Note: Also posted to Facebook, so some of this is worded carefully and using stories and references to avoid getting censored.
Something that comes to mind every time a high profile death like this happens...
And to be clear, this isn't a condemnation, but food for thought:
In Judaism there's a relevant lesson, that we're guided not to celebrate death but to celebrate the diminishment of evil.
It's such a tiny difference, but I think it does make worlds of difference in our lives and in how we behave down the line.
I'll spare the talks of faith or divine judgement, but I'll speak to the practical effects I think are in play.
The risk in celebrating the death itself is that you start finding joy in the death of those you see as wrong or evil... and that joy can turn into a lowering of standards, in finding excuses to celebrate death. Eventually you start saying "But that man was evil so it's a good thing he died".
But what does it mean to celebrate the diminishment of evil? It means seeing what harm they would have done, and celebrating the end of that harm.
It's not enough to just say "there's one less bigot and evil person in the world", it's to ask how many lives do you think will be spared from harm?
The reason my celebration at this will be muted is because I honestly don't know if his voice was unique enough, or that it will take any time at all for him to be replaced and echoed.
It's not as simple as the United Healthcare death, where there was an immediate (but unfortunately temporary) change, that for a while after people got healthcare that would have otherwise been denied... without a doubt, many lives were saved.
In cases like this I especially think back to the story in my faith of the drowning of the Pharaoh's army in the Sea of Reeds. To the fact that a single soldier's death would have done little to diminish evil on it's own... but that single soldier's death is a necessary part of the greater whole that greatly diminishes evil.
I'm really broken and miserable right now...
Everything is just too much, every minute feels like an incredible struggle both physically and mentally...
To start, I'm disabled, not that the government cares. My ADHD is really bad, especially when I'm exhausted and/or stressed (which is all the time), it's beyond incredibly difficult to start tasks let alone focus on them...
After that is my physical issues, of which there's little even figured out because the healthcare system is hell... I'm in constant pain, especially in my legs, moving or not. But when I move, every muscle has more and more over the years started to feel less and less flexible. My range of motion is shot, and every single movement takes more and more effort. (last suggestion from a doctor right before she left the practice, and I have no idea if it's at all accurate is she was thinking it might be fibromyalgia).
I'm not even sure if it's just an extension of that or something else, but I'm also constantly exhausted no matter how much rest I've had.
... and that's my fucking baseline...
I'm trans, not only in the US but in fucking Texas... so I'm dealing with all this government bigotry increasingly bearing down on me... and the knowledge that it's only a matter of time before they start arresting us just for existing.
I'm barely afloat financially, just short of a living wage... but after so long in poverty and so many instances of getting financially screwed I'm pretty much drowning in debt... Worst of all is the $5k a previous apartment complex wants because I was living with a sibling who had an emotional crisis, to the point of being institutionalized, and I have to leave because I couldn't remotely maintain the place by myself.
Thanks to the support of kind strangers and the people who love me I've got plans to get out of Texas to Washington state to be someplace safer... but the prospect is still incredibly difficult and painful because it means leaving behind the people I love and my support network...
The raw stress of all of this has me to the point where it's a major accomplishment to just do the fucking laundry...
Oh, and get this... the apartment complex I was looking at rejected my application because of that aforementioned landlord demanding $5k from me... because of course our lovely society thinks someone who has to leave a place because of poverty just miraculously has many times the rent to just hand over while they still try and find a place to live...
I've been crying and sobbing for weeks... even before this rejection...
And before anyone mentions: roommates just don't work out... I have only ever had one house where things have been remotely comfortable and stable with other people. Most of all because my mix of disabilities and autism causing conflicts with people... I can only really live alone it seems. (Those same problems that have made me struggle with employment my entire life)
... I'm just so tired of clinging on to life by my fingernails... I don't want riches and luxury... I just want to fucking exist...
I honestly wish giving up was an option on days like this...
I could probably use some words of encouragement right now... I don't even know if I'm able to process them... but I need something...
With the nonsense about gup.pe getting hijacked, honestly has me thinking again about secondary tools for the network...
Bright spot is that they probably can't imitate the server, as far as I understand it AP has keys for the servers to prevent that (which is also part of why you can't readily swap platforms, want to run something different you need to use a different domain).
Still, it has me thinking about maybe some secondary registry to track instance information. Maybe make these sort of events less disruptive.
This is entirely off the cuff idea, so think of this as spaghetti at the wall:
I was just imagining a signed file on servers that gave extended, non-platform specific, meta for the server, kinda like robots.txt.
I was just thinking information like:
* My IP is static, so if the IP changes without an updated signed file, then it's not safe (or it's dynamic, so don't worry if it changes)
* Remember my nameservers and do the same if the nameservers change
* Here's a moderator email for reporting posts (because the system mastodon has for sending reports to other servers is non-standard and not universal... I have to find moderator emails on about pages when I need to report something...)
* Maybe some tags if someone wants to make non-platform specific server directories
* Some flags like robots for nicer more compliant services, like bridges allowed/denied
And then maybe a dns middle-man service to toss on your server that checks these things periodically. So if something happens like with gup.pe there's a notice to admins and maybe it doesn't get cut off immediately, maybe letting admins give some final notices in more permanent situations.
‘The worst day of all time’: Afghans speak of safety fears after UK data leak | Ministry of Defence | The Guardian
theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/j…
Aid workers deliver lifesaving help in the toughest situations. They should never be targets.
movement.redcross.org.uk/a/aid…
Why drugs are wreaking havoc on the prison system – Channel 4 News
Methods the drugs are coming in include drones & being thrown over the wall. I can see the possibility of prisons needing to be covered by netting.
channel4.com/news/why-drugs-ar…
cw: BlueSky moderation, USPol, queerphobia, psa
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