I worry about it eating the plastic in our body. Unintended consequences

I’ve done deep dive on making cosmetics and soap. Dove is not “soap.” Dove Beauty Bar is made with a synthetic detergent (“SYNDET”). True soap needs saponification. So, your theory was correct. :)

Hmmm then we are deeper into this than the world has realized. I think the gilded sheen is still there—but the rot underneath is deeper than the outside thinks.

Meaning, the mass protests that broke out in the millions across the country from 2017 to 2020–that era was the “protest era.”

What are we in now? Sure as hell not a protest era. We are way beyond.

As someone who has closely studied the evolution of spycraft from Ancient Intelligence to the development of the modern Intelligence Community—I know that because of my knowledge—I feel exactly as you say here. If I am taken out now for being too open or too loud, the side of humanity loses me in the fight. And it is so god damn easy to misstep.

We are and have been under massive constant surveillance. The facial scanning at airports has expanded to the physical border if you’re crossing by land. They say they delete your photo—but I assume they’re instead storing the biometrics. This is and will be used against us.

The tech companies in control know most of us better than we know ourselves. We are tracked every second of every day. They don’t need warrants when they already have access to profiles of data on almost every human in America. Even if we were in a normal world—the constitution generally doesn’t apply to private corporations. This is and will be used against us.

There is no safety “protesting” or organizing unless it’s done in a tight, cell operations that have some communication in between but function so that if one goes down the network stays intact. Intelligence and resistance groups survive when they’re federated.

Master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house. Organizing on a mass scale across the country without using any tech that touches our adversaries right now is not possible. So, first we must figure out how to share information quickly and easily in a way that excludes big tech capture and government capture.

Figuring this independent communication hurdle out is more important right now than getting out on the street with a geotagged phone and smiling for a drone who is sure to snag your biometric data. And I’m saying this as someone who believes in the people protesting (and who has been in full scale car tipping rubber bullets everything on fire riots).

I just want to second this comment and chime in with my experiences. (Thanks also for the information on Framework as I’m not familiar and love to learn)

My family primarily uses Thinkpads. We refurbish them for fun (and often give them away to our community). We run Linux easily on almost all our Thinkpads. So far, Linux works very well even on some old machines (as old as 2012 which wouldn’t be what OP is looking for but still worth mentioning).

We try different distros all the time but mostly stick with Fedora and PopOS.

Right now, I am on a refurbished Thinkpad T480s running PopOS. The 7th gen processor is probably too slow for OP but it runs Linux great and it can even handle running a large dwarf fortress through Steam haha. The T480s also has a touchscreen option (and screens can often be swapped out). The T480s screens usually have a hinge where they can lay completely flat (although, I’m not sure if they are pen compatible).

A more recent Thinkpad with a better processor could be an option for OP to consider in addition to the other great suggestions you made. :)