

Hey, thank you for re-reading and engaging with what I actually wrote.
The one interrogation that was not solved for me is that such a change requires a tremendous amount of energy and dedication across all society’s decision-makers, and I fail to see where that energy would be sourced from when almost any forces able to institute change benefits from the status quo.
I don’t disagree that there are better theoretical systems, I just fail to understand by what miracle they would ever be realised from the starting position we find ourselves in. It isn’t just about how many of us vs how many of them it is, unfortunately. The entire world’s understanding of power dynamics, trust in money and institutions would need to shift, and after that, there’s little guarantee the same people wouldn’t come on top again to corrupt it all.
I guess my question is: how do you guard any system from human corruption, other than just honour, promises, and gentleman’s agreement?
If you make yourself a ruler and give yourself the power to stop such corruption (which fundamentally needs to be more power than it takes to instigate it), you’re effectively becoming « the good dictator », and then how can you guarantee that this amount of power will not be used for bad by yourself, or any of the people that will come after you? When power concentrates this much, it only takes one bad person to get it.



I went the self-hosting route too. I use seafile for files, immich for photos, vaultwarden for passwords, baikal for calendars and contacts, and freshrss for news. I could’ve consolidated most of it in a nextcloud instance, but I’m more attracted to the UNIX philosophy.
Regarding email, I’m using my own domain on Proton with simple login setup as a catchall to automatically create aliases. I went through all the accounts in my password manager and changed all emails to unique identifiable aliases, or straight up deleted anything I don’t see myself using anymore.
For de-googling, the hardest part after changing all email addresses on services (no redirect) was to switch “login with google” accounts back to classic accounts with credentials to either delete or switch them to a SL alias. Convenience really is how they get and keep you. I had to do the same with Apple and Microsoft too, and I’m not using these “login with…” buttons anymore.
One important lesson that you’ve learned as well is don’t put all your eggs in the same basket. Ask yourself what would happen to you tomorrow if a service you use (like Proton) revoked your account. For me, as I’ve set up catchall’s with my own domain, I could still set it up with another provider and not lose access to these. That’s also why I actively don’t treat their drive and calendar solutions as anything more than another offsite backup.
Resilience is key.