Everything I've seen has indicated US inflation rates dropping steadily since 2022. What inflation are you seeing?

I haven't used Ubuntu in a bit, but I'm decently familiar with linux overall. Looked up a guide. It indicated you could install LXDE with sudo apt install lxde and then reboot. The guide said that LXDE should be the default Desktop Environment now, because it's the most recently installed one. If for whatever reason LXDE isn't the new default, on the Login screen, in the upper left corner there should be a dialogue box to select whichever Desktop Environment you want as the new default.

I've had this issue before. My limited understanding is that your home server fetches copies of communities somebody on your server is subbed to. But if you're the first person, it can take it a few hours to federate (took mine a day.)

I hated the backlash the bridgy dev received. His project was genuinely useful, helped to solve one of people's most common criticisms of the fediverse. And after he was browbeat into giving it up, everything still got hoovered up by bots and fed into AI models anyway.

I think Debian unstable works great on laptops, and it's hard to beat for stability.

I know it isn't really the point, but your setup is so visually pleasant. Very aesthetic.

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

I do not believe either mastodon or lemmy federate your email address at all. Only the server you join has that information. You might have to worry if you have signed up to an uncrupulous instance. That instance admin could sell your email, I guess. They would have access to any email you gave them, so changing it would probably not help. I think the problem is a little overstated, honestly.

Just, try to be a good person and to learn as much as you can. Any revolution will need doctors, engineers, agricultural scientists. Keep the faith and be a good example to those around you.

I don't believe it's possible to reform anything purely online. At some point you have to organize with your neighbors. Maybe try finding a local group, or local chapter of a national group and get involved with them. The DSA could be a good starting point, at least to help you meet other people with similar beliefs.

I wish there was a "log in from other instance" button, but I don't know how you'd implement that.

I don't think that's really possible. I saw what happened when twitter users started trying Mastodon. There was a ton of confusion, and almost none of it was about terminology. The confusion was stuff like "Why doesn't search work like Twitter's" or "I can't see this person's posts". Trying to dumb it down only works when the details don't really matter.