Religion is not interchangeable with theism. Many people, including me, are religious whilst also being atheists. Depending on the source, religion can be defined as a supernatural based idea (god/gods) or (the way I see it) more like Emile Durkheim saw it “a unified system of beliefs and practices […] which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them.”
So, for me, religion gives me a sense of community, support and a structure to guide me. It doesn’t rule me and I don’t have to worship or pray to a supernatural being that doesn’t exist. So in my (biased) view, I get the good bits of religion without the shitty awful bits such as telling everyone only my religion is right, telling everyone what to do based on what I think and generally being an arsehole.
Most people like some type of community because we are, at bottom, social creatures. My own religion allows me to be both individualistic and also part of a community and I think a lot of people feel that their religion gives them that sense of community. A more worrying aspect of religion is theistic religion - worship of a supernatural being/beings - because that is irrational, which is not in itself a concern, but when whole societies are controlled via theism then people suffer.
GoT because I’d read the first two books and got bored of a medieval soap opera where the writer substitutes misery porn for a plot.
Breaking Bad because Bryan Cranston vaguely irritates me (I don’t know why, I’m sure he’s a lovely man).
Zombie related stuff because seriously, it was non-stop shit zombie movies for almost a decade and I’m bored of it. It’s just become another lazy trope. Exception: Zombieland.
Lots of people and countriesare claiming Russia is committing genocide and are investigating that possibility.
Several nations and legal institutions have also classed China’s actions against the Uyghur as genocidal.
However, as far as I’m aware neither Russia or China are signed up to the ICC so there’s not much point in using that body to penalise them.
Israel is though and your claim there’s no proof is literally true (in the sense you used the word ‘proof’) but there is plenty of evidence that Israel certainly has genocide very much in the forefront of their minds when members of the Israeli government suggest nuking Gaza, or creating ‘no go’ areas for Palestinians in recognised Palestinian areas that just so happen to be where Palestinian farmers grow and harvest food. Israeli historian of the Holocaust Omer Bartov warned that statements made by top Israeli officials “could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent.”
I’ll recommend (as I always do, being a satisfied customer) Filen - scroll down that page and you’ll see the 10gb free tier.
All you need is a working email - get an anonymous forwarder here or here. All the apps are open source, everything is E2EE, the website doesn’t track or fingerprint you and if you decide to upgrade to a paid acct, they accept Monero.
Awhile ago, a user on r/casualuk posted a list of UK based stuff that was either free or cheap (food/entertainment/etc). They mirrored it in a few places and I bookmarked the github mirror. Doesn’t look like it’s been updated for a year or so though and I ain’t prepared to head to reddit to check the original.
You can easily switch back to stock Android if necessary :)
I switched a couple of years ago and the process then was pretty straightforward to the point I can’t really recall much about it, I can’t imagine its got trickier since then. I’m due a new Pixel sometime this year and I plan on putting Graphene straight on to it.
Process is simple;
Backup everything you want to keep and move the backup off your device.
Identify FOSS equivalents for all the apps you currently have (but maybe you already use them)
Read the installation instructions. Re-read until you understand exactly what every step entails and means. Any step you’re at all unsure of, ask. Much better to ask questions before you start than be stuck needing an answer halfway through.
If it goes bad (which it won’t) or you don’t like Graphene you can, as I said, revert back to stock Android.
Lemmy is, like a lot of Fediverse platforms, about as private as it can be. There’s no trackers, you’re not forced to use real names or any other identifying information, no adverts follow you from site to site, no browser fingerprinting and no instance owners are trying to sell your data.
Beyond that, what you choose to say on Lemmy is your responsibility and yours alone.
Depending on the make and model of your Android phone, you might be able to use GrapheneOS which will vastly improve your situation. Use it together with privacy respecting apps and you’ll be a long way towards reclaiming your mobile privacy. You can also buy Android phones that are pre-configured with Graphene on them on ebay but you are obviously a running a risk.
Desktop/laptop you will need to move to Linux. Mint is (in my opinion) a very good option if you’re new to Linux as it is privacy respecting and looks/acts in a very Windows type way. Like most Linux distributions, you can even try it without installing it by downloading and burning an ISO to a USB pen/stick drive. Here’s a YT tutorial on doing that (also covers going on to install Mint).
Switch browsers to Firefox and install uBlockOrigin, LibRedirect and Firefox Multi Containers add-ons. Switch to a privacy friendly search engine such as DuckDuckGo, Startpage or a SearX instance.
Migrate your email to an encrypted privacy respecting provider such as Tuta (recently changed their name from Tutanota) and stop using things like OneDrive or Dropbox, instead use a service like ProtonDrive or Filen.
Use a decent VPN like Mullvad on all your devices. This not only protects your ISP from seeing what you’re doing it also means you’re using their DNS, which you can configure to block trackers, adverts and a few other things (at DNS level, you’ll still need uBlockOrigin in your browser). It doesn’t offer as much control as PiHole or AdGuard but it’s a lot less complicated to set up.