.

Tech today being a glass and aluminum block feeds our lust, insecurity, inequality, comparison etc all in an effort to generate wealth and further divide, all by design. Didn’t you think it’s very important to know that?

Because our governments are largely bought and paid for.

Narcissism.

If Hitler had been wheelchair-bound would it be wrong to insult him using the wheelchair as a point of criticism? Real question not a troll.

Pop!_OS.

Lack of intelligence isn’t the issue. Take the dumbest person you know and imagine they’re trapped in a room with no visible escape path. They panic and start destroying whatever’s in the room. They damage themselves in a fit trying to escape. Now take that same scenario but put in small creature comforts and distractions. Now your dumb friend isn’t panicking or fighting to get out. He’s still trapped and his intelligence neither helped or harmed his situation. This is what’s happened over the last 100 years, and it’s accelerated to decline.

It really is. It’s not even a pleasant thought experiment.

Sweet home Alabama…

When I was fairly young my mom described Christian heaven. I remember struggling with the idea of not struggling and being happy all the time. Then she hit me with if someone you love doesn’t make it to heaven you forget them. That’s when the fracture began for me.

Wild boar problem? Baby, humans are the problem.

I’m going to give you the secret to switching. Go all AMD for your build, and leave everything you know about Windows software and how it works at the door. Learn to use Linux. Expecting it and Linux software to work like Windows is the pitfall.