I think the internet has a lot of potential

I only mentioned social media apps, not the Internet which is much older (I started using BBS in the early 80s and my first web browser was Mosaic). So yeah, the Internet has the potential, and always had. Not sure it will have for much longer though but that's another question.

The issue is that for more and more people 'the Internet' is nothing but an empty space in which they can find their 'app of choice' or their service of choice. And they have no idea there is a thriving world that is well-alive outside of those walled gardens Including the many remaining blogs—like mine, which is tiny, and so many others. A lot of blogs are and non corporate owned websites also try to monetize their content, though, but many, like mine, do not.

Edit: clicked publish too quickly, added the rest of my reply.

How do we consume less content and be more social/productive in a way that isn’t concerned with profit?

I'm not sure to understand what you mean?

We consume less by doing more. Say, we watch less YouTube about what we want to do and start doing more of what it is we want to do.

And we're less concerned by profit the moment we start doing stuff or going more toward people (spending time with them) without expecting much if anything in return beside enjoying their company and/or enjoying doing that stuff we are doing. Without expecting to be paid anything in return.

As far as being more productive, I'm not sure to understand what you mean either but, here again, doing more is a fine starting point.

It's consumerism that wants us to believe we need to endlessly consume (aka spend more money and time) to do stuff. We don't.

Well, yes, we do need to consume a little resources and we also need to feed/teach our head (ideas as well as art don't come out of nowhere), but we certainly don't need to constantly be stuffing ourselves with new content or tools—think obesity, but for the mind.

So, if we want to be able to do interesting stuff on our own. We start by learning to do (interesting) stuff. Aka, by doing crappy stuff. And that's true for every single things we may wish to do.

Or, should we consume more content that is conducive to being social? What type of content would that be?

We don't need to consume any content to be social. But here again maybe I don't understand the question, what would be a type of 'content conducive to being social'?

BTW, our species have existed (aka being social) for million of years, meanwhile Twitter/X and the others have existed since around 2005. So, we clearly don't need them to be ourselves but they absolutely need and want us to think otherwise so they can sell us more ads and make more money.

Congrats :)

A few years ago, that was the first step that led me to stop using Apple computers and slowly switch to Linux and easy to fix PCs. Something that, back then, 50 years old me would never have imagined doing: I had been an Apple user since the early 80s and never imagined not being one.

As an Infomaniak user myself, I don't feel much need to complain or to ask for help but I would not mind a community where people can discuss ideas, tips & tricks and why not, ask for help. Maybe all what's needed for this to happen is someone to start doing it?

So, if you feel like it, don't be afraid to start such a community. Worse case, it won't get much traction and no harm will be done. Best case, you maybe surprised to realize a few people were looking for exactly that ;)

I'm not annoyed by them (I simply don't read them, why would I want to waste my time?), I'm saddened by them.

Edit: that's also the reason why I read so few newspapers/periodicals. And why I pay for them. I want to support quality work.

C'est là que tu lui réponds, 't'as tellement raison, fils' et, tout en lui tendant une paire de rames et, devant son air probablement un peu surpris tandis qu'il prend la paire de rames, tu lui racontes où poussent les bananes tout en précisant qu'il devrait se grouiller s'il veut avoir sa banane pour la cantine de ce midi et ne pas arriver en retard à l'école ;)

Le marketing est notre pire ennemi. Même quand il est colorié en vert et même quand il est souriant comme une banane.

any experience or advice on which is best

Depends a lot what you want to with it, aka where you will 'walk around' with your camera ;)

And also it depends a lot how you like to take pictures, and what is your level of expertise.

I've quit photography almost completely (I'm sketching now) but was mostly doing street and wildlife. The last camera I ever purchased was an used OM-d 5 MK II (I would have to get it out of the closet to be sure of the exact model, the one that's weather-sealed but not top of the line from 2015 or 2016) and I could not be happier. It was to the point that I stopped being interested in new gear.

(for context: I have been using almost anything you can think of since the late 70s, from your standard 35mm to large format chambers, from fully automatic cameras to full manual ones with nothing but the sunny 16 (not even a portable light-meter). And I started fiddling with digital starting in the late 90s)

Yeah:

• Lightweight and not bulky. Those two things alone make it a blessing if you carry the camera all day long on the streets, and even more so when hiking in the wilderness.
• Edit: It's also much less intrusive than a bulky DSLR for street. And a tad less of a thieve magnet than, say, a Leica.
• Image stabilization works great.
• Fully articulated screen is so useful in so many situations.
• Silent (if you want it to be).
• Excellent lenses. Even basic kit lenses are decent (unlike so many other brands kit lenses). I mean they're not amazing but anyone should be able to use the 14-42 from Olympus or from Panasonic and get decent shots. Which is great considering how cheap they can be found used. Much better lenses will be, well, much better but it's hard to beat the 14-42 price used (I paid something like 25€ for the first one I got, and got a second one new for free by someone that refused to use nothing but the most expensive lenses to take snapshots (which was more than by me). Not my favorite lens by any means but one I would never hesitate to pick in many common situations.
• Very niche, but this OM camera has a very usable focus stacking mode.
• Did I mention it was so fucking not bulky with great image quality (given enough light)?
• Edit: dirt cheap, used.

BTW, I also own a Lumix GH5 that I mostly use(d) for video. It's great for that but I prefer the OM for photography.

Meh:

• Poor low light perfs compared to larger sensors. I never cared that much about my images being noisier I cared a lot more about my gear being too bulky and too heavy to easily carry around ;)
• In-lens stabilization doesn't work between Lumix<>Olympus (depending the type of photos, it will work wonder within each specific brand) but the in camera does work cross-brands.
• Weak battery life. I carried 2 spares on a standard day, to be on the safe side. Still less than the 4 I used to carry with my Fuji X100 and the 6 or 8 I had to carry with the now long forgotten but still beloved Epson RD-1s.
• Menus are a mess. It's even worse with the Olympus than with the Pana but one gets used to them and since one seldom need to access more than handful of those menus. Plus, all buttons are configurable for quick access to whatever you often use.

"I don't know."

If we were honest, it's the thing we should all be saying and hearing all day long. But it's not. Quite the opposite, it's among the rarest. Instead, people are shooting their certainties at one another, relentlessly.

Not knowing something or not having an opinion on a question is not an issue. It's to be expected, even if we were all geniuses (I'm certainly not one). Not doing the work to inform oneself could potentially be an issue but should not be as long we don't pretend otherwise. It's when one pretends to know, based on what one has heard someone else say, or because one wants to push a specific narrative that suits them, that shit starts hitting the fan. That's when living together turn into the stinking shit hole it has turned into in which lies are fine (when they're not adored) and facts have become suspicious if not dangerous.

Obviously, I don't know what I'm talking about.

To be precise about France, only polygamous weddings are forbidden but being polygamous without being wedded is not illegal.

True that, but those persons still lack any legal status, unlike married or 'pacs'ed couples. I mean legally, in such a, err, cluster of person would be considered the head of the family and no one would be able to take medical decision for the others if they needed (they aren't considered 'family') and no could inherit from the other(s) I mean not tax-free like in a standard couple. And the moment they've kids... Things can become real hairy. Edit: well, exactly like you mentioned already (I should have read the entire comment :p) but the point is that they would lack any legal status (like up until recently homosexual couples up until recently would have lacked one as they could not get married or pacsed).

Would it be frowned upon?

At the very least, feminists (young as well as old ones) would frown upon that. And I think most people would look down on it, even if they may not be openly hostile.

Like already suggested, it's historical an cultural.

I mean, your dad and you may be fine with polygamy but would you be as cool with, say, polyandry (mutliple husbands for a single woman)? If not, why? And what about monogamy or even not being married and practicing 'free' sex (partners mating and then splitting freely, willingly)? Or celibacy edit: chastity/abstinence of sex?

Those are all cultural/historical/societal values. Some of those values are closer to our own personal values. Others are definitely not. Some are at the complete opposite of the spectrum of one another. But they're still all based on principles, values, and on traditions that each group, if not all, will dearly defend and argue is the better choice if not the only 'true' one. I'm thinking hard but I can't recall any noticeable group that welcomed 'alien' sexual/marital practice.

Heck, even our good old own hippies of the 60s and 70s, with their 'free' or liberated sex and love were still openly hostile and quite dismissive to the traditional 'married couple'.

All questions related to sexuality/relationships and attribution of power (things like who is head of the family, who should be allowed to get specific kind of jobs (say, be a priest), the age of consent and the gender of partners, the type of sexual practice that are frowned upon, the (un)willingness to have sex, and so on) are among those core values that hardly any group of population is willing to discuss. At least not their own values because, based on what I can see, most of them seem to be more than willing to openly question any other group's values.

I think I like the idea but shouldn't we worry it would make it harder to use? I mean, people are lazy... if they are forced to hesitate each time they want to vote for a post or a comment, they'll simply find a shortcut which probably means they'll go for the biggest/first button they can click. Something like that.

Also, I'm not sure vote will really change any deep trend (which by the way is one of the reasons I steered away from other social media). If people really want to share memes and low effort content can we really prevent it?

100% this.

It changed my life, literally from being barely able to walk a few steps (even getting the mail at the door, I would then had to rest for the entire day) to be walking miles almost every single day of the year. It all started by walking a few feeble steps in my neighborhood, one day after the other. And it took me less than a year to get back into, let's say, a functional shape.

Easy: I eat and drink (a little) even though I don't need to.

Nice :)

I used to own an Olympia SG1 (my grandad's) that I loved to type on. It was a joy to use. I gave it to a friend when I switched full time to computer full time, in the late 80s. At first I thought nothing about it (it had done its time) but, say, around the early 00s I started realizing I missed it and I've been regretting it since then. For portable (the sg1 was heavy like a tank), I used to use a Lettera 22. Still, my true love was that Olympus ;)

There are ways of keeping your data away from prying eyes

I'm worrying both about the corporate greed and at the same time of that relentless trend in our elected representatives (and even more so in our non-elected bureaucracies), all to vote laws reducing or forbidding the use of true digital privacy protecting tools. Here in France for example, I would not be surprised if in a not too distant future things like Tor or VPNS or even the use of full non-backdoored encryption were to suddenly become illegal for the average Joe (except for people like, say, journalists, bankers, lawyers and other sensitive professions like that) all in the name of hunting naughty terrorists and perverts, obviously—not at all as a way to better control a rapidly growing percentage of unsatisfied population.

Depends.

The main issue I have is that for decades I've had that habit of destroying my old journals (physically getting rid of them, shredding or burning them). Why? I started journaling as a little kid but thx to my inquisitorial mom I quickly learned to get rid of my old journals. And it then took my entire live for me to get rid of that sad habit which made it obviously harder to read old entries ;)

Nowadays, not only do I keep (and read, occasionally) my old journals but I also index them (at least teh part I consider interesting/useful enough) in my Zettelkasten note-taling system. But I'm also not obsessed by the idea of reading my journals and I can go for a very long times without looking at old entries. Up until I feel the need to check something, or just to browse a few pages.

Finally, I journal mostly to put some order into my head like I use to say. I will also journal to keep a record of a few events I want to be able to recall but for the most part it's processing/brain dump. The same with the sketches I may add in that journal, btw: I don't give a crap about looking at them later on when I'm drawing them (that's certainly why I don't care if they're crappy either) and when I stumble upon them, later on, I will often be surprised myself by what I sketched ;)

I will journal out, usually on my laptop. Sometimes I find it convenient to dictate to my phone

I've seen quite a few people using that voice to text thing on their phone. I would not trust it, but that's just me being paranoid ;)

I’m left handed and if I want to journal on the go, paper has never been something I find I can write on well.

Have you tried with a spiral notebook and/or turning the notebook upside down so the spiral are on the opposite side?

Sounds oddly like me, including the balcony ;)

I felt the need to journal and of course didn’t have my trusty typewriter with me.

May I ask what model?

So I gladly accepted it as an excuse to go to the stationery store and browse the journal options.

I would never do such a thing. Never 8)

I realized that I didn’t really care if people on public transit next to me were reading what I was writing.

Neither do I (my handwriting is too poor) but I worry about corporation 'mining' whatever I trust them with.

I'm a 50+ dude, married for 25+years and I have no idea who this Andrew Tate is nor who young men identify to nowadays (I wanted to be Michel Strogoff and an astronaut and Maria Callas too, as a little boy) but I would say that it was enough for me to read some of the comments (way too many of them) in this discussion to get a pretty good glimpse of what may be causing such a split. At least partly.

Could it be that young men and teens are growing tired of being told they're a threat (to women, when it's not to the whole society) or, when they're not a threat that they still are a nuisance, just because they have a dick and because that dick may sometimes grow bigger and harder when they feel attracted to another person?

My childhood was what today's press would call 'traumatizing' (and not just once, mind you) but at the very least I did not grew up afraid of my dick getting hard because I was attracted to someone. And I was never too afraid to ask that person if they felt the same interest and if they would be willing in exploring it further together (more often than not, I was being told 'no').

For the rest, one simply needs to add a lot of partisanship, militant certainties and self-proclaimed righteousness with hordes of so-called experts and journalists that have no clue what their job is supposed to be about (hint: it's not about making the buzz and not about collecting page views, or Likes) and then, on top of that, add a handful of smart-ass people (some real assholes too) that want to profit from all that stupidity that is raging-on everywhere, in every 'camp'.

It's easy to tell people, boys and girls alike, what they want to hear and nothing but what they want to hear. That they're right, that they're great and that the other group is just assholes that hate them. And to profit out of that.

It's so easy that I'm seriously starting to wonder if the next generation or maybe the one after them will still be able and willing to make love or even just to enjoy some intimate good time together, and to make babies by themselves? Maybe I should invest a few cents in whatever startup will undoubtedly show-up and try to profit from that situation. Pretty sure I would make a fortune...

Sad times, indeed. I will go make some coffee and pour a cup for both my spouse and I.

Edit 1h later: you're welcome to downvote till the end of times if that helps you feel any 'righter' in your opinions, or if it helps you think you're punishing me (really?) but may I remind you that without any explanation no amount of downvote will help me understand any better why you disagree with what I wrote. Also, I won't be able to read or contribute any further to this very interesting exchange we've had so far as I'll leave for a long walk to and back from a tiny bookshop that is set nearby the Seine. A real nice shop and a real nice and long walk which means that, taking into account the fact I will probably spend some time there chatting with the lady owner (there are much are closer bookshops to our place, like a lot closer, but I really like how she works and how she really cares to help customers find the right book for them and not just try to shove them whatever the latest trendy book is and be done with them. So, I shop at her place). Considering all of that, I shouldn't be back before at least 3 hours. PS: our cup of coffee was great.

I journal on my desk and everywhere I go.

My actual journal never leaves my desk (the old ones are lined up on a bookshelf not far away). So how do I journal on the go? I used to use my phone a lot, I had been using the DayOne app since it was first introduced (and I loved it) but I’ve switched back to analog full time and see little incentive for me to ever move back to digital as I want my privacy to be respected.

So, to journal on the go, like I used to do through the late 80s up to the early 00s (at which time I got my first Palm PDA which lust be the piece of tech I've liked the most), I now carry a small pocket notebook in which I quickly jot down thoughts, events, anything I want to add in my journal later on. Quickly is they key elements here as I don’t want to waste my time writing two times the same stuff so, I quickly learned to devise my very own shorthand system to take notes real quick and, in the evening that day or sometime later during the week I would be able to transfer them down into my real journal in plain Engl… French ;)

Without that shorthand system which is nothing complex (a few symbols, abbreviated words in a single letter and silly stuff like that), I’m not sure I would not use my pocket notebook as much as I do (which is all the time as I even use at home, when I'm not in front of my desk). It's really quick and it really does save me a lot of time.