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Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

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Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#161

Post by fudged »

why-el wrote: post #91
fudged wrote: post #17

I agree with many of Stallman's views to some extent, but it's very hard to ignore that he is willing to sacrifice anything and everything for what are essentially minor decisions. It's good that we have him around to consider the utopian extremist viewpoint, even if it's rarely the favorable option. We aren't all made of money... the benefits outweigh the risks for most services where we pay with our ad-viewing, clo…

They are no longer minor decisions once they are adopted by the masses.

An instance of a common practice is a minor decision, in my opinion. You may be adding fuel to the fire, but the proportion is insignificant.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#162

Post by tedunangst »

joering2 wrote: post #69
feralchimp wrote: post #33

I was an outspoken Facebook-hater for a long time. Perhaps my most quotable moment on HN to date was saying "I have no love for their product or their business model, but their engineering is diesel." My wife recently convinced me to give it another try. I didn't use my complete name, and was judicious about the information I associated with my profile. And yet, I proceeded to connect in a deep and healthy way with s…

> connect in a deep and healthy way with some people that I'd fallen out of touch with You must have had fallen out of touch for a reason, hadn't you? I think this is the major reason why I am not using Facebook to find and connect with my old friends. If those connection would have been worth keeping up with, I am sure I wouldn't have lost them at the first place. Now, of course there are stories when some family me…

Facebook provides a low friction way to stay in contact with people. If I were getting a daily status update email from each of my 100 friends, I'd go crazy. Checking FB while waiting for the subway is easy. Similarly, I can publish updates without worrying too much that I'm secretly infuriating my friends who have more important things to be reading. I can post interesting links without imposing the expectation that you read them (as would happen if I emailed a cool story around). I don't mean to sell something you don't want to buy, but a semi-private microblogging platform is a wholly different connection experience than email.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#163

Post by Sanddancer »

timClicks wrote: post #152
Sanddancer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he did a lot. 25-30 years ago. What's he done lately?

AFAIK he has very bad RSI and doesn't write much code these days. He spends most of his time talking at conferences.

Which I realize, which is why I wasn't asking what's he coded lately, but the more broad sense of what he's done. As I posted to skore, much of what he's done of late has been acts of pettiness and divisiveness that have served to do little more than to push users and developers away from the FSF and GPL. A good leader understands the politics of their actions, and RMS has been doing an increasingly poor job of that.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#164

Post by mikeash »

9999 wrote: post #96
crazygringo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that requires you to surrender some of your most precious human rights in order to access it I'm genuinely curious, which human rights? I created an account, don't really use it... and don't feel like I've had any human rights taken away.

Privacy and free speech.

I see privacy, but how do you give up free speech?

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#165

Post by niels_olson »

VMG wrote: post #26
noduerme wrote: post #10

When I was a kid, my parents sent me to camp, even though all I wanted to do was sit home and write text adventures in BASIC. I hated camp. I hated the kids, and the counselors, and most of all I hated how everyone acted like if you didn't like it, if you weren't having fun, then there was something messed up about you . Facebook = camp. The most oppressive and authoritarian thing about it is, at root, that most peop…

> The most oppressive and authoritarian thing about it is, at root, that most people appear to enjoy it and not see any problems with it, while you view it as this heinous violation of your freedom and imposition on your private space. While many of my friends enjoy Facebook and I'm still to lazy to upload a profile image and mainly use it to find out where the next birthday party is located, I really can't say that…

> Some people just like camp

And that, my friend, is the tyranny of the majority. It is the people who just like things the way they are who opt willfully to take the side of the-way-is. You attacked, wrote a comment, preserving the status quo simply because you happen to find yourself with that preference, rather than considering the much more existential plight of the minority.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#166

Post by fudged »

koeselitz wrote: post #132
rbarooah wrote: post #29

Many of Stallman's complaints about Facebook ( http://stallman.org/facebook.html ) apply equally to Google. Does anyone know whether he regards them in the same light?

If you follow the first link on the page you linked to there ("I don't use it") there is a brief discussion of his view of Gmail and Google+: "As for Facebook and Google+, I reject them on principle because they require people to give their 'real names'. I am proud to identify myself when stating my views; I can afford to do that because I am in a fairly safe position. There are people who rationally fear reprisals (…

Arguments against the Real Name policy are valid if all your thoughts, opinions, and actions all funnel through that one social network. In reality, however, there are many alternate forums for expressing your views with varying levels of anonymity, and I think that's a good thing! The freedom to choose anonymity between forums is great. I'm glad that certain networks stick to a real name policy.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#167

Post by charlieok »

coffeemug wrote: post #149
noduerme wrote: post #10

When I was a kid, my parents sent me to camp, even though all I wanted to do was sit home and write text adventures in BASIC. I hated camp. I hated the kids, and the counselors, and most of all I hated how everyone acted like if you didn't like it, if you weren't having fun, then there was something messed up about you . Facebook = camp. The most oppressive and authoritarian thing about it is, at root, that most peop…

There is a world of difference between citizens complaining how their governments are corrupt, and husbands complaining how their wives boss them around. The former is a macro problem - if you're unhappy there's very little you can do to make a difference, you really need everyone to get behind your cause but because of weird behavioral science quirks this happens very rarely. The latter is a micro problem - learn to…

You tried camping and it was awesome. It was fun getting a group together and having a lot of interaction with them. Working on projects together, sharing gossip at meals and in tents, going on day trips and coming back with pictures and stories. Great stuff. People who spend time camping together share a bond and become potential lifelong friends.

When camping was new, relatively few people went camping. The most exciting, adventurous and challenging way to camp is, of course, to bring your own food and gear and rough it, just you and nature.

Some businesses saw an opportunity to introduce a lot more people to camping and make some money. They'd build some cabins around a lake and do some marketing. It's not the same, but most people weren't going to rough it in the woods anyway, right?

A Harvard kid announced a new camp one day for other Harvard kids. Everyone who was anyone started going to Mark's camp. If you knew people going to this camp, and you wanted to really connect with them, you had to go to Mark's camp to do it. Sure, there were other ways to connect with them, but Mark's camp is where people are spending a lot of their time and Mark's campfire is where they share their stories. In fact, over a tenth the population of planet Earth has made Mark's camp their hangout.

You still love camping as much as you ever did, and you want to connect and share stuff with all your family and friends. But it really grates on you that you have to walk through Mark's gate and live by Mark's rules in order to do that. Isn't there some way you could round up a crew, leave Mark's camp behind, and strike out into the wild somewhere, just you and your friends, to do some real camping?

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#168

Post by jamesaguilar »

niels_olson wrote: post #165
VMG wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most oppressive and authoritarian thing about it is, at root, that most people appear to enjoy it and not see any problems with it, while you view it as this heinous violation of your freedom and imposition on your private space. While many of my friends enjoy Facebook and I'm still to lazy to upload a profile image and mainly use it to find out where the next birthday party is located, I really can't say that…

> Some people just like camp And that, my friend, is the tyranny of the majority. It is the people who just like things the way they are who opt willfully to take the side of the-way-is. You attacked, wrote a comment, preserving the status quo simply because you happen to find yourself with that preference, rather than considering the much more existential plight of the minority.

I don't think there is any existential plight in not signing up for Facebook. You just don't sign up for it. Also, sharing your opinion about whether or not something is a problem is not an "attack".

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#170

Post by noduerme »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #137
noduerme wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not on FB, so it's not. But if I were... I'd say the first thing to be violated would be my freedom to be left alone. To not know what other people were doing, or have them know what I'm doing. To be able to quietly tune the world out and focus on things. Then, of course, my right to own images of myself, to keep my location private, to register genuine surprise, in person, when I find out one of my friends is en…

That's nice. What's Buenos Aires like, Josh Strike?

hehehe, there ya go. Nice that you found me.

Of course I have a public web presence. The point is, I control it. I run a few sites including a bitcoin casino. I have clients, friends, and people who use my code. I probably write 15-20 emails a day. Yet none of it through facebook. It's not mediated. There's no extraneous information, either for me or the other party. And what you know about me by googling me is, for the most part, what I want you to know.

Including my last name and where I live. "Strike" is a pseudonym, and I haven't lived in Buenos Aires for about five years. But that level of privacy isn't available on facebook.

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