Markdown is a lightweight document format that leans toward easy writing, reading, and sharing. It is much simpler than HTML, easier to edit by hand, and works well for notes, documentation, drafts, README files, and content that may later be converted into HTML, PDF, or other formats.

That's why I'll continue to use Markdown for most of my notes and documentation, while I'll only use HTML for "public facing" documents.

Stuff I like, I often store, or make notes of. I don't personally use RSS for it, but perhaps I should make a kebman's curated YouTube RSS feed? It'll be kinda AI heavy tho...

And so it began. The seed was sent into space. All going according to plan.

But depending on local rules, you can sometimes route around the monopoly: trench your own last-mile (at least on private land), do a neighborhood co-op, connect buildings, etc. It’s sometimes expensive and you’ll hit permits/right-of-way bureaucracy, but it’s totally doable if you’ve got a few (rich) friends or a business willing to back it.

“the conduit is full” is often just BS and a super convenient excuse for incumbents to block competition indefinitely.

Romania is a good example of what happens when lots of small operators aggressively wire dense apartment blocks: brutal competition, low barrier to entry, and suddenly everyone has insane internet.

If digging is blocked, wireless works too. Point-to-point links, WISP stuff, even satellite. The main thing is: you don’t necessarily need your local ISP as your upstream, you just need a path out.

Did you know that porn was quite severely censored in Norway up until the 90's? But suddenly, the censorship stopped. Why? Because of the distributed quality of the internet.

While the Norwegian state may still wish to continue censoring porn in Norway, they deemed the task too difficult and too invasive to continue, so they just dropped it entirely (except of course for certain extreme fringe cases).

I was personally shown clips by the Norwegian Board of Film Classification in the early 2000's showing both grey zone depictions, and clearly illegal depictions of film violence per the law. I am still traumatized from seeing some of that s*t. Legally btw, since they are a state authority tasked to categorize and censor such media, and also educate people with the right degrees. Yet in that meeting, when I asked them how they're handling censorship now, they kind of just threw their hands up in the air and told me directly that "We only give advice on cinema films these days. Look, we can't very well censor the entire internet without also using either extremely invasive or unfair strategies. If you really want some violent or pornographic movie, you're probably gonna get it no matter what we try to do."

So, the morale of this story is, make something ubiquitous enough, or hard enough to censor, and some states might just give up. If you build a truly decentralized system, good luck censoring it. And that was pretty much it for Norway. They had given up on the idea of preventing people from seeing violent or pornographic contents on the internet.

Within political science we speak about effective ways to participate politically. Sometimes that's not screaming slogans outside some government buildings. Sometimes that's simply building resilient and forward secure distributed systems.

Btw. as a side note, the bad guys are still taken. Instead of thought policing entire populations, they're now tending to the guys doing actual harm. The anti encryption bills are just smoke and mirrors to get you to give up essential liberties, so they get more control. It has little or nothing to do with protecting children and you know it.

The issue arises when that water is fluoridated against the will of a significant portion of the population. It effectively forces dissenters to either accept it or go through the hassle and expense of sourcing their own water — which defeats the original purpose of providing low-cost, universally accessible water.

Today, the marginal benefits of fluoridation are questionable, especially with fluoride available in toothpaste. So forcing it on everyone, despite objection, becomes harder to justify — and that's why some places have stopped adding it.

But law doesn't define philosophy — philosophy defines law. And from a philosophical standpoint, freedom is a property of individuals, not collectives. Only individuals possess consciousness, agency, and moral responsibility. Associations, corporations, and groups are abstractions — tools created by individuals, composed of individuals, and led by individuals. They cannot make free choices; they can only be directed.

Freedom of association means individuals are free to join or leave groups as they see fit. But the moment something is mandated, such as being forced to participate in a fluoridated water system, or coerced into accepting the political will of a corporate “person,” the individual's freedom is compromised in favor of an artificial entity.

Philosophically speaking, rights flow from individuals to associations, not the other way around. The association has no legitimacy that exceeds or contradicts the will of its participants, especially when it undermines individual liberty.

So yes, associations may have freedoms under law, but only because individuals granted them those freedoms. The moment those freedoms infringe on individual rights, they lose their moral legitimacy, regardless of legal precedent.

Use the same argument on air and it falls apart. "The Free individual is also Free to not breathe air in a community that decided to add lead to their air supply." This was a big debate in the 70's btw due to car emissions.

Banning fluoride does not restrict freedom—it prevents government overreach. In contrast, forcing fluoride on everyone would violate personal autonomy. Protecting individual choice is a fundamental principle, backed by real-world safeguards like constitutional rights, judicial review, and bodily autonomy laws. The burden of proof is always on those seeking to impose a policy, not on those defending individual freedom.