ah yes, the distro started by a bunch of human rights activists is proposed as a recommendation as part of a nationalistic IT strategy

@ariadne Also glad you're nailing it in a pretty efficient manner there.

@lanodan I am terrified of this rising wave of nationalism in "open source"

@lanodan stupid sycophantic techbros and shitty politicians are going to destroy the commons

@ariadne I think it's worse than sycophantic, like there's a pretty big chunk of foss and related* who sides with outright human rights deniers.

*like politically, right-to-repair is almost dead to me nowadays

@lanodan @ariadne wait what, right-to-repair is bad now?

@ska @lanodan right-to-repair itself is not, but the organizers (like louis rossmann for example) have gone pretty far-right libertarian

@ariadne @ska Yeah, you don't accidentally interview moldbug for example.

@lanodan @ska moldbug is a reason i might still leave the country if Vance becomes president

(it is only a matter of time at this point before there is a no confidence vote against trump)

@ariadne @lanodan ah yeah, people like Rossmann.

I think, more than ever, it's important not to yield ground that should not be yielded, and to reclaim good principles while separating them from asshats that would use them by mixing them with hideous ideologies.

For instance, it would be Very Bad if people assimilated "Open Source" with the techbros and "Free Software" with Stallman, discrediting the entire foundation of the Internet entirely - and very inaccurately. But if we're not aware of that and let these people claim what they have no business claiming, that might very well happen.

@lanodan @ariadne @ska the classic "opps I interviewed moldbug again" problem

@ariadne oh no what did I miss

@ariadne @lanodan

Nah, the "commons" can only destroy itself. The main issue is still the same. There not being anyone that actually validates the code. So people don't just "trust the code" but instead rely on trusting the people.

And then because of the current state of geo politics and people trying to place backdoors for their political agenda oh well...

Literally all of this could be solved if people would actually check the code...

@agowa338 @ariadne It's not just code and it should never have been about just the code.
Also you can check people, specially these days in fact because they're glad to tell you their horrible political agenda.

Also as much as I wish, checking the code currently would bring most things to a near halt, no only nobody really checks code, but given the bunch of software where you can't (binaries or unreadable pregenerated code), you'd get a very reduced system. (Like reduced BSD base)

@ariadne @lanodan @ska supposedly moldbug is considering leaving the country because things are not going how he wants, and he fears democrat retaliation

one can only dream

@linear @lanodan @ska moldbug once personally threatened to kill me, and then later the entirety of freenode staff in response to being k-lined for racist bullshit

any scenario where his sphere of influence grows further is a safety concern for me

@ariadne@social.treehouse.systems @lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me @ska@social.treehouse.systems it has been clear to me for some time that any scenario where his sphere of influence grows further is a safety concern for us all

@linear @ariadne @ska Hopefully he leaves into some remote place or something.

Part of that because I don't think most Europeans have any idea how the heck is moldbug (language barrier mostly but not only).

@lanodan @ariadne

Well I was trying to say that it is all about trust. And as nobody checks the code themselves the trust is inherited from other factors like the people working on the project. And there geo politics and other things are eroding trust and also elevating fears of sabotage and getting backdoored...

But in the end all of this could be solved if people - esp. the ones using it commercially - would just verify the damn code and participate in the projects they depend on...

@lanodan @linear @ariadne As long as the Internet is a thing, there's no place remote enough, unfortunately.

And I would very much like Europeans to keep having no idea who moldbug is. I don't know if you've noticed, but we've been dutifully picking up all the shitty takes coming from the USA for the past 25 years; and our media apparatus and astroturfing infrastructure, at least in France, is perfectly operational and running. Our only saving grace for now is that we don't have a real Dark Enlightenment ideologue; it would be nice if we could avoid importing one.

@lanodan @ariadne

And regarding your 2nd point with unreadable pregenerated code and such, that is the best example for this. If people would check the code it would not even have ended up here as the majority would have rejected even the idea of having it...

@ska @linear @ariadne In a way yeah, but ignorance also doesn't protects, like if he comes here and the leftist activists have no idea who he is, then he'll very likely be platformed with little to no troubles.

@lanodan @linear @ariadne Leftist activists will know him, I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about normies.

@ariadne what?

@fun you are unaware of alpine's history?

@ska @ariadne @lanodan good computing movements such as FOSS and right to repair outperform their founders/"leaders"

@ariadne Oh, alpine, right.

@fun @ariadne @ska Yeah, but it needs to be actually done.
And I'd argue that in the present, FOSS as a movement hasn't done (or finished) the work of detaching itself from Stallman.