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Reasons not to use Facebook

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Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#161

Post by icebraining »

gbog wrote: post #137
forgotpasswd3x wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people cannot afford psychologically to not have kids. Wait, really?

Yes. Having kids is the simplest and most natural way to get this sentiment of usefulness and achievement that is much harder to get from a daily job. RMS and other creators get this from their creations, but it is not given to everyone to have enough talent and dedication to make something useful to the others. So when they die they leave something behind. Another option is to believe in God and afterlife, which is…

Huge numbers of couples in Europe, Japan, Korea, etc have decided to not have kids, so clearly they can "afford" to not have them. Unless you can show a link between not having kids and having psychological problems (and I don't mind just a simple correlation on the whole society, I mean per couple), I'd say that's just like, your opinion, man.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#162

Post by roansh »

peteretep wrote: post #60
pooogie wrote: post #52

His opinion may seem ridiculous to many here, but the following has happened quite a few times before: 1. Stallman shares radical opinion 2. He's ridiculed for his outlandish claims 3. Some news breaks or things happen gradually 4. Now people say 'Stallman called it' or realize he was right all along

Some examples, please

Wikipedia. (https://vimeo.com/7307422)

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#163

Post by emiliobumachar »

_ak wrote: post #143
joeyspn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a funny one: Stallman came to my uni to give a speech to CompSci alumni 10 years ago, and he told the audience that he didn't own a cellphone, cos phones were being used to track people. He also talked about the backdoors in several OS's. Everybody was laughing at his words. We're talking 10 years ago. Few months ago remembering this speech with old uni mates we talked about how damn right that excentric man w…

Of course phones were used to track people 10 years ago. And it wasn't even a secret. Location-based services were the hot shit back then for mobile carriers (at least in Europe). Making that to be a big conspiracy to infringe upon everybody's freedom and privacy is what makes Stallman's position so ridiculous. It always sounds like the rambling of a technophobic. No, that's not entirely true. Like the rambling of an…

Everything about mass survaillance shifted from "stuff of crackpot conspiracy theories" to "retroactivelly obvious all along".

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#164

Post by fit2rule »

wanda wrote: post #146
fit2rule wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman predicted the total surveillance state, and warned of the very dire circumstances it put us all in.

I think the total surveillance state was a prediction made decades before Stallman. Or are we just ignoring acience fiction authors and philosophers?

They certainly warned us, and Stallman has picked up the light to be shone on these dark territories from others before him, but who in the contemporary era has done as much as Stallman to educate the public as to the dangers of the usurpation of technology by nefarious agencies?

I don't understand the need to denigrate Stallman for these deeds - what purpose does it serve to extinguish this light?

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#165

Post by fit2rule »

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #45

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly. I completely disagree with him on essentially everything he writes about these topics. Granted, he's an incredible programmer who contributed immensely to the development of our modern operating systems and the tools we use, and people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRI…

What purpose does it serve to denigrate Stallman for his efforts?

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#166

Post by icebraining »

xxxyy wrote: post #145
blawa wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh well, just what I was fearing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9201896 In 2 mins, you're the top comment How about actually disproving his arguments one by one. The world is not black and white is a bad statement to make. How about your pull up your panties and try to make it better, rather than giving useless arguments.

This thread shows the big thing that is wrong with today's HN. There is a guy presenting a list of 49 arguments against using a service that is used by one billion people globally. Some of them are pretty good, some more sucky than the others. Yet, the discussion focuses only on the person. It's like the people here could not process the raw facts and derive their own conclusions, and had to fall back to their emotio…

Well, I've been around for almost four years now, and I'm not sure HN has ever been different since then.

That said, I agree with you, but rms as a way of increasing that response. I think that if he wrote that the Earth orbits the Sun, someone would make a passionate argument for geocentrism.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#167

Post by icebraining »

manigandham wrote: post #80
paulsecwhatt wrote: post #45

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly. I completely disagree with him on essentially everything he writes about these topics. Granted, he's an incredible programmer who contributed immensely to the development of our modern operating systems and the tools we use, and people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRI…

I'm with you. Seems like FUD here with this post, there are a few decent ideas about privacy but its a social network and used for connecting to people. Maybe they can relax the real name policy some more but I have plenty of friends that don't use their actual real/legal name and never had a problem. There are effective privacy controls in place now and things like being served ads is such a silly issue to complain…

I have plenty of friends that don't use their actual real/legal name and never had a problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement

things like being served ads is such a silly issue to complain about... it's a business that needs to make money, how else is that supposed to happen?

Hum, charge people?

What is the overall point at the end of this?

"Don't use Facebook." I thought that was clear.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#168

Post by Finbel »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #142
Finbel wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Many people made such claims long before he did." Could you give an example? I also think it's dangerous to say that we shouldn't act because we are almost entirely powerless in representative government. Same argument could have been made against civil rights and suffrage movements throughout history.

I think it requires a bare minimum of effort to enumerate the scores of commentators who predicted the surveillance state and the need for opsec, because it's in the bedrock of the computer security community itself. One needed only attend DEFCON, especially after 641A, to hear enough about surveillance and countersurveillance to last a lifetime. Hippies, free software, counterculture, copyleft, cypherpunks. All of t…

I'm really confused here... you said "Many people made such claims long before he did." and I asked for an example. I didn't ask what movements he's a representative of and I don't know whether anyone who attended DEFCON heard about it. All I wonder is if their is one clear example of someone who made such claims long before he did?

What did I attribute that you didn't say? I assume you refer to "to say that we shouldn't act because we are almost entirely powerless in representative government" and I can see what you mean but what point was you making when stating that we're almost entirely powerless in representative government if not argue against taking action?

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#169

Post by jsmthrowaway »

Finbel wrote: post #168
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it requires a bare minimum of effort to enumerate the scores of commentators who predicted the surveillance state and the need for opsec, because it's in the bedrock of the computer security community itself. One needed only attend DEFCON, especially after 641A, to hear enough about surveillance and countersurveillance to last a lifetime. Hippies, free software, counterculture, copyleft, cypherpunks. All of t…

I'm really confused here... you said "Many people made such claims long before he did." and I asked for an example. I didn't ask what movements he's a representative of and I don't know whether anyone who attended DEFCON heard about it. All I wonder is if their is one clear example of someone who made such claims long before he did? What did I attribute that you didn't say? I assume you refer to "to say that we shoul…

That's just it, though, the movement is the example. If you can't get there abstractly, John Gilmore comes to mind.

I also very clearly said nothing about action. You added that and I happen to disagree that we shouldn't act. Powerless in government is an orthogonal concept and you conflated them and disagreed with something I didn't say.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#170

Post by facepalm »

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #45

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly. I completely disagree with him on essentially everything he writes about these topics. Granted, he's an incredible programmer who contributed immensely to the development of our modern operating systems and the tools we use, and people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRI…

I don't understand why your comment is voted up so much because you only seem to provide an opinion ("I don't understand...") and take 10 paragraphs for it.
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