Ildsaye [they/them]

I’ve heard good things about Andreas Malm’s Fossil Capital but have yet to read it

Laptops use the same operating systems as PCs, and preserve as many PC functions as possible in their portability, which is probably behind a growing tendency to conflate the two. But your point is taken.

I like having useful options so manifold that some users get confused, this is a PC dammit, down with smartphone thought

Almost. Isn’t running on a modern browser inherently less secure than just running on the OS?

Bulletin Board System. They were online platforms that were local to your city, you connected directly to them through the phone wires. The Internet existed, but the world wide web format had not yet come into being to make it interesting for the majority of people, and it was more expensive, still the abode of academics, military, and a small community of hobbyists.

BBSs were forum-like, accommodated the sharing of small files, and filled with creative and technical people from your area. They peaked in the early nineties.

Iphones bulk-collect troves of personal data for Palantir, marketers, and cops, and it is maddening that the tech exists to do the same things without routing it all through Silicon Valley, and has existed the whole time.

You should do a deep dive on the Luddites. They were masters at operating and troubleshooting the most state-of-the-art factory machines of their time. They didn’t hate advanced technology, they opposed designs specifically contrived to crush labor.