Wow! With vpn on (as usual) I get tons of other people’s stuff - almost entirely movies and TV, lots of Bluey episodes in particular? Makes sense I don’t see anything of mine, bc I haven’t torrented anything in the past few days. When I turned the vpn off, nothing showed up. I suspected my rommate wouldn’t be torrenting bc he always asks me to do it for him lol, he’s less tech savvy, but it would be funny if something of his actually did show up.
I want to give them a chance, I liked most of the times I came across them aside from the previous thread. The previous thread was pretty concerning though ngl - I don’t think they intended to brigade but it still happened. I want to have solidarity with them, but so far, coexisting with them has been hard for a lot of people here. I’m hoping they settle down somewhat and listen to their admins requests such as staying out of c/main discussions and not spamming emojis, so it doesn’t have to come to defederation.
I also use VPN all the time for privacy - if I wasn’t pirating I’d still have it. I’ve also used it at times to access region locked content.
I personally only pirate things I feel are more “moral” to pirate, or if I don’t have a choice - I never pirate any kind of indie content, for instance, but I do pirate movies and tv shows put out by large corporations. In undergrad I pirated almost all of my textbooks because the markups are unethical. I’m not against paying for things, I just want to boycott some specific companies, plus I’m often too broke to afford things or sometimes need a downloaded copy specifically for offline access. When I was working full time I did actually pirate fewer things - only things from the companies I boycott or things I can’t access legally where I live - and I will return to that once I finish grad school.
If voting did nothing, there wouldn’t be so much voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Personally, I would say absolutely do not stay home. If you want to abstain from the presidential vote or primaries it might not make a difference, depending on your state, but in the more local ballots you can make a difference for sure. Even better, consider getting involved in local politics, even just in the school board. Showing up to meetings and speaking can change minds. Shifting your town’s culture and making local connecions makes a bigger difference than a vote for Biden in most states.
Voting is not enough, but as someone else here said, vote for who you’d rather negotiate with. Additionally, when people like Trump get elected it sends a message to their sympathizers that they’re in the right, and it helps the overton window shift to the right. Look at the increase in hate crime after Trump won. Who is in power can cause cultural shifts that also make activism harder or easier, or even literally safer.