Dear Mastodon commenters:
When someone describes a systemic problem with a technology in society, you dickheads have an awful habit of Kramering into the mentions proposing to solve the problem with some lump of open source with an interface bad enough it's a list of reasons to become a terrorist.
Apart from how nobody fucking asked, you are also being too obnoxiously self-centred to realise that INDIVIDUAL SOLUTIONS DON'T SOLVE SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS that are not a matter of people not being enlightened to the existence of a particular lump of FOSS that isn't going to work for that user in that situation anyway.
Your reasons for thinking this is in any way appropriate behaviour trace directly back to the libertarian origins of open source and the Californian ideology as outlined as far back as the 1990s. Many of you are absolutely not libertarians and you still pull this shit, and that's where you got it from.
This is a perennial fucking pattern. I realise that posts like this reach everyone except the fuckheads who really need to read them, but to sum it up:
NOBODY ASKED FOR YOUR SOFTWARE REC FOR THIS SYSTEMIC PROBLEM.
TRY SHUTTING THE FUCK UP AND NOT ACTING LIKE A FATUOUS BOZO.
Feel free to link back here when someone does this to one of your posts.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run I mean sure. Valid. But understand that systemic problems cannot be solved in a system that always values profitability over privacy, stability, and versatility. A lot of us are not "libertarians" by choice, but because the system only allows that option, for the time being.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run @jwz@mastodon.social
They have that hammer so everything looks like a thumb.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run I don't make unsolicited software recs, but I can see why people think it's helping. They can see that big software is a powerful tool of oppression, and that it won't go away until people stop using it. Telling someone about an alternative on social media is a concrete, though ineffective (often counterproductive) action someone can take towards change. So my question is, what can people do instead? How can your average FOSS nerd channel their enthusiasm towards meaningful action?
@davidgerard@circumstances.run Well, actually... It's GNU / systemic problem. You see...
@davidgerard@circumstances.run From my limited experience of actually reading those replies and looking at the bios of the people posting, I suspect the percentage of those posting these solutions who are also actively contributing code to the proposed solutions is close enough to 0 to call it 0.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run people who can't handle other people talking shit online and get personally offended by it should be much more careful about what and where they post. is this outburst helping anyone? do you think everyone who was about to write some bullshit comment under your next post will now think hard and conclude they can do better? no. you just took your frustration and poured it on everyone else. write. a. blog. and disble comments.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run I have a Python script that runs on my server that scans my replies and blocks them.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run
Look at this band-aid, it'll definitely solve capitalism!
@davidgerard@circumstances.run https://donotreply.cards/en/do-not-suggest-open-source-software
@davidgerard@circumstances.run Also: "Just self-host all of the 400 different services you use"
Also also, I blocked several dozen people on here when the Unity thing happened, because they thought it was funny and that anyone using Unity deserved it. When I think of FOSS, I think of this kind of attitude.
@rubinjoni@mastodon.social @davidgerard@circumstances.run
Don't worry. It's currently being replaced with systemd-systemic-problemd.
@grepe@ieji.de
I see that my app that forces you to read posts you don't like is working.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run
@midnightspire@mastodon.gamedev.place self-host your email bro, you don't need to communicate with those gmail users really
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org @davidgerard@circumstances.run I'm here specifically to read posts that I like AND posts I don't like (it makes me think twice about the things I don't like and sometimes I find out I think bullshit). If I only wanted to read things I like amd occasionally get outraged I'd be on Facebook.
@midnightspire@mastodon.gamedev.place self-host your email bro, you don't need to communicate with those gmail users really
@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org @davidgerard@circumstances.run I'm here specifically to read posts that I like AND posts I don't like (it makes me think twice about the things I don't like and sometimes I find out I think bullshit). If I only wanted to read things I like amd occasionally get outraged I'd be on Facebook.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run @midnightspire@mastodon.gamedev.place
Email is definitely the best example for self-hosting not being the solution if we can't even trust that concept to handle crucial communication infrastructure.
Granted I personally know pretty much all pitfalls after years of fighting with sending emails from forum software as well as several attempts at self-hosting my full email stack and trying to filter out spam more efficiently but I would never advice anyone of my friends or family to self-host it... (even though my first instinct is to say "Of course you can do it!" but that's based on over a decade of experience in that space, not on the fact that it's realistic for everyone to just do it without proper education)
In my opinion what we really need to solve those problems is to self-organize and build groups of people where we can trust each other to offer the services we cannot handle ourselves but can handle as a group. And we need concepts for how to build and manage such groups without them derailing into capitalism which are compatible with the modern digital age and not hindered by the old analog legal frameworks that exists.
@davidgerard@circumstances.run @midnightspire@mastodon.gamedev.place
Email is definitely the best example for self-hosting not being the solution if we can't even trust that concept to handle crucial communication infrastructure.
Granted I personally know pretty much all pitfalls after years of fighting with sending emails from forum software as well as several attempts at self-hosting my full email stack and trying to filter out spam more efficiently but I would never advice anyone of my friends or family to self-host it... (even though my first instinct is to say "Of course you can do it!" but that's based on over a decade of experience in that space, not on the fact that it's realistic for everyone to just do it without proper education)
In my opinion what we really need to solve those problems is to self-organize and build groups of people where we can trust each other to offer the services we cannot handle ourselves but can handle as a group. And we need concepts for how to build and manage such groups without them derailing into capitalism which are compatible with the modern digital age and not hindered by the old analog legal frameworks that exists.
David Gerard
