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Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

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Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news, these people are easy to identify because their signalling is always in a very visible way. They want to be seen. And when you can identify them, you can avoid them.

Is you public signaling that youre cancelling virtue signalers virtue signaling? "This is virtue signaling" is more of a dog whistle ingratiating yourself with a certain crowd instead of an argument. Don't know what youre trying to achieve besides that.

> is more of a dog whistle ingratiating yourself with a certain crowd

Genius move. Any concept that can be used to criticize you is implicitly outing me as part of your out-group. Now you can judge me not on my own merits, but on the merits of people you associate me with. And my posts can well-formulated and thought-out, you disregard them for factors i cannot possibly control.

This is the partisan thinking that i don't want to have business with. This is what i ghost people for. Call it cancelling if you want to, fact is, if you are walking through the world looking for friends, my place is the wrong address.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term “virtue signaling” is a pet peeve of mine. Like the word “problematic” it’s too vague and broad to be useful. The implication seems to usually be that it’s all talk and no action. But if we’re talking, as we are now, that’s completely separate from my actions. Like, if I say “pollution is bad” and don’t do anything in my life to reduce pollution that’s virtue signaling, but it’s not if I’ve dedicated my life…

> general I am for personal expression. I’m for signal, not noise. I don’t want stupid personal expressions, I want meaningful or beautiful or somehow useful. I used to work with a person who would raise their hand in every presentation and say “security is important how is this software secure” even when it wasn’t anywhere remotely relevant. It was counterproductive and distracting and wasted valuable time that we c…

While I agree with you on broad strokes, I'm sure, somewhere, someday, somebodies concerns over the security implications of a logging framework (e.g. Log4J) were brushed under the table by a statement like that.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#413
Was talking with a friend about the peacenotwar thing. I think its pretty interesting to view so many of the decisions like this through the “we have to do something” mindset so many people have, especially on social media.

All of these companies shutting down in Russia, people pressuring others to take a stand or shut down their services, upset the population. On HN I remember the namecheap thing and the service that allows westerners to call random Russians and inform them. On paper these seem like solid moves, but I cant help but feel like its only harming the citizens, and potentially irresponsible in a place where someone faces consequences for speaking out. I dont think anyone is going to risk their lives and take notable action because they need to find another service for their website, or some random foreigner telling them their government is lying. Of course these issues are more complicated, and taking these actions isnt a bad thing necessarily, namecheap has offices in Ukraine so they are going to take it personally, but there have been many cases where the company does it out of nowhere. These actions are inconveniencing the population, and when taken to the extreme like with peacenotwar, potentially very harmful. And I dont know if its doing much else. Yet too many people are acting like inaction is unacceptable.

I understand, you feel powerless in situations like these, but that shouldn’t stand in the way of making smart decisions. The need to do something has been pressuring people to take actions without considering the actual consequences vs the intent.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#414
post #341
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is bad too. However, in some cases it is necessary to prevent people from freezing, so there is a balancing act. Note that fossil fuel dependency just became a much more common political discussion item in Europe.

While it's unreasonable to expect europeans to freeze to death to protect ukranians, I think there's a middle ground between "business as usual" and "protect ukraine at all costs" that's not being considered here. Specifically, turning the temperature down to 5-10°C and wearing a coat. I doubt you'll be freezing to death in those circumstances. Is there widespread effort by europeans to do this? If not, then the pare…

I'm in Europe and I'd happily wear a jacket and a winter cap indoors.

And people could go by bus, subway, ride share, so less oil and gas needed for transportation.

And energy intensive industries could close for a while. Is it really more important to continue producing more cars, for example, than to try to stop the war?

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#415
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's unreasonable to expect europeans to freeze to death to protect ukranians, I think there's a middle ground between "business as usual" and "protect ukraine at all costs" that's not being considered here. Specifically, turning the temperature down to 5-10°C and wearing a coat. I doubt you'll be freezing to death in those circumstances. Is there widespread effort by europeans to do this? If not, then the pare…

I'm in Europe and I'd happily wear a jacket and a winter cap indoors. And people could go by bus, subway, ride share, so less oil and gas needed for transportation. And energy intensive industries could close for a while. Is it really more important to continue producing more cars, for example, than to try to stop the war?

It's annoying that the politicians don't seem to think about this. Are they worried that they'd get fever votes?

What if everyone wrote to their politicians (in one's respective country) and said that they'd happy wear extra clothes indoors

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> general I am for personal expression. I’m for signal, not noise. I don’t want stupid personal expressions, I want meaningful or beautiful or somehow useful. I used to work with a person who would raise their hand in every presentation and say “security is important how is this software secure” even when it wasn’t anywhere remotely relevant. It was counterproductive and distracting and wasted valuable time that we c…

> I don’t want stupid personal expressions, I want meaningful or beautiful or somehow useful. I guess I feel that improving our world, ending war, making our society more just and fair, these are meaningful, useful, and beautiful things to do. They might be some of the most meaningful things actually. > It was counterproductive and distracting and wasted valuable time that we could use to do something better. This is…

None of the signalling achieves anything. Its annoying, the signalling people really stand out. Seeing them doing the "Notice me, I'm standing for the right thing, im a good person!"-move makes me cringe. I wish they would stop.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#417
post #336
post #4

I just don't understand what the node-ipc dev was expecting when he did that. "Hm, maybe if I put malware into a community-trusted module that destroys files of people in a certain geopolitical region, the countless innocent citizens that are affected will realize what they did wrong! Wait, who am I actually targeting again?"

I just don't understand what Western governments were thinking when they sanctioned Russian businesses. "Hm, maybe if I put laws into the books that destroy the economy of a country and drives people in a certain geopolitical region into poverty, the countless innocent citizens that affected will realize what they did wrong! Wait, who am I actually targeting again?" Oh wait.

Poverty and economic distress, deliberately exacerbated by the West, was what took down the USSR... and the fall of the USSR was one of the great achievements of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is you public signaling that youre cancelling virtue signalers virtue signaling? "This is virtue signaling" is more of a dog whistle ingratiating yourself with a certain crowd instead of an argument. Don't know what youre trying to achieve besides that.

> is more of a dog whistle ingratiating yourself with a certain crowd Genius move. Any concept that can be used to criticize you is implicitly outing me as part of your out-group. Now you can judge me not on my own merits, but on the merits of people you associate me with. And my posts can well-formulated and thought-out, you disregard them for factors i cannot possibly control. This is the partisan thinking that i d…

Seems you're doing the same thing, when you claim that others who try to do sth about something are just virtue signaling.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#419
post #341
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is bad too. However, in some cases it is necessary to prevent people from freezing, so there is a balancing act. Note that fossil fuel dependency just became a much more common political discussion item in Europe.

While it's unreasonable to expect europeans to freeze to death to protect ukranians, I think there's a middle ground between "business as usual" and "protect ukraine at all costs" that's not being considered here. Specifically, turning the temperature down to 5-10°C and wearing a coat. I doubt you'll be freezing to death in those circumstances. Is there widespread effort by europeans to do this? If not, then the pare…

People in the EU are not going to freeze to death even if Russian gas and oil is banned. Germany would lose a few percent of GDP, equivalent to couple hundred bucks per capita. I would be surprised if they pull of the ban before this winter is over, though.

FWIW people in Ukraine are already freezing to death, thanks to Russia's deliberate attacks on infrastructure.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#420

Was talking with a friend about the peacenotwar thing. I think its pretty interesting to view so many of the decisions like this through the “we have to do something” mindset so many people have, especially on social media. All of these companies shutting down in Russia, people pressuring others to take a stand or shut down their services, upset the population. On HN I remember the namecheap thing and the service tha…

Somewhat related, but I have talked about this twitter thread a few times recently

Essentially, this someone was working at a homeless community shelter, and often found the bathroom completely destroyed. Paper everywhere, missing the toilet, intentional destruction and trying to make it as messy as possible. Every time they would clean it it would just get trashed once again

They had a theory that being trapped in that kind of situation gives them so little control that their brain wanted to take control over something however it can, which lead to the bathroom situations. They related this to “cancel culture”, needing to call out people for the littlest things, or the loss of direction in social justice, but I find it applies to a lot more than that.

My device is freaking out rn, cant pull up a link, but if you search for “the trashed bathroom thread” you should be able to find it.

Maybe got it?: https://twitter.com/tercicatrix/status/1376210092492791809?l...

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