They could set up an account on one of the larger well established Canadian instances or even better start up their own.

Both of these options have their pros and cons, and I think it is important to explain these well to the council if you want to have any hope of convincing them.

A line of argument that has had some success in Europe is what has become known as “Digital Sovereignty”, basically a fancy term for saying government should control its own infrastructure. So you might want to sell it as an easy way to have a permanent archive of public communication and a method for it that is under their direct control, rather than as a way to find more engagement.

As others have said self hosting has a maintenance and moderation overhead, but this can be lessened by running an instance together with other cities while still retaining most of the benefits of self hosting.

Seeing from the linked cross-post that this is about Port Alberni, and considering that http://portalberni.ca/ returns an empty reply while https://portalberni.ca/ lets me know I have been geoblocked because I’m outside of Canada and the US, I’d say you have an uphill battle before you though. These people made a website (probably paid for it, too), and then killed much of its use by geoblocking most of the world.

Good luck.

android auto

First I heard of this, but since it seems to be just some software that runs on the hardware of car manufacturers it seems rather unlikely. But very theoretically possible, if the car manufacturer was using default process scheduling in a CPU constrained machine and now switches to real-time scheduling in an update. But that was possible for years before this news, the code has just been mainlined to the default kernel now. If the car manufacturer cared about that they would probably have done it already with a patched kernel.

[…] a public institution is really not a great example of the general population […]

Which I touched upon in my disclaimer, but in some ways it is a great example. Public institutions are defined by the general population, indirectly through their representatives creating the rules that govern them, and directly through contact with the public at large. Now if all our institutions still use this very outdated technology, and you can have trouble convincing them - during a global pandemic mind you - that using email is just as safe as using fax (so not safe at all basically), then that speaks to a larger mindset in the general population.

Many in the general public are also a lot quicker, some might even say careless, with adopting new technology of course. But as a society we are rather slow, and there are surprisingly many individuals who are hesitant or entirely resistant to adopting new technology. The fediverse usage is a bubble in a bubble here.

The internet infrastructure is another good example for this on the societal level, as there were plans in the 1980ies [!] to lay out a glass fibre network between every publicly used building in the country, which would have gotten us a good part of the way towards adopting this new material at scale. But in the end it was deemed unnecessary and too expensive and the project got canned (mixed in with rumours of “close friendship” between the chancellor and a major copper producer). Instead now we have people running around thirty years later and collecting signatures at the door for last-mile fibre network projects that seldom make quorum and thus almost never materialise public funding.

2. […] But also how are Germans technologically behind regarding common personal life?

I bet you wherever in Germany you are, if you go to the website of your local city government right now they will have a still active fax number in their contact information. I guarantee it. Well if they have a website that is.

Which is a bit silly as an example but highlights the central problem, which is that adoption of new technology happens at a glacial pace, especially in public institutions. There are many reasons for that of course, some good, like the aforementioned inclination towards privacy, some bad like whatever allows fax machines to still be around.

And don’t get me started on internet infrastructure… In an international comparison we certainly aren’t leading the field regarding adoption of new technologies.

Oh yeah, can’t use the same IP range as your LAN, that will lead to problems. :D Glad it’s fixed.

Out of curiosity, does forwarding work now without the output (-o) command in PostUp?

Like I said in another thread on this post, I’m pretty sure that’s because they are forwarding input but not output in the PostUp rules. Setting a /32 in AllowedIPs works fine for me.

What are you trying to say? That reply also shows AllowedIPs set to a /32 on the server side.

I don’t think that’s what the setting does. Anyway, I have them set to a /32 IP in my server config and it works nonetheless. I get full access to the /24 behind the server from the client.

You have ALL traffic being routed over Wireguard here.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it the other way around? All Wireguard traffic is forwarded to the local interface.

I think the problem might be your PostUp/PostDown lines have an in-interface (-i) but are missing an out-interface (-o) for the forwarding. Try this:

PostUp   = iptables -A FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -A FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ens3 -j MASQUERADE
PostDown = iptables -D FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -D FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o ens3 -j MASQUERADE

Hence my disclaimers in said post, and my efforts at explaining following your accusations.

Learn to read.

I said Sulla gave up his dictatorship in response to a rhetorical question I took the liberty of answering.

In an effort of tying that aside back to the topic of the thread I then tried to state that it remains to be seen if Trump will be the one to kill the republic (Caesar), or the one setting the precedent to make it possible (Sulla).

I have no delusions that Trump would willingly give up power. He has already shown that he will not. But what he hasn’t done (yet) is kill the republic. And as the assassination attempt happening a few days after my post should have made clear, he might yet fail to. What I’m worried about is whoever is going to fill the power vacuum that comes after his departure. This shit won’t stop even if death rids us of him.

But fair enough, I can see how that might have been misinterpreted. Hence my disclaimers in said post, and my efforts at explaining following your accusations. Which you have so far only answered with more insults. So I really have to wonder who is the one saying stupid fucking things here.

Yeah I’m probably giving more benefit of the doubt than I should here, but I prefer to err on the side of caution in matters like this. I’m still not entirely convinced that this user is a troll, because if I were facing the prospect of an openly fascist dictatorship I would be in emotional distress as well. So I’m still doubting, however I have to say my patience is beginning to wear rather thin.

Again, not what I said. To be frank, the amount of misinterpretation you show is starting to seem utterly deliberate.

If Trump is elected to a second term it will be a disaster and there is no ambiguity as to the nature of Trump for he has already declared civil war against the will of the American people.

And please show me where the fuck I ever doubted that. Do you not know who Sulla was? Did you not read me saying he fought a civil war and was the first general to march on Rome? Like right above the section you quoted out of context?

What I said is Trump might not turn out to be the one to kill the republic but the one to irreparably damage it instead. Think for example him getting elected to a second term and then dying a month into it without achieving much of his dictatorial agenda.

You are an idiot.

That I am, given that I am still arguing with you.

I’m not quite sure what exactly you are taking offence from in that statement but feel free to enlighten me. In my defence I tried to indicate that it is a rough metaphor.

P.S. to rephrase, it seems you did not in fact catch my drift.

Wow, ok. User name does not check out.

Jokes aside though I feel attacked and my defence mechanism is to braindump, so consider what is to follow to be on you.

you should shut the fuck up with your ‘well actually’ de facto dictator apologia

As I was trying to make clear with the implicit disclaimer at the beginning of my comment and the explicit disclaimer at the end of my comment, that was not my intention. What I was trying to do was expand on the historical context as @Soulg@sh.itjust.works already pointed out (thanks btw). I am well aware that the term dictator has lost its connotation of “temporary office” long ago, and it is today used pretty much in the sense of absolute monarchy.

Rome didn’t have that many ‘dictators’ give up power

The GP asked “how many do you know”, and essentially I replied “at least two but pretty sure it’s more” to that.

But ok, you posit I test. Here is my counterargument. With knowing Wikipedias love for lists and a search you land here: List of Roman dictators.

List starts 501 BCE, ends 44 BCE, with Julius Caesar by the way. I would eyeball its length at ~80-100 entries. That would amount to a dictatorship once every five years roughly.

The article helpfully explains a few Latin terms it uses, among them “abdicavit – abdicated, or resigned”. Ctrl+F says 7 occurrences, minus the one explaining it that are 6 mentions of the term, so my new guesstimate would be there are at least 6 dictators (in ancient Rome) who relinquished their office willingly. And I would bet you could get that number higher if you dig into the details, and start looking at term limits and stuff.

So all I’m saying is essentially the dictatorship was an office that was regularly employed for nearly 500 years by an ancient state, and was then abused to bring about the destruction of its system of government. Remind you of anything? Like the presidency? Trump?

the vast majority of societies with authoritarian dictators are dysfunctional

Like those that exist right now? Not only the vast majority, all of them are dysfunctional and I never doubted that. Seriously you are preaching to the choir here. I was literally at court today because a number on a piece of paper was too low, and I couldn’t pay to get a newer piece of paper. Luckily the case was dismissed, so I’m pretty fond of the rule of law and separation of powers at the moment, but also equally aware of the monopoly on violence the state claims for itself and how fragile that makes it.

I sense that you are angry, and most likely afraid, and I empathise with that. And due to that level of distress I would assume you are from the US. I’m not sure what to tell you except trying to resist the slide into dictatorship the best you can. Caesar was assassinated, and Hitler only narrowly escaped assassination several times is all I’m saying.

again: shut the fuck up.

Yeah, no, you little dictator. :P

Cincinnatus.

Yes, thank you!

Yeah I guess it is quite possible, likely even, that his story was embellished in history, and it was certainly abused later as you say. But to my layperson’s knowledge at least, every instance of historically recorded dictatorship before Caesar was relinquished willingly. I also think it quite possible that for a long time there was enough social pressure around such an office to keep it temporary, especially if it was indeed mainly directed against external threats like invasions.

My interpretation is that Sulla set a bad precedent for abuse of the office in domestic politics, Caesar used that precedent to try and kill the (senatorial) republic, and Augustus dealt the finishing blow.

But all of this is an etymological tangent in answer to a rhetorical question anyway. With the drift in meaning Trump basically said he wants to be king, and he might still get his second opportunity to be become Caesar.

How many dictators have you ever heard of that gave up power?

I get what you are saying and agree, but it is kind of noteworthy that basically every dictator before Caesar did that. Famously there was some retired consul or something in the early republic who was granted the dictatorship, saved Rome from seemingly assured destruction in combat, and then immediately retired back to his farm. Always forget the name… But even people like Sulla, who used his dictatorship to wage a civil war and is to my knowledge the first Roman general to march troops into Rome, eventually resigned their dictatorship. It was originally never intended to be a permanent position, which is why Caesar claiming it for life was such a turn of an era.

I guess what I’m saying overall is Trump might, even if elected to a second term, still turn out to be the American Sulla instead of the American Caesar if you catch my drift.

Disclaimer: Non-American here. Dictatorship bad. All of this is bad.

Linux users can’t even agree […] so how am I supposed to pick one with any confidence?

Easy. You make a post like the OP, count the positive mentions of distros in the comments, and bam, you have your distro of choice. It’s called the Linux newbie roulette and works kind of like the magic hat in Harry Potter that sorts you into your house.