People working together can't be beaten. If you were on your own, you couldn't possibly find out all that humanity has found. I think the grudge people have against science is that they think people who want to think on their own think they are 'stars' and better than everybody else. We need to push everyone together forward and not let certain individuals do whatever they wish. This is what democracy is about.

As a final argument to the person who thinks "but I want to do whatever I wish": the probability of you being the person who can do what you wish is really slim.

Nothing pushes the pursuit of Truth more than being lied to.

Maybe being prey to the bald eagle of Big Tech is pushing people away from the original Internet "fever dream" (everyone will have a place and a say in the world).

I'll buy one of those Banana/Orange Pis to check RISC-V out. It seems like it could be really good, but I think the industry would have to change a lot.

I've paid for codecademy before. The tasks are too simple and too non-practical. It's common that you'll make "mad libs" and "shopping lists" that you would never use in real applications. I recommend you try other methods. Maybe trying to make a GUI or 3D application.