(I originally put this first para at the end, but it’s pretty important, so putting up top) Be aware that just because we’re autistic, it doesn’t mean we’re not bad guys. He might be grooming her, he may already have more personal information than he should, and he may be targetting autistic children specifically. If you think that is the case, go to your parents or the police. I know that’s the last thing you’ll want to do, but the consequences if he is can be life changing or fatal.

(Original follows) Fellow autist here, if that matters, but probably not.

No, it’s not mean. People come and go out of each others lives all the time. Your time with this guy is clearly over - if it feels less than fun or has become uncomfortable or weird, move on. Why not? You don’t owe him anything.

As you know, autistic people are no strangers to being obsessive, and putting that alongside a lack of awareness when we’re pushing personal barriers, we can be really annoying. I don’t recommend you accept any money or gift cards from this guy, even to buy your GF a new tablet. That will give him a bigger feeling of entitlement and certainly gives him power over you.

Just stop communicating. No explanations, no apologies, both of you just stop and block. If he tries to contact you after that, or by other means, that’s creepy af and definitely report.

Advertising revenue.

Not just America - all Western countries did.

We made it expensive to manufacture goods due to labour costs and well-meaning but crippling environmental protections and couldn’t compete on price.

At a certain level, it is going to be a chore to determine who is or is not slopping up with AI media. Not every asset comes out with six fingers and a half-melted face.

That’s a good point. I think a lot of people are dismissing AI content because there’s this fallacy and desire to believe it’s all “slop”. It’s willfully ignorant to wave it all away like that. Sure, we’ve all seen the stupid stuff, and it’s really annoying, but we absorb the good stuff without even knowing it. Anyone claiming they can reliably spot AI generated images is fooling themselves even at this early stage.

I’d like to know when something is real, especially real art and even pictures of nature, but I don’t think I can.

bleddy 'ell

Commercial and explicit spam. Report and block.

People change, and with bigotry, they’ve often been changed by others.

He may not always have been like that, so it’s okay to like someone once and not at other times. Best advice I can give is listen to your inner moral compass. If something sounds wrong, it probably is.

(very) Late diagnosed autistic guy here.

Thank you for writing that.

One of the revealing things about realising this is what I am is looking back at a long life and realising a lot of people thought of me as rude, or that I was being deliberately awkward. I’ve certainly lost one job because of it, lived a life that’s largely friendless (IRL anyway) and doubtless missed a thousand opportunities through not being aware of them. There’s also an element of cause and effect - sometimes you know pretty quickly that someone’s not going to warm to you, so you just shut them out mentally. It’s expensive for me to make the effort to be normal and as I’ve got older I’m less willing to waste this time and energy.

I see it as very positive that so many people are aware of neurodiversity now, especially younger generations, and their first thought when someone behaves differently isn’t always that they’re deliberately being an assehole. Sometimes they are, of course, especially those with particularly bigoted views, but not always.

My point is that you don’t know the actual truth. Nor do I. We can’t.

Bots and paid agents are not a new technique - in ancient times, countries would send spies undercover into enemy territory to sow discord. To rabble rouse and change public opinion. It’s the same now, just the tools have changed. No news source is entirely unbiased, even word of mouth is influenced. The only way you can determine the truth is by seeing it with your own, naked eyes. And even then, your own personal bias can change the context.

Reddit is a platform where its’ easy to get the ears of a lot of people, so it’s a big target. It’s not Reddit’s fault, and Lemmy would suffer exactly the same if we had the numbers they do.

What is different now on the world stage, mostly thanks to Trump, is that there’s no longer even any pretence to truth. The most powerful person in the world lies constantly, and his example proves that works. No shame, no integrity, no honesty - just lies and crude manipulation.

“Truth is the first casualty of war”

Has it added repos that are conflicting with your distro’s main ones?

Check /etc/apt/sources.list and all the files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

Move anything that looks sus to somewhere else and then “apt-get clean” and retry.

Yes.

IKR?

I was a heavy smoker for 15 years (40+/day). Giving that up was really hard, both emotionally and physically (they don’t warn you about the physical withdrawal effects - sweats, hyperactivity, insomnia, nausea etc) and habit breaking is a bastard.

But at least with that you can stop. It’s binary, you’re either not a smoker or you are. I’ve found managing diet to be harder than that.

I think that’s easier than not over eating because you have to eat and psychologically, I’ve found that harder. Every meal feels like a little failure.

I used mounjaro this year which has helped lose 10kg, but even that’s levelled off. Am also still a fat ass.

“Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.”

True that. We’ve just got a longer list of mistakes.

I have no idea what you’re doing wrong, but I’ve been using Debian for over twenty years and it’s by far the most stable OS I’ve ever used, particularly the update system. I’m currently maintaining around 50 debian systems and never seen an issue you like you’ve posted, so no, there’s nothing average about what your’e saying.

I actually hold the opposite opinion; that most people are generally good, or at the least, focused on their own problems most of the time.

This isn’t just personal experience (I’m old so have a bunch) but one example is that I watch a lot of travelling vlogs, mostly motorbikes. Whenever a rider has a breakdown, even in the middle of nowhere, someone will be along and will help. Even allowing for a general positive bias of the media, those who would take advantage of that situation are a tiny percentage.

What does happen though, is that those who aren’t good can abuse the goodness of others to gain power and influence, so are statistically more noticable.

Sure, I use them, for three good reasons.

1. Cheapest domain registrations around.
2. Cloudflare tunnel for free which allows me to reach my selfhosted stuff despite my ISP running CGNAT.
3. I host several website using Pages for free, so now I don’t care about AI or endless bots hammering my limited bandwidth, or having malicious attacks on my equipment.

Except many of us use cloudflare tunnels to reach our selfhosted kit from the internet because we’re behind CGNATs…

Good article and a reminder that all might not be as it seems, and I’m glad they’re reporting this to the French Police as well as raising awareness. The language used in the emails do suggest it could be a single zealot rather than a professional body. It also highlights how often “but what about the children?” is used to enact censorship. (Not least by my own government in the UK with the OSA)

I have one issue though;

The complaints against the site look extremely suspicious. In our case, they came from an organization that was only recently registered that seems deliberately set up to hide the identities of those behind it.

Surely anyone registering any online organisation today would want to take reasonable steps to protect their real identity, especially one dealing with such sensitive matters? Anyone thwarted would want that information for malicious ends.