I’ve found that LLMs can help you with refining incoherent ramblings into understandable questions. Even if you don’t know what words to use or how to ask something, it still somehow works anyway.

Just try dumping a wall of text on an LLM of your choice, and see what happens. You may need to have a proper conversation with the LLM to get what you’re really after, so don’t expect the first answer to be the final one.

Ad-blocking. Install uBlock Origin on your Firefox and enjoy the internet.

Hmm. I guess there is a category that isn’t entirely premeditated and intentional, nor is it a freak accident either. It’s sort of like an accident, but it’s caused be reckless stupidity, as opposed to something beyond your control.

As people have noticed, there are lots of reckless decisions that can ruin your life. I guess that fits the description of what OP was looking for.

But doesn’t that count as an accident? Kids who play with fireworks don’t cram a steel can full of black powder imagining how cool it would be to loose your fingers and eyes.

Oh, that’s interesting. Lucky you, I guess. The algorithms have been tuned to be as engaging as possible, and that seems to be working for most people. Obviously, it’s impossible to make it work for literally everyone, and you seem to be one of the few who can escape the algorithm.

The lack of an algorithm is a solution. Social media tends to be too addictive to the point it can be harmful to humans, so Mastodon was intentionally designed to be less addictive.

You can also use uBlock origin for that. You just need to make custom filter, and use GPT to figure out exactly what kind of code to write in that box. Different sites call their headlines with different names, so it may require some tweaking.

This problem has already been solved by content filtering. You can make your own filtering system, or you can just use a browser plugin like the famous Make The Internet Great Again which filters out all Trump related News articles.

Opt-out? Seriously? What are the Manjaro devs smoking?

What if you have appliances such as a scale, lights, watch or something? Pretty much guaranteed that those won’t work unless you use their app. If you want to go FOSS, you may need to sell all of your smart stuff and replace them with similar devices that work in a privacy respecting strictly FOSS environment.

My bank warned that they are planning to phase out the code booklet and replace it with a mobile app. Sure, you can continue to use a web browser, but how do you verify anything without a mobile app?

Also, some apps are very picky and refuse to work properly unless your android has GAPPS and is in the in an unmodified state just like the OEM intended. That’s bad news for privacy oriented Android users, let alone anyone who wants to run something even more FOSS.

“For instance, I often had to rely on the web browser to access services like Reddit, Telegram, and Discord since native apps weren’t available. Web apps work for primary use but can’t always replace dedicated apps, especially for banking or fitness tracking.”

That’s the core of the problem these days. Nowadays, there’s so much that requires an app to work.

Avoiding mobile apps was entirely realistic in the 2010s, but it’s too late for that now. The world has changed, that ship has sailed etc.

If you can isolate yourself from certain realities of the outside worlds, using a fully FOSS system can be done. The technology is there. It’s just that most people can’t isolate themselves to that degree.

Watch YT shorts during the ad break. Use a laptop + Firefox + uBlock origin to block the YT ads. If you prefer to use a tablet or a phone, it’s also possible to block the ads.

The shorts are bad, but still better than TV ads, but the good thing is, they can be interrupted as soon as the ad break ends. Watching longer videos is also an option, but there will be uncomfortable interruptions.

Now that you have an alternative video source competing with old school media, you can start to think about which one you actually enjoy more. Maybe you’ll find yourself watching more YT than whatever fake reality BS is on TV.

I was just about to write “by lowering the bar”, but I like your version more.

Oh, in that case… I guess you might need to bring anthrax with you and eradicate the early humans when they were all still conveniently in one continent.

Oh boy is that going to be a perplexing mystery for future archeologists. I can already imagine a PhD student banging their head on a desk screaming: “none of this makes any sense”.

You could visit late 1700s or early 1800s and start a company that makes renewable energy. Maybe something like wind power, wave power etc, should be achievable with the technology available at the time. If your company becomes successful enough, you could compete fossil fuels out of the market. Then, invest that money into developing energy storage technologies to outcompete the internal combustion engine.

How about the bottom of Mariana tench? The intense pressure will make sure some Mr Rando can’t just pop in one day and smack it with a hammer. If you keep this relic in the remains of the exploded reactor in Chernobyl, some nut job can just run in, cause some damage and run away. Sure, they will pay with their life, but that won’t fix the hammer marks on the cube.

Chemical dangers are another option, but those kinds of places aren’t stable for a million years. Some volcanoes spew sulfur dioxide, which would be a good repellant, but those vents open and close in unexpected ways.

Yes, you’re crazy. Stainless steel won’t last a million years. Not even close. You should go with titanium instead. That would also create a massive density difference between the two pieces in case someone lifts them up separately. Feeling the weight difference of the two pieces is very confusing for most people.

If I get to go with a Tardis, language barrier won’t be a problem. If not, medieval Europe will be out of the question, since languages have changed so much during the past few centuries.

If you travel back even further to see mammoths or even dinosaurs, languages won’t be an issue. Who knows what the ancient microbes will do to your immune system, so there are some serious risks.

I guess the past 200 years might be the most reasonable ones to choose from. I think I might want to meet James Prescott Joule (1818-1889), the inventor of the correct unit of energy.

James Watt (1736-1819) would be pretty interesting too, so I hope English hasn’t changed too much. Would be pretty annoying if we can’t communicate properly.