Is there some way of safely circumnavigating these types of blocks in countries under oppressive regimes? I know about VPNs and TOR, but are those methods actually safe?

You’re mixing multiple subjects here, one being the logistics of blocking a federated system like Lemmy, the other being whether the wrong person finds the content of such a system objectionable and labels it a “national security issue.”

I’m being a tad pedantic here, but my reason for pointing this out is that I think #2 is not far fetched at all, but I’m unsure of how feasible #1 might be and would love if somebody who knows more than I do would chime in.

EDIT: Looks like some have already discussed #2 in the other comment thread started by Teknikal.

Were the cans and string ethically sourced, though?

This made me laugh… and cry.

Go ahead and roll for persuasion on your motion to abolish persuasion checks in healthcare.

Looks like we are not going to agree on this, which is okay—I enjoyed the discussion nonetheless. Have a nice day.

Fractional reserve banking does not mean the debt does not exist. The debt very much exists. Nobody takes out a loan and just sits on it. As soon as the loan is created, goods and services are traded. At the end of the day, each party to downstream transactions can go to the bank and withdraw the balance of their account in cash. The fractional reserve system only works as long as not everyone does this at once.

When a borrower becomes insolvent and the loan cannot be repaid, the lender records it on their books as a loss. They cannot just pretend the loan never happened.

Of course, now we’re mixing subjects because OP asked about student loan forgiveness, which would necessarily come out of tax payers’ pockets (not the same as when a lender takes the L because the loan cannot be repaid).

The image is a poor analogy because unlike when someone creates an image or any form of art, when a borrower takes out a loan, the lender records a receivable as an asset and the borrower’s account as an offsetting liability. Once this happens, the loan cannot then just be magically erased—somehow, some way, the lender must be made whole again. In the case of loan forgiveness, it comes out of the tax payers’ pockets. Whether that’s theft or not is a separate topic, and I think another commenter covered it well by comparing it to any other government program or subsidy.