This is not a general answer to your question, but many times if I go to the original manufacturers website they will tell me where I can find their products locally. Failing that you could bite the bullet and call the manufacturer. They should have a distribution database that can answer your question. I’m going to watch this thread to see if someone has a real answer eventually.

I’m pretty sure preserves have actual chunks of fruit and jam is made from puree. Jelly is just made from fruit juice.

Huh… Ok. I subscribed and am going to try these later.

This is true, but on a personal level I have no idea how to do the calculus for, “My work is killing people, but it would have been worse if it hadn’t.” I think the show “The Good Place” got it right and it is just too interconnected and complicated to actually derive an answer as to whether an action is net negative or positive. That said, if I had to place money on a given action being negative, working for an arms manufacturer would be one I’d be fairly comfortable betting on.

I think this question boils down to this: Do your actions have a net positive or a net negative affect on the world? Does working at this company in some way offset the harm that the company is doing downstream? In this case I have a hard time coming up with a reasonable way in which this might be the case. Paying you and your family to have stuff doesn’t offset causing actual death and physical harm.

Astrill is the only consistent one and I have to server hop at times.

For commercial offerings this is probably true for at least some of them, but creating your own VPN isn’t terribly difficult if you are serious about your privacy. I typically just use them when I travel to countries like China where I can’t get to a bunch of necessary services, so I don’t mind if they route my YouTube traffic through CIA headquarters, but if I was doing anything more than that I would just set up my own.

Allegorical humor is the best humor!

-Plato, probably.

Subtle! I like it!

Weirdly, the only parts of the Internet that I’m really liking these days are Hacker News, Lemmy and the one part that I do pay for, which is Kagi Ultimate. It is very refreshing not to be the product and I do occasionally need to use a search engine for something.