The term op-ed is literally short for “opposite the editorial page”, and the idea is that it is an opportunity for opposing viewpoints to be brought into the discussion for consideration. The fact that the author is a moron does not besmirch the quality of the Guardian writ large.

Motherfucker how long do you think humans have been around for? Okay, sure, soap has been around for like 6k years, wow, such a long time. Modern humans have been fumbling around figuring shit out like an untrained ai model for the last 60k-160k years. Quick math shows us that for somewhere between 54k and 154k years of our history as a species, no soap. MILLENIA!

Drinking water: you’re making a distinction between clean, as in unpolluted by chemicals and other substances, and cleaned drinking water, which has been processed by humans to make it fit to drink with a lower risk of causing illness. Clean water has obviously been around for eons, but cleaned water, as I believe OP was describing, is a much more modern concept.

Showers: “try skipping a shower for a day”? Motherfucking neckbeard no, shower every fucking day. Try it, people might find you somewhat less repulsive until you open your mouth.

I’ve been assuming it’s because they truly have no idea how this tech works

I’ve found it effective to follow this with, “yes, now you’re starting to understand the problem”

Yeah it’s already a problem, but if we start ramming satellites against each other I could imagine the problem getting to a point where we have trouble launching things into space. The real issue is the relative velocity that orbiting objects have. If you’re curious, the Wikipedia article has a really cool infographic and the section on hazards is pretty interesting if you like space stuff.

At some point we will have enough shit orbiting the planet that we won’t be able to launch anything into space for decades. That will be a good time.

Yeah I totally agree that the whole ordeal is unnecessarily complex and confusing. The number of websites that have started mandating 2FA despite having complex, unique passwords that have never been shared annoys me regularly. It’s frustrating that because other people can’t figure out how to use a password manager, we can’t have nice things.

My guess is that there is a certain number of account actions you’re allowed to take (changing password, email, etc) before they force you into a cool down period where you can’t delete your account for like a week. Maybe not, but this is one approach I’ve seen before.

As for the video call, I totally see your train of thought. This is gonna sound dumb, but consider that nobody at LI knows you, so a video call is of limited value, especially in this world of ai models that can apply filters to video in real time. I’m not saying this is their rationale, but it could be part of it.

I’m gonna nerd out here for a second but hopefully you’ll humor me. Authentication is tricky, especially if you want more than one factor for 2FA/MFA. The factors are often explained as something you know (password), something you have (perhaps a yubikey, in this case a state issued ID), or something you are (biometrics). The biggest issue as I understand it is that people reuse the same password over and over, so if your LI password were compromised then it isn’t too big of a leap to assume that your email was also compromised, meaning that any form of authentication relying on email cannot be trusted.

If LI has a policy that any account deletion actions attempted within a month of changing the primary email require the account to have at least 2 factors, that would trigger the request for your ID, because they’re assuming that a threat actor is controlling all of the relevant accounts and they are no longer useful for authentication. State issued ID is one of the best ways to authenticate because when your state provides the ID, they are providing a level of guarantee that the information is both true and being provided without modifications (authentic).

Having said all of that, could you not photoshop a state ID and provide that? Some in the comments have suggested that as an option. If I were designing the program then this third party, Persona, would have relationships with issuers of state ids and could do some level of validation that the ID being uploaded is authentic.

I realize none of this solves your problem, but sometimes I feel better about “stupid” policies if I can work backwards and understand how they came to be in the first place and what they’re meant to accomplish. My advice is to wait a week or 3 and try to delete again, but obviously that is still no guarantee. Good luck!

Would you prefer that anyone be able to request that any non-verified account be deleted?

I’d bet their security system saw you log in from a new IP, maybe even over VPN(?), then change the email and add 2fa, which are exactly the steps a malicious actor takes when securing an account acquired using credential stuffing. They presumably expect that your account has been compromised and are treating you as untrusted until you provide some form of validation that you are who you say you are.

I suspect that if you were to seek legal action against them they would claim that you refused to take basic actions to positively prove your identity and throw out some statistics, ie (making this up) 98% of users are able to verify using their system without any issues.

If you do seek to bring them to court under article 77, would you not then be putting into the public record a permanent association between your real identity and the account you seek to delete? Is that better than simply sending them a picture of your ID? With this in mind, is it worth the cost of legal representation to resolve the issue? I’m not sure where you’re from and you don’t need to answer me but I would encourage you to consider those questions when determining your path forward.

I need a gif where Scooby Doo removes the Librewolf logo and there’s a Firefox logo underneath.

You must recognize that there is no Librewolf without Firefox, right? In fact, Librewolf even says in their privacy policy that you should also refer to the Firefox Privacy Policy because they can’t be certain that their browser won’t ever try to send data to Mozilla.

I’m not saying this to deter you from using Librewolf. If it works for you then that’s awesome. It just made me chuckle when you said that you ended your friendship with Firefox and ran into the warm embrace of… Firefox with different default settings.

In any case, all I’m trying to communicate is that Firefox and all of its many forks are fundamentally reliant on Mozilla and its ability to continue updating Firefox. That means Mozilla needs a sustainable business model, and that we can’t all simply abandon our relationship with Mozilla for a tool that is dependent on the work that Mozilla does.

Bow down before my great powers to link to a change log, you imbecile. Now that this error has been revealed to you, certainly you will be less of a useless piece of shit. Enjoy your newfound knowledge and prosper!

Are you being intentionally dense? It has gotten multiple updates every day for the last week?

Donating has always been an option

Omg same. There are literally dozens of us.

I really appreciate you illustrating my point here, bravo.

It’s a great idea, though in practice I fear you’d seem like Snowden and everyone would eventually coalesce around the idea that you’re a traitor because you didn’t get assassinated or put into a dark hole to be forgotten.

Skyrim was released in 2011, originally designed for the PS3 and XBOX 360. According to Statista, over 60 million copies have been sold as of June 2023. Regardless of any subjective feelings we might have, let’s agree that the game couldn’t have been this popular based on hype alone, so there must be something that makes it special.

I suspect that what you’re experiencing is not an overrated game, but the source material for a broad swath of games that have improved and iterated on many of the mechanics and ideas that were presented in Skyrim (and Morrowind, Oblivion, etc).

It’s like saying that you’re a fan of sitcoms, but you hate Seinfeld and Friends. Those shows weren’t perfect, but they created demand for a new type of show that has been modified and improved in numerous ways since they were aired.

Similarly, Skyrim is far from perfect, but when you put it into context, it is easier to see why it was successful. In 2011, Skyrim was THE option for an open world rpg with skill progression, decisions matter, and a crafting system. It was released in the same year as the original dark souls, Portal 2, battlefield 3, and Minecraft. If I’m completely fair, the Witcher 2 also came out in 2011, but had a more linear storyline, and was also one of the first games where your decisions mattered.

The fact that we’re even having a discussion about this game in 2025 should be a testament to its success. While I haven’t played it in years, I’d have a hard time agreeing that it is overrated. It certainly isn’t underrated, so maybe we could agree that it is appropriately rated, given the relevant context?

Ooh, new Creeper World? Underrated games, though the concept was tough for me to get my head wrapped around for a little bit.

Steam has voice channels? 🤯

Ahh OK that makes sense thanks

Hol up, Kagi is indexing discord servers?