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Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

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Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#201

Post by vacri »

xiaoma wrote: post #188
vacri wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that saying "Swindle" instead of "Kindle" works when he's talking to people who already agree with him, but is seen as adolescent crap by people who don't agree with or don't understand his message. It's preaching to the choir. "Digital Restrictions Management" is a good semantic switcheroo, but "Swindle" is just name-calling. I've read his reasons for it, but really, it just makes it harder for people…

He's not trying to be the bridge. He is the standard bearer. In the 90s, others such as ESR and Linus were the bridges. Stallman has always been the idealist who will hold firm to his ideal. Back in the day, like you, I thought he was extreme and kind of silly. ESR had a far more socially acceptable and commercially palatable message (which is pretty shocking in retrospect, considering the direction his writing and p…

Holding firm to your ideal includes getting your message across effectively. If you want social change, which Stallman does, you have to 'preach beyond the choir'.

I don't think Stallman's positions are silly. A touch extreme, but I generally agree with them. I just think his name-calling runs counter to what he wants to achieve.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#202

Post by programmer_man »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #178
Udik wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also users. Or, you could use the same inversion for about everything: we're not buying cars for getting around, it's the automotive industries that lure us into giving them money with stuff that can be used for travelling. We're not consumers of potatoes, it's the potatoes that use us to reproduce themselves. Facebook is, apparently, satisfying some needs. Users pay for it by giving a share of their attentio…

I think you are validating RMS' approach without realizing it. Take the perspective that potatoes use us to reproduces themselves: Viewing things from that perspective is actually a useful device for explaining and understanding biological evolution. Just because it's an unusual perspective, does not mean that it's therefore invalid or useless or even just a bad idea. Also, to take the analogy further, bacteria and v…

Perhaps it is we who are the potatoes.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#204

Post by [deleted] »

School-Cotton wrote: post #179
chflags wrote: post #159

I'll bet Zuckerberg and countless Facebook employees have used software written by Stallman. At the risk of being wrong, I'd even go so far as to say they need this software. But does Stallman ever need to use software written by Zuckerberg or Facebook employees? Personalities and errors in judgment aside, give respect and credit where it is due. I have never needed Facebook's software. And I doubt I ever will. From…

Nobody needs GNU software; they can use FreeBSD which is just as good. They can also use clang and lldb instead of gcc and gdb. You can debate about whether those would have existed in their present form without the leadership of the FSF, but then you'd be making a different argument. By the way, I'm not sure if you are trying to imply that Stallman brought us the Internet but I can't see how that could possibly be t…

[deleted]

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#205

Post by beefsack »

simbalion wrote: post #81

Stallman is my hero. All social media is terrible, and all of it is impossible to profit from, and I bet all of it will eventually fail. Facebook doesn't make any money from social media, they make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their social media platform. Anyone who is interested in social blogging should have their own website (wordpress.com is free) with RSS support so people who like what you wr…

Protocols trump services. I'm just as miffed that Slack became the developer chat platform of choice nowadays, it has many of the problems attributed to social network services.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#206

Post by [deleted] »

simbalion wrote: post #81

Stallman is my hero. All social media is terrible, and all of it is impossible to profit from, and I bet all of it will eventually fail. Facebook doesn't make any money from social media, they make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their social media platform. Anyone who is interested in social blogging should have their own website (wordpress.com is free) with RSS support so people who like what you wr…

[deleted]

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#207

Post by cbHXBY1D »

igravious wrote: post #176
andrei_says_ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll enjoy this lecture by linguistics professor George Lakoff: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5f9R9MtkpqM Among other things he speaks of the think-tank-driven concerted effort to influence political support by using language invoking specific metaphors to frame important issues. Like "Tax Relief" for dramatically reducing taxes for the rich etc. Changed how I process political speech and pretty much any med…

Thank you for this link. More and more I am appreciating this guy's research. Have never seen him speak, what a natural speaker, very enjoyable as well as edifying.

Never meet your heroes. I was a big fan of his work before taking a class with him. He's the rockstar of the cogsci department at Berkeley but he's known as a massive ego and a poor professor.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#208

Post by swiley »

School-Cotton wrote: post #179
chflags wrote: post #159

I'll bet Zuckerberg and countless Facebook employees have used software written by Stallman. At the risk of being wrong, I'd even go so far as to say they need this software. But does Stallman ever need to use software written by Zuckerberg or Facebook employees? Personalities and errors in judgment aside, give respect and credit where it is due. I have never needed Facebook's software. And I doubt I ever will. From…

Nobody needs GNU software; they can use FreeBSD which is just as good. They can also use clang and lldb instead of gcc and gdb. You can debate about whether those would have existed in their present form without the leadership of the FSF, but then you'd be making a different argument. By the way, I'm not sure if you are trying to imply that Stallman brought us the Internet but I can't see how that could possibly be t…

But the free (as in libre) software movement has done something socially that I don't think could have been accomplished with BSD.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#209

Post by webkike »

School-Cotton wrote: post #179
chflags wrote: post #159

I'll bet Zuckerberg and countless Facebook employees have used software written by Stallman. At the risk of being wrong, I'd even go so far as to say they need this software. But does Stallman ever need to use software written by Zuckerberg or Facebook employees? Personalities and errors in judgment aside, give respect and credit where it is due. I have never needed Facebook's software. And I doubt I ever will. From…

Nobody needs GNU software; they can use FreeBSD which is just as good. They can also use clang and lldb instead of gcc and gdb. You can debate about whether those would have existed in their present form without the leadership of the FSF, but then you'd be making a different argument. By the way, I'm not sure if you are trying to imply that Stallman brought us the Internet but I can't see how that could possibly be t…

Needed. LLVM hasn't been around as long as Facebook, and for a long time initially you couldn't (or wanted to) build the Linux kernel with it.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#210

Post by viraptor »

bobwaycott wrote: post #138
geff82 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS, to some extend, is like the pope. He often says strange things, where many people do not instantly agree. But he won't change his message just to please you, which is what we are used to get from most people, especially politicians. You can count on him and his, at heart, very humanist views. I recently was at one of his keynotes, and we all, including me, could only laugh at his over-and-over usage of words lik…

I had never heard of Service-as-a-Software-Substitute, but I think it makes a lot of sense.

It's not even wrong or bad. It's pretty much what it is in some of the SaaS cases. (those that only operate on your data)
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