And the whole of mathematics became classier as a result!

Hey, now, just because I am an overly paranoid person does not mean that you have to be as well!

Thanks, your comment is an antidote to my paranoia that it is impossible to do anything to address all threats. 😀

Given that your advice is very sound, I have a question: would I gain much by using OpenBSD? The conventional wisdom when I last checked is that it is the most secure unix-like operating system on the planet.

Right, but there is an entire spectrum of plumbing maintenance. I am perfectly capable of plunging toilets, but when a drain fails to work after several attack on my part then it is time to call in the plumber.

I mostly just like building and tinkering with things, and I really like the idea of setting up services that I control that host my own data that I can access from anywhere. I have no real interest in learning about more than the minimum amount needed to do that simply because that is not how I would like to spend my time.

(Lest you continue to have the wrong impression that I am afraid of learning new things: There was a period in my life where I was constantly learning new technologies, programming languages, etc. Eventually I realized that I had demonstrated that I was capable of learning anything that I wanted, and there were so many things out there to learn that I needed to start becoming more selective. At the moment my learning goals tend to be more math focused; currently I am trying to learn graduate-level category theory and measure theory.)

If I really need to master all of the steps that you’ve described before deploying my host on the Internet, then my conclusion is that it is more trouble than it is worth, because my concern is that if I screw up then I will make the Internet a worse place by contributing to botnets.

That does not sound so bad; the parent comment made it sound a lot worse than that.

I admit nothing.

Everything that you mention is sensible, but it seems like it would take so much time not only to set up but to perform the ongoing maintenance you described that it just is not worth the trouble to self-host, which is a significant factor in why I have not taken a shot at it.

Fair enough.

Game support.

What game? I used to need to occasionally boot into Windows to play games, but it has been over a year since the last time I had to do this.

Ah, that was some clever wordplay, given that one of the definitions of capital is “of or pertaining to the head”!

most people only have empathy for their immediate family and friends. that’s normal.

Speak for yourself.

There are so many extraordinarily hard problems that need to be solved that I worry you are setting yourself up with false hope.

What would you propose as an alternative?

Generally when one refers to a country as being “occupied”, the implication is that the people there are poor off as a result, especially relative to a neighboring country whose land is presumably being considered occupied, which in this case is implicitly North Korea due to the history of how the two countries split. It is therefore not in bad faith to directly ask whether the people there are better or worse off as a result.

You also seem to be hyper-fixated on one possible meaning of prosperous, which is “wealth and GDP”, when there are lots of other means related to flourishing in general. The original commenter was perfectly free to provide an answer along the lines of, “North Korea is the more prosperous country because X.” where X is a list of ways in which the people there are flourishing, and this would have been a valid answer (if not necessarily a correct one).

Alternatively, if they think that South Korea is better off but this does not matter because it is still less ethical than North Korea, then they could have taken the opportunity to be up front about that.

So in short, this question could have been used in all sorts of ways to provide an answer that clarified the commenter’s position. It is a shame that we never heard from them exactly what their thoughts were.

If it makes you feel better, you are emphatically not my enemy. 😀

I didn’t say the people of South Korea are being subjugated.

Quote the comment that started all of this:

Is anyone really surprised one of the biggest companies in occupied korea would do this??

I acknowledge that this is not your comment, but you stepped in and answered a question directed at this person, so you should not act so surprised that you have become associated with their position, especially since you continue to work really hard to do everything except actually state your own opinion, except insofar that “everything is too complicated for anyone to have an opinion” counts as an opinion.

I will take from your attempt to throw a “Gotchya!” at me that you acknowledge that you are unwilling to state your own opinion on the matter.

If you don’t feel like stating your opinion on which country is better off and why, then you could just say that outright or say nothing. You really don’t have to go to all of this trouble to pontificate about how it is unreasonable to even consider the matter. 😜

Do I need to explain to you what that means, or do you have a clue about South Korean history and US foreign policy?

I appreciate you showing me how not to make a point in “a pointlessly hostile and asshole way”!