Libb

I suppose you're asking if I'm French? Yes. And, yes, it's a French operator (Bouygues Mobile)

The European Union could help safeguard those borders.

Since we/The EU will be soon buying even more US weapons, I seriously doubt that.

What was once a region of the world populated with so many smart and bright people has now become the proud land of the dumb. The EU is like a headless chicken running around. And it seems rather happy about what it has become, I'm afraid to say so.

And, yeah, I used to use one like that.

That would be the first step in claiming back what once was ours ;)

As a EU/French I vehemently oppose that idea unless we get to see the Canadian mounted police to parade here on the Champs Elysée, this next 14th July :p

J'ai des glaçons. Bien frais et non coupés. Je fais des prix pour les commandes groupées.

Sinon, oui, +1 aussi pour tes conseils: déconnez pas et buvez (de l'eau), rafraichissez-vous la tronche et restez à l'abri... et surtout, oubliez pas de me contacter pour des glaçons premier choix.

Même pas chaud.

Anyone have any advice?

• Ask them for their number, and see how it goes? Worst case, they will say 'no', end of the story. Maybe the will ask why you don't have IG and that will be the start of an interesting conversation.
• Try to meet different kind of people? I mean it seriously. I know a lot of people around me who have IG/Facebook/X and so on but at the same time none of them make it a requirement to use it.
• Use a second phone/number for that crap content only? I barely use my 'real' phone (I have nothing installed on it beside what I'm required to use) still I do own a second phone just so I can easily share a number with all the services and various craps that ask for one. It's a phone I never answer to, despite it being constantly harassed by callers. And that peace of mind (my real number is almost spam free) only costs me the 2€/month (plus the phone, I purchased used). You should be able to do something similar for social networks: have a second phone without anything personal on it, just with IG.
• Accept that you're doomed to use IG because it's with those 'IG people' and no others you want to spend your time with? I like to spend time with people reading books, it's kinda expected we indeed read books. Would I not like to read, I would not spend as much time with them.

A pencil (edit: less than 1 dollar most of the time)

How would he live or what would he do in life? More importantly, what should be done with him to make him useful or at least neutral rather than being a negative on the society?

Are you a tool, or an object yourself? Can I throw you away because you're broken, or because a newer version of yourself has been released, or because I don't like the way you age?

Probably not because, at least in your own eyes, you don't consider yourself a tool or an object. You're not something, right?

Why is that? Because you're a person. You're a human being.

Well, good for you and, also, nice to meet you my dear fellow human being.

The thing is that with or without skill, we all are human beings too. We're persons, we're not tools at the disposal of some 'owner' who is free to break it and throw it away when not needed.

Given that, one realize that the fact of being alive is not about being 'employable' or 'useful'. It never was. Believers would say it's a miracle or a gift, I'm not a believer myself but I kinda understand that idea: it's... so much more than all we can understand.

Sure, each of us may need to be able to get food and shelter, true that, but then your question instantly stops being about 'what should we do with unemployable people' to become the, imho, much more interesting 'why is that civil society (aka, all of us) is allowing a handful of its own members, the billionaires and corporations, to decide they have the right to destroy the way society works for all of us and to render a lot of us unable to earn their living, just so that handful of billionaires and corporations can make more money? And why is that we should not object to their decision?'

Now, since I answered your question, allow me to ask you mine.

Why do you think people should be categorized by their 'usefulness'? And, if we were to accept your premise (which I obviously don't want to), would you happen to consider yourself one of those 'useful' that would still deserve a place in that new AI and robotic-powered society?

edit: typos + my usual poor English

A well deserved +1 for a much more polite reaction than the one I had reading the title.

Are we supposed to shed a tear? The only thing I'm looking for is some alternative to my iPhone, even very basic and very feature-limited, preferably made in the EU, that would let me ditch that last piece of Apple tech I own... while still being able to easily access the banking and security apps I do need.