Anybody know of anything else that would be quite wise to purchase sooner than later, due to potential (or incoming) regulation that would be regarded as privacy-infringing to enforce? I was thinking about this because I’ve been pondering a high-quality 3D printer purchase for this reason.
Advice for varying levels of budget would be quite nice, too; I partially intend on this being a post people may want to revisit.
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This matches my experience exactly.
Guns and ammunition
Physical media and ways of accessing it (usb disc drive for example)
Older laptops and vehicles if you’re in the market
Absolutely. Old cars until they ban them because of CC.
With the way inflation is going, nearly everything is better bought now rather than later. Especially appreciating assets.
your mom
Nah, she’s on permanent special offer.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck dude shut up nuh uh stop it
AI and age verification free Linux Distro Installers.
Mullvad VPN let’s you buy 10 years in advance IIRC. So if the government bans VPN’s (but Sweden doesn’t) you might still be able to use them for a decade.
I don’t see how this helps anything
Not if they start using DPI and block VPN protocols. VPNs that use OpenVPN, Wireguard and other non-censorship-resistant protocols (including Mullvad) don’t work in China, Iran or Russia.
Mullvad and other mainstream VPN providers only work in free countries where VPN is allowed.
Mullvad had some anti-censorship option last I checked. Don’t remember what exactly it does, but it had some sort of option.
https://mullvad.net/en/help/connecting-to-mullvad-vpn-from-restrictive-locations
This is what I can find on their website. Last updated April 22, 2026.
Seems like Russia is mostly blocked and China is fully blocked.
This guide lists different settings and methods to connect to Mullvad VPN from networks and countries where connecting to a VPN is difficult. This includes countries such as China, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.
But Russia, China, and Iran are listed here. So maybe works? I’m confused
It is a legitimate arms race. Things are changing weekly, you gotta understand what you’re doing and why and take other steps to connect to stuff sometimes.
So what does work in those countries?
Protocols that mimic regular https traffic in a way that survives DPI. There are many variants like vless+reality+vision, naiveproxy, etc. It’s still cat-and-mouse game since government’s DPI systems are constantly improving.
Interesting. What would you recommend though, and how would you recommend searching for these services?
Just on the off chance that north america could become like the aforementioned countries.
I’m actually wondering the same thing. I had the thought of buying a ridiculous amount of VPN time quite some time ago but ultimately decided against it for the reasons listed.
You can self host xray or sing-box server (which implement many of the protocols) on a cheap vps. A lot of documentation is not great and is either in Chinese or Russian but it’s doable. There are also paid services offering vless with various degrees of reliability and sketchiness.
Of course the real challenge when living in an authoritarian country is how to pay for it. I.e.you need to buy a vps abroad. I guess it will be easier in USA then in countries under sanctions or with internal restrictions where people generally can’t use Visa or PayPal.
Buy a Fully FOSS 3D printer. It’s pointless to purchase any peice of tech to “avoid future regulation” if it still runs proprietary software you don’t control. I would highly recommend checking out Voron printers. Fully FOSS at every level, firmware, hardware, schematics, etc. Voron Design
The catch is that you have to build it from scratch yourself. However, there are many places online to buy high quality premade kits, and the community is massive and thriving, you’ll be able yo follow guides easily.
I would also buy some bulk, long term digital storage if you don’t have it already, and build yourself a simple NAS. The digital crackdowns are coming soon, and you’re going to thank yourself for having terabytes of digital media and software that is impossible to get down the line.
ServerMonkey currently has 6TB refurbished enterprise HDDs for $175, and 24TH Seagate Exos CMR HDDs for $625 (even cheaper per TB.) if you don’t need crazy performance, you can throw a few of those in an old PC with a few hundred bucks of hardware and be totally fine using it as a NAS/home media server.
Learn how to securely torrent if you don’t already. If you’re into LLMs at all, download current LLM models that are good at different sizes, even if you can’t currently run them on your hardware, they will likely be banned in the near future because they represent a “threat” to the USA’s corporate power and influence.
Download a local copy of Wikipedia and other online sites with something like Kiwix. Purchase pre-LLM era physical books on foraging, cooking, home and auto repair, electronics, child care, etc. Highly practical skills that will be useful to know as the general population becomes further dumbed down and reliant on proprietary, corporate slopware.
For those on a very tight budget, used is your friend. Old computer equipment is still quite affordable. You can pick up used t480 Thinkpads on Ebay for $175-$300. If you’ve got kids who need a laptop for school, pick one of those up and throw Linux on it.
If you’re willing to swap, haggle, and hunt locally, you can get even better deals. Check if your area has a government surplus warehouse. When I was a kid, my family lived 15 minutes from one. They had literal pallets of government mini-pcs you could buy, 40 towers for a few hundred bucks. You could buy individual machines for $40-$75 there. Yeah they were old, beat up, janky, but they worked. And as a 14 year old kid who’s only money came from doing random yard work for friends and family, it was a gold mine.
Check with your local businesses and schools and ask somebody there if they have “e-waste computers” they are looking to get rid of. Often times they do, and they will happily give you them for free. Normally, they have to pay a company to take those off their hands, so they will have no issue with you just taking them for nothing. I’ve gotten a bunch of old computers this way over the years. Don’t be afraid to even ask the IT department where you work too. Some places have strict e-waste policies, but most don’t. As long as there’s no storage installed that could contain company/organizational data, they usually couldn’t care less if an employee wants to take an old junk PC home with them.
Purchase pre-LLM era physical books on foraging, cooking, home and auto repair, electronics, child care, etc.
Get E-books released right around 2022 (but not after) on Anna’s Archive if your money is low. It’s important that the info is somewhat fresh. A lot has changed since the 1980s
If your car is from the 90s then a book on car repair from the 90s will do.
Closed source printers can still be flashed with open source firmware. Creality printers can be flashed with octoprint. Also since they aren’t connected to the internet they can’t force a bad update.
Very true, but it’s better to use and support a fully FOSS platform if possible.
Downloading LLM’s because the US will censor them seams unlikely. Censorship will pretty much always be bypassable with vpn’s or tor.
Maybe I just don’t have the same threat model as you.
The government could force Huggingface to implement KYC. This would probably push people to start uploading torrents of models, but the problem is that there are dozens of quants for each model. Depending on what GPU you have, how much VRAM and RAM you have, the perfect quant for your machine might not be available on these third party download sites. So might as well grab them now while you can.
Nvidia just bought huggingface.
Buying a house is always advisable if you can afford it. And on the privacy front I think it is the best protected space we have. Not just by law but also by robust doors.
Not having to worry about a landlord who feels entitled is also pretty great.
For privacy purposes it’s better to buy an unit in a condo, than a house. In a house your neighbors can easily look out their windows and see who visits you, whose car is parked in front of your house. In a condo it’s much harder because the same main entrance is used by many people and it’s difficult determine which unit a visitor entering the main entrance is going to, so it’s harder to connect the dots.
Couple caveats about buying a house
- Make sure you have some money saved to deal with surprise expenses before you buy so you can handle things like appliances dying randomly.
- Don’t buy a house unless you plan on keeping it for at least 7 years. Selling a house is pain since you have to act like you don’t live in your home and usually real estate commissions and closing costs Eat up all the appreciation if you sell too soon
I had an opportunity to buy a house earlier this year. Didn’t feel ready, nerves got to me and instead of getting in a bidding war I kept my offer at the asking price.
The people who outbid me ended up only paying what my offer was anyways, due to the bank’s valuation of the house.
3 months later and the house shot up in valuation by $50k. I could’ve bought the house, lived in it for two years, and still would’ve ended up ahead compared to renting smh
Nothing you can buy can save you if a law is passed prohibiting it. They’ll outlaw possession/usage too.
People should start protesting today instead of waiting for things to get worse.
I break a lot of laws already. I dont mind breaking more of them.
Say it again friend.
You are absolutely correct about the second part. But the first? Ehh… out of sight out of mind, lol
Books, vinyl records, CD’s, DVD’s, bluray, hard drives (oké maybe not now now). Tools… Especially battery power tools.
And if you are abble, solar panels and batteries.
This wil make your life pretty low tech and non traceable. Also there commodities that are tradable for goods and services with others in your communitie.
Especially battery power tools.
Ditch the battery tool lock-in and go pneumatic. The tools themselves are more robust, more powerful, typically designed to be repaired, and less expensive when comparing performance.
This is the way to go. Once you get a stand up air compressor that spits out enough cfm its a real game changer. I don’t even have that many air tools outside of nail guns. Just having solid air for dusting made it worth while for me. I’ll get distracted for hours using my tornado air whip and airsolizer.
If you plan on using them frequently then you need a decent sized air compressor. I have a 3 gal pancake compressor and it just doesn’t do it for me. I would also say when buying tools, really consider if you need it battery powered or if you will always have wall power. I would never buy a battery powered orbital sander because I’m always going to be running dust collection anyways, and the cord can run along the dust hose.
And noisy and need oil and need an air compressor and need lots of space and an air hose…
TINSTAAFL, buy once cry once, and all that. I can mitigate all of those trade-offs. I can’t mitigate proprietary batteries. Oh, sure, there knockoffs (potentially or actually dangerous) and generic batteries (like CEENR). The performance of the generics just isn’t there yet, but for people messing around at home, it’s gutenuf. The battery is still an expensive consumable.
I have mostly cordless tools and regret having gone down this route. The cost of one 10Ah pack would get me a “throwaway” oil-free compressor that I can repair and rebuild. And once you have the air tools, you have them for life. Dropped you drill in saltwater? Clean it up, lubricate, back in action. For the price of one cordless nail gun, I got my nail gun, a long nose stapler, a drill, extra air line, and an extra tank for additional air volume.
Is pneumatic for everyone? Absolutely not. But that battery lock-in is terrible. Proprietary anything chaps my ass, and I avoid it whenever possible.
As an aside, I often wonder how long before TTI and Stanley Black & Decker start locking out third-party batteries.
Hardwired tools are generally better in both terms of performance and reliability. If you really want get Amish about it you can convert a lot of eletric tools into gas tools and buy them like that.
That being said I will still grab my ryobi battery power tools before anything else.
Maybe flashable routers, phones, SBCs, noise generators if you’re an activist? Sorry if I’m not being concrete enough.
We should also consider tariffs and general inflation, which work (intentionally or not) to deprive people of “privacy-friendly” tech (along with everything else really). This is essential, knowing that basically most tech hardware comes from China, and we’ve seen how the govt can just say “uh actually this will be X bucks more expensive” without explicitly banning it, especially in the US and Europe
Any recs for flashable routers? I’m about to try and build my own but if cheaper pre-built options will suffice I’d love to save a buck. I’m not exactly raking in dough.
I have some GL. iNet routers and I like them a lot. Comes preinstalled with their flavor of OpenWRT but you can flash it to the standard image too. And they’re affordable (at least when I bought in last year they were)
Honestly I have no idea, sorry. I never really took a personal interest, being a broke student sharing apartments and all
You might have luck asking in other coms though
That’s fine, don’t apologize. I am right there with you in the monetary department…
Thankfully I now have a job, good luck to you! 🫡
Thanks! o7
Not sure if they’re illegal yet, but foreign made routers. I only say that because Trump doesn’t want us to have them, therefore we probably need them.
Er… not that I think the current administration doesn’t blow donkey dick, but I don’t think buying things based solely on what someone in power wants is a particularly good strategy. I think the general consensus is that building your own is the end-game here, but I’ve been recommended some pre-built options too.
vasectomies
You serious? Why? Being genuine.
You must be new to earth
It used to be covered in plant life, the water, land, and air was filled with life. It was awesome… then 8 billion humans
Bidet, it’s like 1000 times better and you can worry less about Costco shortages.
Agree. Italians are the biggest users and use less paper … :-)
I can’t tell if you’re serious because it’s super late where I am right now, but this is just lowkey good advice in general. Bidets rule lol
I know it’s like a meme, but every time I have to go without a bidet I feel like a Neanderthal. I’m like kinda close to sneaking one onto the work toilet once I’m keyholder.
Came here to say the same. I bought my first pre pandemic. When the pandemic came I was so grateful lol.
You don’t dry all that water off your ass?
Turns out that twerking does have benefits
Well, use goes from like a 10-15 square use without bidet to a consistent 3-4. Square consumption is the same from Taco Bell Tuesday to fiber Friday. You’re never going to punch a finger through trying to get yourself clean and you never need to worry about smells. A $45 dollar accessory has never punched above its weight class so well before, imo.
You certainly don’t want to use TP on your dripping wet asshole. Hand towels work best
The better models come with dryers.
The bidets in Japan are on a different level.
set up a towel rotation
Dash cam.
I say as I have yet to replace my broke one for the last 6 months… thanks for the reminder lol
