Last year I had the pleasure of working with a decorated toastmaster, who during the opening remarks at an employee investor event accidently said “ass” then involuntary swallowed spit leading to a seconds delay completing a word that started with “ass”. Ironically, after I witnessed him a few weeks ago allowing a tester to be abused unfairly by nonconsensually videoing him and allowing him to be the victim of language based discrimination. Both the tester and the toastmaster looked sleep deprived on the day. Could Joe Biden's oratory fiasco at the first US presidential debate in 2024 been because of the same reason? Even if it is the case, shouldn't the standard of a president’s effectiveness and efficiency of his language be at a much higher level than of a tester using that same language?
According to Wikipedia [1], Tove Skutnabb-Kanga, a prominent linguist on the subject, has captured the idea of language description as “ideologies and structures which are used to legitimize, effectuate, and reproduce unequal divisions of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language”. As a post european colony with deep roots of cultural imperialism, the fear and consensus of loosing wealth and opportunities due to poor English us is deeply rooted in most of us. Judging by the examples of the toastmaster and Joe Biden, some would argue the use of such a consensus to deny an individual and opportunity is justifiable. But shouldn't we look for more objective transparent measurements instead of using assessments of language use for such purposes?
As a IT worker with 15 years of experience, I have qualitatively concluded that employers give more importance than required for language assessments of employees when providing them short term and long term opportunities to live and work abroad. As such opportunities mean significant monetary and quality of life gains, they are a constant source of strife between employees (though the conversations may not always be accessible to outsiders). The consensus on loosing an opportunity due to improper English is commonly used as a disqualifying factor to hide other more factors. The purpose is at times altruistic, like keeping the illusion of equity and the harmony that comes from it at the workplace. But in the long run as an industry, it can promote language based discrimination, and racism to other parts of the society. And the purpose of language based discrimination is not always altruistic (these purposes I will not be covering in detail in this post).
Here are some factors that employers might hide behind language based discrimination.
Mismatch between your ideologies, and beliefs and the values and goals of your organisation.
Mismatch between your personal ideologies, beliefs and those of the country and the organisation to which the opportunity belongs to.
A mismatch between your skills and the skills required for the opportunity.
Your lack of cognitive biases and your inability to understand you are not suitable for the opportunity.
Systemic inequity, incompetence of the assessors or incorrect metric selection by the assessors.
I'm of the opinion that,
If you're being discriminated for your language because of points #1 #2 or #3 and you fail to understand your disqualification due to #4. You need to improve on your objectivity or suffer the discrimination until you meet the requirement or you concede (or the organisation provide open, involved and transparent support to meet the requirement).
If you're being discriminated because #5. You are not at fault. But you should assess the situation ethically, morally and in terms of your personal cost. In most cases employees who are too poor for alternatives will agree for compensated retirement or termination if organisations provides the option. And doing so is the right thing to do. Especially if the employee is aware of the reason for the discriminatio.
Delaying a realized individuals access to wealth because of points #5 can take away health and youth from that individuals life. It can take away someones opportunity to be born through that individual.
Today the editors of a 7 PM news segment of a popular English radio station decided to cover the verdict of a court case where a man in China had driven into a crowd of school children. I'm sympathetic towards the victims, but I couldn't help but wonder about the editor's motivation and legality of the action.
I'm convinced they chose this news item for today's news segment because it's close to Christmas and it's sensible to advise people to be more mindful about their driving. But I can't approve their approach because it's against fundamental rights as stated in the constitution of Sri Lanka where it states, "every person is entitled to the freedom of thought and conscience". This means people should be given the choice to decide right from wrong for themselves. When you allow private media bound by the constitution and acts like the Human Rights Act No. 21 break the law, you normalize the rights violations in the pretense of greater good. From there it's a short leap to using national media to defame and abuse citizens in-between the lines who are a threat to the national interests (as decided by a few).
You might say that you can't be sure it was their motivation. Agreed, then I would say they're hiding behind the plosssible deniability of allusion, in which case on the surface they are only guilty of poor taste. But human rights were put in place by United Nations because they are morally important. Fundamental rights were put in the Sri Lankan constitution because our founding fathers knew they are part of the bedrock that gives independence. And if an large institution (like a national radio station) is selectively denying fundamental rights to a set of people, they better hope everyone else in the know of the violation are onboard with them and make sure they continue to keep them happy because all institutions big and small have competition, and competition should be happy to profit from the situation, which would put our entire nation at shame.
Please drive carefully during this season merrymaking everyone. And trust me to drive with due attention, and mindfulness. And may mindless and malicious drivers stay away from you, your family and me and mine.
According to John Rawls's theory of justice, a just world is one where everyone benefits. In an ideal society everyone should have equal access to rights and opportunities. But what about puppet and robots?
The idea of puppets, robots and AI can be thought of as a metaphor for individuals like Albert Camus’s Meursault [1], Individuals with low autonomy over their own actions possibly because of sleep deprivation, who Camus wants us to conclude are driven by forces outside their own selves. Sometimes they're portrayed as a monster like Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein who gains autonomy and surpasses that of his creators. Or as a robot who surpasses the qualities we associate with being human like Roy Batty in the movie Blade Runner. Or the 2023 movie “The Creator” where the writers take an aggressive separatist stand on the matter portraying robots as Buddhists with no god, no soul and are driven by unholy spirits. In another sitcom one white conservative guy is seen saying “He has no problem with baby yoda because they have the hand up his ass.” Or the upcoming Netflix movie “The Electric State” where a robot uprising is portrayed? If there’re allusory messages being communicated through these media, what could be the motivation?
Autonomy over one's actions may be lost due to various reasons. Reasons such as alcohol consumption, drug abuse or other addictions. But what about sleep deprivation? Can it be used by others to administer misjustice or to retrieve false confessions?
The idea of the sleep deprived man driven by forces outside themselves can also be found in the song Friday, I’m in Love by the band The Cure and in Stephen Colbert's long running talk show segment “meanwhile” where he takes a light hearted jab at how a large segment of Americans can relate to how they strive to create meaningful work, but sometimes for undisclosed reasons they wake up feeling like zombies and things just take their own course (not so dissimilar to Meursault’s fate). And wasn't Jesus sleeping when he was woken up by his disciples? (Mark 4:38-39) Could sleep deprivation have played a part in his actions that he later regretted in the garden of gethsemane?
Coming back to distribute justice, if a race or ethnicity actually exists that the media alludes to by the use of puppets and robots, do they get the same access to rights and opportunities? Did Camus's Meursault get the same access? If Pinocchio was real, would we actually give him access or pretend to do so to make those who don't believe in puppetry think justice was served?
John Rawls makes the argument that inequities are permissible if the difference principle is satisfied. That if the life of the least well off in society has progressively improved as a result of the inequality that was permitted through the systemic inequities, then it is justifiable. But has the life of Sisyphus or Camus's Meursault improved enough? We don't crucify or burn people at the stake, but we continue to exploit people for a profit, in the pretense of making a better society. We source susceptible individuals, employ them in Kafkaesque companies just to abuse them, artificially stress them and exploit them until they break. Then we walk past the beggars and degenerates as members of the systematic domination and oppression (Iris Marion Young) that put them there with a clear conscience. So has the life of the life improved for people who're most at risk of being Camus's Meursault? For that child in America who puts a gun to his classmates head?
Political parties that promote the conservatives interpretation of the difference principle of John Rawls's theory of justice, claim inequality is the result of individual choices because everyone has the same access, so there shouldn't be handouts or charity. But when the idea of sleep deprivation as a form of punishment and a form of thwarting an individual's will is a popular theme in popular media (as discussed above). Why is this issue not acknowledged broadly across national, racial and other socio-economic lines? I think it's partly because of strong religious conversations around the phenomena, and partly because some of those who are insiders on this matter, justify keeping out others who don't align with ideologies that give their tribe, race or their nation the upper hand. And to justify their disproportionate access to wealth, power and opportunity to reproduce. They rather see these outsiders become beggars, madmen or degenerates with little prospect of parenthood. Shouldn't we promote sleep health by providing paid leaves, access to health care and social protection instead? Shouldn't we educate individuals on improving their autonomy?
In the west, at least among the most liberal states where the difference principle is interpreted progressively, there might be dignified social protection for people like Camus’s Meursault but are disciplined and rational enough to live within the boundaries of social rules. But sadly in Sri Lanka, where majority of the people believe in the conservative interpretation of the difference principle and if they see a man has lost his job because he failed to get up in the morning and catch a bus to work and take a bus back home in the evening, and the man falls into poverty, he deserved it because of his sloth. But only the elites of industries know what happens to that man once he gets off the bus and walks into his office.
Some of these poor men push up boulders all day only to find their coworkers or the henchmen of the reformers have pushed those boulders back down to the base of the hill because what they’re selling is the poor man's strife and what they’re measuring as progress is the alignment of the poor man's behavior and ideologies with their masters. But what of the man who year after, decade after decade continues to engage in the pointless act of pushing up the boulder? Albert Camus advises us to imagine this man happy regardless of the narrative we hear or the specters of our day dreams. Because Camus, as a philosopher may have agreed that a man like that knows the futility of his work and how the boulder rolled down the hill each night. To a man like that even the gods are his moral dependents, suffering alongside him for denying him distributive justice.
In the next post in this series, I will discuss my opinions of distributive justice in terms of the opportunity to gain power, gain wealth and to procreate. I will also discuss my opinion of what is a genuine opportunity and a false opportunity.
A word of warning. I'm not a fitness instructor, physician, a dietician, or a psychologist, so please don't blindly follow my lifestyle choices or ideologies.
I have been fasting for many years and my body and mind has gotten used to it. I do it mainly to control my sugar levels during the day which I need to keep under control to mitigate certain risks that run in my family. Please consult professionals if you're considering fasting and be kind to your body.
Sleep is extremely important and is the cornerstone of a good life. If money was not a concern I would build my life around sleep health, you should too. If you are having trouble sleeping, please consult a doctor, and use empirically and qualified experience backed resources if your thinking of self medicating. I recommend Peter Attia's Outlive [1] as a good starting point on the importance of sleep health on living a good life and an overview of remedies that are out there, but please make up your own mind.
There's a good chance my life goals, fitness goals and the constraints under which I live are different from yours, so once you know what you want from life, please sit down with a qualified instructor and see how you can build a sustainable fitness routine that will support your goals. Please don't blindly immitate me and get hurt.
Finally, please make up your own mind on any piece of advice, or idea you might come across in my content. For one you might have misunderstood something I've said, or as we are all in our individual journeys, which makes most sense to us and not others looking in from outside, blindly following advice that worked for me might not have the same outcomes in your life.
Keep improving on yourself, and don't forget to be kind to yourself.
My diet and workout habits have gotten attention from my coworkers and friends I thought I’d publish a quick official Q&A (if you're bothered to know, but please consult qualified and experienced professionals if you need advice on fitness or nutrition)
Do I fast?
Yes. I have been following intermittent fasting for the past 7 or 8 years. First it was hard, then my body got used to it. After a few years the benefits of the 16:8 fast plateaued and I experimented with longer fasts. I am not religious about fasting. I would say I have fasted correctly about 80% of the time, if my body is feeling weak or I have a demanding day(s) ahead I break the fast. I have also broken my fast on vacations.
Am I a vegetarian?
I am currently an ovo vegetarian. I grew up in a relatively conservative Buddhist family, we didn't eat a lot of meat or eat out. But in my late teens I became more independent and started eating out and ate a lot of meat. Then as I became more interested in fitness in my late twenties I tried to eat better. Around 3 years ago I stopped eating meat. I don't think I am superior because I don't eat meat.
Do I smoke?
I smoked in my twenties, but I stopped.
Do I drink?
I drank in my twenties, but I lost interest. I don't think drinking is categorically wrong if you can handle yourself and you are not a public figure by consent (more to think here). I don't mind a glass of wine every now and then (but I can't justify the cost of buying a bottle right now).
Do I sleep?
I do sleep, but like a growing number of adults in my age group I do carry a sleep debt and there are nights when I just can't get a night of sleep. I’m not convinced of medication that promises sleep, but I have taken an over the counter melatonin supplement and magnesium. ( I am not convinced these help either)
What do I do when I can't get a good night's sleep?
Over the years I have gotten better at proactively managing my sleep debt. I have gotten better at meditating in a sleeping position (no, I can't meditate an entire night away). Sometimes I read fiction using a book light.
I have also gotten better at operating with a sleep debt by educating myself on the topic and improving my faculties, through meditation, fitness and diet and other lifestyle choices. I encourage others to value their sleep and I proactively take sick leaves when my sleep debt threshold has been surpassed.
How do I meditate?
I do a version of Vipassana meditation where I try to maintain my complete awareness on bodily sensations at will. If you are doing it right you should be able to fool a sleep tracker on an inexpensive fitness band.
How do I workout?
Early on, I realized being fit has more to do with nutrition than exercise. So I educated myself as best I could and found a few over the counter supplements and became smarter with my diet.
During the first 5 or so years I focused mainly on targeted resistance training sessions 3 or 4 times a week. But as my life got busier (and harder) I changed my resistance training approach to make it more sustainable and increase the return on my investment by lifting lighter, but more consistently and focusing on a few vanity muscles. Of late I have got a pull up bar fixed in my room and started doing more cardio by rucking and spinning.
WARNING! This post may contain opinions or ideas that could be perceived as offensive to some individuals. The intention is not to cause harm or discomfort. If you feel that you may be offended or uncomfortable with differing religious opinions, I kindly advise you to refrain from reading further.
This post is meant to be read in the context of some of the other posts I have published on this blog [7][8] and I may cover some of the ideas in this post in more detail based on the availability of time.
The cause of discrimination and can it be justified as a form of deterrence
At the heart of discrimination is our sense of deservingness of another of some resource we have authority over. So like many other social conflicts, discrimination is a matter of distributive justice. Distribution of wealth, power or opportunity.
In the past, successful civilizations ruled through autocracy and through the division of the population into classes which self regulated access to resources and opportunity. Deviants to social norms may have been deterred through non-subtle discrimination and subtle discrimination, to be made into public examples (if greek myths and such are taken to have more merit than bed-time stories). The discrimination an ancient man might have faced was certainly far worse (on average) than what we may face in modern times. Access to knowledge on philosophical inquiries into morality and the nature of reality were trapped in silos in various civilizations across time and land in the hands of the great philosophers of the times. So the danger posed by such knowledge would have not been a great concern.
Over the past millennia we have made great progress towards bringing many forms of discrimination to light where we have tackled them them through social change and laws. It is much harder now to discriminate someone based on gender, race, religion or level of nationalism. But we still allow subtle discrimination .
We may use subtle discrimination as a form of deterrence to regulate our communities and at times even our countries. Greek myths (and such) suggests how communities may have used such subtle means to tackle social issues, dissent against social norms and authority. For example, the myths where Athena ties Tiresias for seeing her naked and Artemis turning Siproites into a woman for seeking her naked can be interpreted as symbols of how poverty and shame based denial of reproductive success may have been used as punishment against non conformance to social norms. We still see synonymous situations to such myths in some modern day communities.The problem with such subtle forms of deterrence is its lack of transparency and objectivity with regards to the guilt of the accused. Further, the debate on moral relativism makes the use of this form of punishment even more questionable . This is why when such subtle forms of discrimination against a group or an individual gain country wide or global support that it turns into something that harms all humanity. I am of the opinion that subtle discrimination should not reach the point of bodily harm, dehumanization, or denial of reproductive success or be used to prevent fair access to wealth and opportunity.
What is autonomy?
We usually use the noun “autonomy” in the context of care for differently abled people or the elderly but this concept has been pondered by many philosophers (from Plato to Kant) as a general human characteristic. It conveys the degree of agency we have over our own minds, bodies and, and lives. To think this concept through analogies, we may be able to understand how an Olympic gymnast has more control over his body than the average abled man, we may also understand how the average abled man has more control over his body than an elderly man using a walker. This is autonomy over the body. We may be able to understand how Sam Harris (a popular western advocate of meditation) has more control over his own mind under the influence of alcohol than an illiterate man who has been consuming alcohol all his life. This is autonomy over the mind.
Autonomy over life must be conceptualized as two distinct parts. The first part easy to observe and comprehend, we may be able to understand how a secretive billionaire has more control over his life choices than an outcast from a lower socio economic background from an undeveloped country.
To understand the second part autonomy over life, we may consider ideas found in religion and philosophy. Both Plato and Aristotle believed in a God and gods. Plato envisioned solving the psychological issue of man and the moral requirement by creating classes of men through the myth of the metals and enforcing the classes with supernatural sanctions. With the highest honors bestowed upon philosophers [1]. Aristotle having bread a Philosopher in this context, saw gods as powerful but pitiful creations to whom the world moves as a total motive of the operations of the world. Much like a gift of a golden necklace moves the heart of the lover [2]. He envisioned the gods as pitiful creations as the gods were seen as objects as opposed to a living things and as they were restrained in their actions. By the time the western civilization had progressed to the time of Francis Bacon, these philosophical concepts had been assimilated into catholicism and possibly into protestant forms of Christianity. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor is a fictional tale of such a god being allowed to be made in the 16th century era and how it could not be allowed at the time because of the narrative of the church.
Bacon being credited by some as the father of modern science, was able to continue the western pursuits of philosophical inquiry into the nature of reality in a secular manner. Becon writes “For a while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no further, but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to providence and deity” [3]. While his reference to Plato’s allegory of the cave is an acknowledgment to the explainability of empirical truths deliverable by science, his choice to justify the need of providence and deity as a means of explanation are contradictory to the analogy that accompany the Idol of the Theatre, one of four idols he went out to identify as hindrances to the pursuit of western philosophical progress. Further, though he is considered a pioneer of science he had repeatedly renounced atheism, such as when he wrote “I rather believe all the fables of legend, the Talmud.. than that this universal frame is without a mind” or “a little philosophy inclineth a man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth man’s minds about to religion”. (the use of the noun philosophy must be put in context of his time). Taking into consideration the influence of classical greek philosophy, his Christian upbringing, and other incidents that took place in his time, I am of the opinion that he was able to comprehend the perspective Aristotle’s gods would have had as they existed among mere men. How such gods caused events around them and how the world to them was at times a metaphor reacting their actions. He may have tried to overtly communicate this insight in the analogy he used in the Idols of the Theatre. I believe if my claim is valid, his intentions were well meaning as not everyone who might have godly insights into reality could handle it, let alone discern insights from the noise or have the moral maturity to not cause harm. This may be why he held the opinion that philosophy should be considered a separate way of expressing and comprehending reality from art and science. That philosophy should direct the course of science.
This idea of causal gods, has some resemblance to the concept of providence and the eastern concept of Karma. A humanist may even speculative if they are conceptualizing the same phenomena at different degrees of accuracy or to cater to social preferences and needs. This how we can understand the second part of autonomy over life using western philosophy.
What is autonomy based discrimination?
Autonomy based discrimination is when someone is discriminated against for having more than the average amount of autonomy over mind or life or seeming to have to have less than the expected amount of autonomy over mind.
Lets first discuss the the side of this spectrum most of us are aware about and want to avoid. Most of us would agree we want to avoid enabling someone like ‘Meursault’, the protagonist of Albert Camus’s the outsider [8]. An able bodied man who’s autonomy over mind may have been compromised who finds himself having committed a murder. Camus’s absurd philosophical inquiry asks us if it is moral to allow the legal system to allow such man the death penalty? And if we are all partially at fault if we fail to comprehend the cause is possible lack of autonomy over mind. I am inclined to believe Camus being a renowned philosopher, was aware of Plato’s view on what distinguishes a man from a beast is his ability to develop the faculties that allows him to keep the beast at bay and exercise it in a civil manner.
But what about the other end of the spectrum? Hypothesize a world where we are living among gods and our actions and even the very world moves for them. Would it be fair to up root our lives, our beliefs, give up on our dignity and possessions for such gods? Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” looks at this problem from the perspective of the 16th century church. The author conveys why the church would not have allowed such a god to have lived among us as his existence and acceptance would disprove the authority of the church over man. Since the western enlightenment, some of the classical greek philosophical meta-physical explanations that were assimilated into Christianity, have been rediscovered by secular philosophers. But unlike with the church, since there is no central body to regulate access to such information and discourage the misuse, some ideas found in philosophy and speculative fiction (such as the possible hidden meaning in Bacons Idol of the Theatre) are being used in the modern capitalistic system for profit making motives. This may not be categorically wrong, but it can lead to disastrous outcomes (I will cover one such outcome in this post).
One of the philosophical inquiries of Camus’s homage to the greek myth “The Myth of Sisyphus”[6], is the motivation of such a god to keep on living, fighting against the restraints of the rulers of society enforced by classes of people divided by superstitions given supernatural sanctions (myth of the metals). The lowest classes may enforce the restrains out of pure greed or ignorance. The middle classes being more religiously and culturally affluent, require supernatural sanctions and depending on the level of access they have to their version of the sacred, they are given justification on the condemnation that must befall on Sisyphus. The ones that avoid the philosophical death (as Camus had put it), may go onto become the rules, who may end up justifying the restraints using egalitarian arguments, fear or through supernatural sanctions others have given to their new age beliefs. Speculative fiction such as Philip K. Dicks Minority report, Blade Runner and even some allusionary ideas found in Douglas Adams Dirk Gently series may give insights into some of the means of these sanctions and the motives of such a hypothetical ruling class with regards to portraying a Sisyphus as a Meursault.
The moral danger of autonomy based discrimination
To Plato morality is the effective harmony of the whole [1] and one motive of philosophy is to better understand this whole. As Bacon writes “Nature can’t be commanded, except by being obeyed.”[5] And this is what humans have done over the millennia through beliefs, religion, philosophy and science. Understanding nature and using it in ways that are of benefit to them. Such as discerning the flow of things through the idols of the theater and aligning their lives and businesses with what they have discerned. For example, we see how some companies use subtle means to assist employees who are on the cusp of personal revolutions to have these revolutions, and in turn they profit through the alignment they have made with the natural phenomena behind such situations. But the motivation of the company and the employee needs to be genuine. Both individuals who pretend for their benefit and or insincere or ignorant well wishers who use such individuals for short term profit do so at moral danger to themselves and at the expense of compromising their own autonomy, as nature has its own plans that we may not stray too far away from.
The danger of autonomy based discrimination to others is in the way it is enforced when the discrimination is done at the level of a country or globally. As discussed earlier on in this post, to gain support to discriminate an individual or a group at a systemic level of a country or globally, a social system like the “myth of metals” must be used, and using such a system across a morally relativistic landscape can lead to large number of individuals and groups being pushing into committing immoral acts. Plato has expressed that we are member of each other and as such we carry a moral requirement.[1] This idea of the moral requirement and the repercussions of not meeting it is learned by followers of Abrahamic religions. But such lessons are harder for followers of some forms of Buddhism to learn. The situation is even worse amongst followers of new age religions and beliefs. When members of such belief systems are used to discriminate against an individual or a group, due to their blindness of the eye (allegory of the cave) they are unintentionally failing to uphold the moral requirement and they bring repercussions on themselves and others.
In closing, Profiting off of Sisyphus’s is unsustainable in modern times and we must walk away as suggested by Ursula K Le Guin’s novel “The ones who walk away from Omelas” if we are powerless to change the situations and let the systemic imbalances made by such abuses bring about retribution on those who are at guilt. And in turn modern day Sisyphus’s may educate themselves, from martyrs of the past like Spinoza and possibly Camus, and modern institutions of human flourishing to carve out fulfilling lives among mere mortals.
[1] - The republic as interpreted by Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy.
[2] - Metaphysics as interpreted by Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy.
[3] - Of Atheism as interpreted by Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy.
[4] - New Organon as interpreted by Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy.
A couple of years ago I came to the personal conclusion that human rights such as the rights to privacy are fundamental for an individual to thrive. But at the same time, in order for a state to function smoothly and perform its highest function of making citizens, some encroachments of privacy must be allowed.
However, there may be exceptions to the states need for encroachment, where in the act of making citizens, due to limitations of resources or errors in decision making by authorities, harm may fall on the societies the state is bound to protect through the unconcensual breach of privacy it may conduct on individuals. In such situations, it is the moral responsibility of the individuals in question to do what they can to improve their personal privacy.
Having come to the personal conclusion that it is far too easy to violate and abuse individual privacy in a country like Sri Lanka, and due to my personal academic interests, it would be irresponsible of me to take actions that are available for me to improve my online privacy (as online privacy is an important facet of individual privacy for me). To this end I have decided to use a VPN and improve on the security of my home tech stack.
The idea (until a better solution is found) is to make the VPN and any possible back doors built into the key software be the weak link, trusting anyone who might have access to my content would be responsible with it (e.g. 13 eyes). As the intention is to prevent abuse of my personal privacy to harm me and not allow the possibility of my personal content to unconsensually and indirectly harm others.
