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Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

blogs.computerworld.com

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Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#31

Post by corentin »

kragen wrote: post #24
narag wrote: post #3

From the article: So I said, "Cuba has an important resource - lots of people who have never learned to use Windows. And here you are, destroying that resource, gratuitously. If you are not ready yet to switch these clubs so that they teach people free software, at least you should shut them down until they can." Does he say this seriously? I've seen people using this kind of hyperbole when in a partisan environment…

It's completely serious. Stallman thinks the social harm done by proprietary software licenses is greater than the good done by the ability to use the software. Do you think that's an unreasonable or laughable position? The consequence that it is better to close down the clubs than to let them encourage proprietary software usage is almost inescapable given the above premise.

Like most of us, I discovered programming using proprietary software (namely MS-DOS and QBASIC), and if an intolerant idiot tried to prevent me from using those tools, he would have been hit by a (then) heavy keyboard.

(by the way, the case against using BASIC is certainly stronger than the case against using proprietary software.)

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#32

Post by kragen »

jacoblyles wrote: post #26
kragen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is true that increased wealth means that people have more choice in their lives, it does not necessarily follow that business freedoms lead to general well-being or to what is normally understood as human rights. As a matter of history, there have been very many places and times where business was relatively unrestricted, while labor and political activity were tightly regulated, and where the wealth from bu…

If you wanted to pick a warning example, you could have done much better than Singapore. Singapore was a third-world country when the current ruling party took over in the mid-60s. Today, it has a higher per capita GDP than the United States, and three times that of neighboring Malaysia. In the dark days of the 60s, Singapore was threatened by the communist plague sweeping over Southeast Asia, racial tensions and rio…

From the quotes you put around the phrase "human rights", am I to understand that you don't think human rights really exist, or that they aren't rights, or something?

Have you moved to Singapore yet? You seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it. I did not mean to say that it is an example of all of the bad things that can coexist with business freedom, just some of them.

As far as per-capita GDP goes, Singapore has the major advantage that it's 100% urban. I suspect that Malaysia's per-capita GDP would be a lot closer to Singapore's if you only considered downtown Kuala Lumpur.

I think the major problem in Vietnam and Cambodia was that they had a civil war, and as usual, the people who had power after the war were military leaders. In Vietnam things got a lot better after the war; in Cambodia, things got a lot worse, as they often do. (In fact, Cambodia is almost uniquely bad in the history of the world, as far as I know; there are lots of instances of conquering armies killing 50% or 100% of a conquered people, but I don't know of any others where they killed more than 50% of their own population.)

In both Cambodia and Vietnam, the civil war was made much worse by a US invasion. Maybe you think the same thing would have happened to Singapore? I suspect that they had an equal chance of ending up like Thailand, or urban Malaysia, or other countries in the area; and it's not clear to me that aggressively persecuting Communists made a civil war less rather than more likely.

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#33

Post by biohacker42 »

jacoblyles wrote: post #29
biohacker42 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if new value is added to the economy? Perhaps I've just discovered a cure for the common cold. The same amount of money is now chasing a bigger pot. Suppose lots of people pay me for my cure, and I just save all the money, what happens to the restaurant down the road? Also fiat currencies predate Nixon, the paper contracts between members of the Hanseatic League can be thought of as a form of fiat curren…

The same amount of money chasing fewer goods leads to deflation - each unit of currency can buy more goods. When this occurs due to an increase in productivity, such as in the example you describe, deflation can accompany economic growth. Deflation was paired with economic growth in the United States under the gold standard for about 30 years at the end of the 19th century. This was a good recent article on a related…

From the article: After all, technology was improving, so goods cost less to produce. Why shouldn’t prices reflect that reality?

When it's cheaper and easier to pull MORE gold out of the ground, that's not strictly speaking a fixed money supply.

When Rome (the empire) dumped a whole bunch of new found (stolen) gold on Rome (the city) that caused inflation too.

If your money supply is growing - it's growing.

Now if you have far too lose a monetary policy and you're inflating the money supply way too much and way too fast, that can be disastrous.

But if Alan Greenspan had found a way to convert led into gold, we would have gotten the real estate bubble even with a gold standard.

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#34

Post by corentin »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #22
gaius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that learning a PC operating system is an end in and of itself. It isn't. People in the real world use computers to get stuff done . For a Linux-using population to have an "advantage" you first need to know what they want to accomplish, then you need show how it can be done more quickly and easily on Linux, which is where the Linux house of cards comes tumbling down. This is not "year zero" of the Li…

You might have had a point half a decade ago. Nowadays it's pretty easy to get stuff done on Linux.

Nearly all the professional applications (engineering, finance, accounting, etc.) only run on Windows (or Mac OS X for the design stuff).

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#35

Post by corentin »

biohacker42 wrote: post #33
jacoblyles wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same amount of money chasing fewer goods leads to deflation - each unit of currency can buy more goods. When this occurs due to an increase in productivity, such as in the example you describe, deflation can accompany economic growth. Deflation was paired with economic growth in the United States under the gold standard for about 30 years at the end of the 19th century. This was a good recent article on a related…

From the article: After all, technology was improving, so goods cost less to produce. Why shouldn’t prices reflect that reality? When it's cheaper and easier to pull MORE gold out of the ground, that's not strictly speaking a fixed money supply. When Rome (the empire) dumped a whole bunch of new found (stolen) gold on Rome (the city) that caused inflation too. If your money supply is growing - it's growing. Now if yo…

Except he hasn't.

Under the gold standard, there is a feedback loop allowing the market to control inflation (that is, people can invest more or less in mining technologies/companies).

To some extent, this feedback loop also exists in a central banking system; it's far from being as efficient.

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#36

Post by jacoblyles »

biohacker42 wrote: post #33
jacoblyles wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same amount of money chasing fewer goods leads to deflation - each unit of currency can buy more goods. When this occurs due to an increase in productivity, such as in the example you describe, deflation can accompany economic growth. Deflation was paired with economic growth in the United States under the gold standard for about 30 years at the end of the 19th century. This was a good recent article on a related…

From the article: After all, technology was improving, so goods cost less to produce. Why shouldn’t prices reflect that reality? When it's cheaper and easier to pull MORE gold out of the ground, that's not strictly speaking a fixed money supply. When Rome (the empire) dumped a whole bunch of new found (stolen) gold on Rome (the city) that caused inflation too. If your money supply is growing - it's growing. Now if yo…

Yes. The sudden discovery of an easily-mined gold supply has the same function under a gold standard economy as the central bank expanding the monetary base in a fiat economy.

In practice, gold supplies tend to be more predictable than central banks.

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#37

Post by drinian »

jacoblyles wrote: post #26
kragen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is true that increased wealth means that people have more choice in their lives, it does not necessarily follow that business freedoms lead to general well-being or to what is normally understood as human rights. As a matter of history, there have been very many places and times where business was relatively unrestricted, while labor and political activity were tightly regulated, and where the wealth from bu…

If you wanted to pick a warning example, you could have done much better than Singapore. Singapore was a third-world country when the current ruling party took over in the mid-60s. Today, it has a higher per capita GDP than the United States, and three times that of neighboring Malaysia. In the dark days of the 60s, Singapore was threatened by the communist plague sweeping over Southeast Asia, racial tensions and rio…

Perhaps you should read this article, "How Singapore Rigs its Elections." It's only showing up in Google Cache right now, and I have to wonder why. The rest of Knife Tricks is still up. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:xcGwQS3twnsJ:knifetricks...

People should not have to live in fear of criticizing their government.

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#38

Post by jacoblyles »

kragen wrote: post #32
jacoblyles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wanted to pick a warning example, you could have done much better than Singapore. Singapore was a third-world country when the current ruling party took over in the mid-60s. Today, it has a higher per capita GDP than the United States, and three times that of neighboring Malaysia. In the dark days of the 60s, Singapore was threatened by the communist plague sweeping over Southeast Asia, racial tensions and rio…

From the quotes you put around the phrase "human rights", am I to understand that you don't think human rights really exist, or that they aren't rights, or something? Have you moved to Singapore yet? You seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it. I did not mean to say that it is an example of all of the bad things that can coexist with business freedom, just some of them. As far as per-capita GDP goes, Singapore has th…

>"I suspect that they had an equal chance of ending up like Thailand, or urban Malaysia, or other countries in the area; and it's not clear to me that aggressively persecuting Communists made a civil war less rather than more likely."

The Thais and Maylays were with Singapore in taking aggressive anti-communist actions in the 1960s. None of the countries that escaped communism approached the Western liberal ideal of political freedom. They were bare-knuckled pragmatists. They were all scared of what happened in China and wary of the imperial ambitions of the Soviets.

However, only Singapore pursued a transparent, capitalistic society with strong property rights and rule of law. The difference in outcomes is telling.

>"Have you moved to Singapore yet? You seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it."

If I were a resident of Southeast Asia, Singapore would be my #1 place to live. As is, I like the United States just fine.

>"As far as per-capita GDP goes, Singapore has the major advantage that it's 100% urban."

This was a huge disadvantage in the early years. Singapore had no raw materials, little farmland, and a per capita GDP of about $500. They had to import everything and often ran into hostility from neighboring countries that tried to prevent them from using trade routes, or even accessing water supplies.

A unique combination of shrewd leadership and aggressive capitalism grew their economy to the point that they had leverage in negotiations with their neighbors. Their destiny as the business hub of Southeast Asia was never a given.

>"From the quotes you put around the phrase 'human rights', am I to understand that you don't think human rights really exist, or that they aren't rights, or something?"

I put quotes around "human rights" because I don't think they are as easily defined as some people assume. I also don't think they are the end-all of politics, as Western liberals often suppose. I would certainly be willing to trade small infringements on human rights for large increases in the standard of living.

This is the point where many people would call me a "fascist" and run away.

I would be willing to bet that the average Singaporean is happy that their government made the choice to restrict press freedoms and prevent a communist revolution in the early years, considering how things have turned out.

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#39

Post by forgottenpswrd »

jacoblyles wrote: post #36
biohacker42 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: After all, technology was improving, so goods cost less to produce. Why shouldn’t prices reflect that reality? When it's cheaper and easier to pull MORE gold out of the ground, that's not strictly speaking a fixed money supply. When Rome (the empire) dumped a whole bunch of new found (stolen) gold on Rome (the city) that caused inflation too. If your money supply is growing - it's growing. Now if yo…

Yes. The sudden discovery of an easily-mined gold supply has the same function under a gold standard economy as the central bank expanding the monetary base in a fiat economy. In practice, gold supplies tend to be more predictable than central banks.

How are the random deposits of a heavy metal in the earth's crust more predictable then central banks?

Re: Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba

#40

Post by blasdel »

Hexstream wrote: post #16

"Well, they were probably a bit surprised, because they never thought about these things in these terms. But now I'm in touch with somebody who has converted one youth club to use free software, and he's now talking with the people who run the other youth clubs in his region, trying to convert them. So something's finally getting done." Notice the religious terminology. The Church of Emacs, eh. edit: Is it possible t…

No, you no can has bold.

Italics are allowed because they allow you to annotate emphasis without making the text stand out more than normal -- you only notice it inline. Allowing bold would lead to asshats writing like Jeff Atwood.

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