this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

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[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 year ago (23 children)

Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement. Open source ecosystem primarily run by volunteers has produces some of the most interesting and innovative technologies that we've seen. The reality is that people make interesting things because they're curious and they enjoy making stuff. Pretty much nobody makes anything interesting with profit being the primary motive.

[–] ThereRisesARedStar@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also without open source the capitalist tech sector would collapse

[–] axsyse@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It wouldn't necessarily collapse (it wasn't exactly suffering before FOSS stuff "hit the shelves", so to speak) but the gatekeeping that comes with it would certainly cause a tremendous amount of stagnation

[–] ThereRisesARedStar@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I work in software development. Almost all modern architecture would collapse without the open source ecosystem.

[–] Lurkerino@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isnt every important server run on linux?

[–] fox@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Half the user-facing internet broke for a few hours when one guy withdrew a shitty one-liner piece of JavaScript (the whole leftpad thing) because someone somewhere added it as a dependency to a dependency to a dependency until it was pulled into an enormous frontend library. The internet relies more on random open source contributions than a lot of people are aware of.

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[–] FaeDrifter@midwest.social 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement

I don't know who is arguing this because it's incredibly stupid. The greatest scientific minds of history, the mathematicians, the physicists, the inventors, were not capitalists, they're people with passion for their work.

If we move to a society that guarantees basic human needs and good education, we're only going to have more scientists and engineers that progress technology even faster.

[–] Thorned_Rose@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Capitalists argue this because it gives them the appearance of a moral high ground.

Enshittification shows how untrue this - capitalism by its very nature will always devolve into worse and worse offerings because it's reliant on squeezing out ever more profit.

Capitalism will only ever puh out the bare minimum of technological advancement. And keeping people in indentured labour (aka employees) to the capitalist system so that they either have no time to come up with innovations themselves or they own the intellectual property of any indentured workers means that the overwhelming majority of innovation is monopolised by capitalism too. Which also contributes to the appearance of pushing advancement.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.one 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And while we are at it... novelists, poets, painters, musicians, philosophers, ...

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[–] fosforus@sopuli.xyz 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

I was feeling the last part had some more story behind it so I went ahead and found this:

Seems like I'm a full-blown woke communist too

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn't read like he's an actual communist, more insulting people (rightly so) that would call liberals communists.

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[–] darcy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

er... did torvalds just say trans rights? based alert

[–] fosforus@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think he said trans rights in the wording that >90% of people would agree with.

[–] Omniraptor@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

God I wish that were true but there are a LOT of people (well, conservatives) who are vehemently against wider society allowing cross dressing or medical transition. It's not 90% :(

[–] ThatHermanoGuy@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

Just when I thought I couldn't admire him more...

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[–] thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Context for those who are baffled (I was)

https://news.itsfoss.com/linus-torvalds-woke-communists/

No Linus hasn't grabbed a red rag and isn't off to foment revolution

[–] The_Jewish_Cuban@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

unfortunately I think this is just him saying he's a "woke communist" if being a woke communist is atheism, women's rights, and gun control. I don't think he's a marxist of any stripe it seems. However, I am willing to be corrected here. I've only seen this post regarding to him

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[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This meme shows completely my journey. I became a FOSS advocate in 2020 after realized that all sites that I visited wanted my "cookies". I started to questioning myself about and after some research I became a disciple of Richard Stallman and a Marxist-Leninist.

[–] SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

It started with privacy.

It continued with freedom.

It ended in hatred for 90% of the world.

[–] SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel called out.

I'm not quite there yet but im definitly at the second to last block

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you'd like to discuss the subject, there are many comms on a handful of instances where people would be happy to!

[–] whou@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I too just turned into a Marxist after finding out about Linux and software freedom in 2020 lol

I think there might be more than a handful of us. Welcome, comrade.

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[–] naeap@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Just wait for the next stage as a libertarian socialist, without a leading communist party, because we can take care of us ourselves - it's usually called anarchy (which doesn't mean no social norms, just self-organisation without leadership)

[–] specter@board.minimally.online 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

libertarian socialist

idk about you comrade but I don't read from thelibertariansocialistlibrary.org

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/

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[–] icepuncher69@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Fine, but dont defend tyranical regimes. They are bad no mather who they say they read. They could could claim to be following the teachings of fucking Mr Roggers but if they have concentration camps then thats not utopic or very humanitarian in my opinion, specially if ther is some mad dictator in power with everything no matter how manny extra steps are in between.

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[–] kristina@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

ITT: people who have no idea what communism is

[–] ConfusedLlama@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

rant:

I have been using Linux since 2006, a lefty and against the super-rich and big corporations since I remember (to the point of avoiding their products like the plague), also never having understood or accepted gender roles and other stupid traditional concepts, yet never turned into a communist 🤷

It baffles me that so many people think that respecting gender equality, understanding the evil in big corporations and avoiding them, valuing community and being tolerant (except for intolerance) and against discrimination somehow equals communism... I say this because I've been called a communist by many people who know me, while I have always rejected it explicitly!

/rant

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[–] xarexyouxmadx@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

In my experience I've noticed Linux tends to (disproportionately) attract both libertarians and socialists/communists. I feel like I run into more of both within the Linux community than I do in other communities.

I started using Linux because I couldn't force myself to use Windows 8. Up to that point I used whatever version of Windows came right before the graphical interface but 8 was too awful so I started playing with mint and never went back..

I got off the capitalism train in the middle of that but that was only because I decided to major in business and when I saw how the sausage was made I jumped ship but I didn't know anything about socialism or communism or marxism or whatever you want to call it. I was so not into politics or economics that I literally had to search the Internet and ask people on social media what was an alternative to the crap I was reading for my classes.. And then I went down that rabbit hole. If was enlightening. I learned a lot.

Also... for people who think college is Marxist indoctrination...Marx was brought up for one paragraph in one book at the very very end of my 4 years. But by that point I already knew who he was just from the rabbit hole I went down when I was curious for some alternative to what I was being taught.

[–] CaptKoala@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Yes, I agree, I am at stage 3 and stage 4 looks more enticing every single damn day.

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Fuck communist statist, foss is pure anarchism.

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[–] mustardman@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

fidel-salute-big welcome comrade!

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