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The tools I love are made by awful people

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Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#71

Post by fargle »

aptj wrote: post #58
imgabe wrote: post #4

There’s this modern affliction where people believe they are morally responsible for the actions of every person they buy anything from. For your own sanity, please let this go. You are responsible for your own actions. If you buy a pen from a psychopath and he uses the money to buy a bullet and shoot someone, that’s not your fault. He’s responsible for his actions. It’s like everyone somehow forgot that other humans…

Wrong. It's not about morality (or "main character"), it's about caring for your own and your beloved ones current and future. Ignorance, apathy and indifference keep the buyers/consumers/followers encouraging the unhealthy yet very "focused and efficient" morons (big and small) to ruin the world for everyone while they accumulate enormous power to further abuse the rest. __If you buy gold from someone who poisons a…

wrong about wrong. if you go down that path, you are powerless. we live in a society that is imperfect. but you cannot live on a pedestal alone and be perfect either.

you should shop at "walmart" or where-ever your dollar is the most effective. and that gives you the most stability and and position to challenge whether the current Walton regime's love of China is a good thing or not. but cutting your nose off to spite your face does nothing useful.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#72

Post by imgabe »

merouan wrote: post #60
imgabe wrote: post #4

There’s this modern affliction where people believe they are morally responsible for the actions of every person they buy anything from. For your own sanity, please let this go. You are responsible for your own actions. If you buy a pen from a psychopath and he uses the money to buy a bullet and shoot someone, that’s not your fault. He’s responsible for his actions. It’s like everyone somehow forgot that other humans…

Hmm, this doesn't track with history. Boycotts, and more generally collective economic action (strikes, etc), are an incredibly powerful form of protest. People have shaped the world through refusing to buy from oppressive forces - case in point, the boycotts of South Africa during apartheid successfully pressured South Africa out of apartheid. We got our collective rights as workers (40 hour work days, etc) through…

Boycotts are a different thing. A successful boycott targets a specific company about a specific issue that that company has the ability to change. When the company changes the thing, the boycott ends.

The bus boycotts in the US Civil Rights movement are a good example. "Hey bus company, we're going to stop riding your buses until you end your racist seating policies". It's clear what they wanted to happen, and it was in the power of the boycotted company to make that happen.

This new thing is something else. Just a general "don't buy from this company because ... uh ... vague noises about evil". Like, what is it exactly you want this company to do? How will you not buying from them force them to do that? Do they even know what you're asking for?

This is not about trying to effect any sort of change. It is just plain virtue signalling so you can appear righteous to others. There is zero chance of anything happening in the world because of this.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#73

Post by seanhunter »

lenkite wrote: post #12

I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Windows 11 feels a practical joke played on humanity by Nadella. The new Macbooks have amazing hardware, but the software quality has deteriorated considerably - even spotlight has bugs nowadays. However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. If the Linux Software Foundati…

Umm get a framework laptop. Sleep/restore works out of the box. Admittedly I only tried it on QubesOS and Nixos, but if it works in both of those places chances are pretty good that it will work for any distro.

THere’s a reasonable chance if you get a lenovo thinkpad or similar very mainstream laptop it will just work there as well, but get a framework anyway because they’re good and you deserve a nice laptop.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#74

Post by switch007 »

suprfsat wrote: post #36
akho wrote: post #20

> Things will only change when democratically elected governments across the world step in with regulation, drag Big Tech through the courts, and fine them billions of dollars. How will that help you install Linux.

With the funds raised everyone can be assigned a Linux expert to sit next to them.

Nobody should have to learn anything for themselves, paying with your time is grossly unjust, the world owes them a hassle free operating system

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#76

Post by bustling-noose »

suprfsat wrote: post #36
akho wrote: post #20

> Things will only change when democratically elected governments across the world step in with regulation, drag Big Tech through the courts, and fine them billions of dollars. How will that help you install Linux.

With the funds raised everyone can be assigned a Linux expert to sit next to them.

With the kind of funds raised by AI companies there should be 10 different ones sitting next to me competing with each other.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#77

Post by imgabe »

merouan wrote: post #69
imgabe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a government to enforce laws to protect the commons. If someone is poisoning the river, the government should fine them and shut them down. They should be inspecting gold producers to make sure they are complying with regulations so that all gold is produced in a sustainable way that doesn't destroy the environment. If that's not happening, then we need to fix the government so it does happen. Expecting each…

Governments are pushed to do things to protect people by the people. Seat belts were not a thing (i.e., required by law) until there was sufficient public pressure to make them so. Heard of Ralph Nader? Food is made in unsafe conditions and governments are fine with it until there is pressure - have you ever heard of "The Jungle"?

Yeah, you'll notice that we didn't get seat belts in cars by boycotting car companies until they promised to add them.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#78

Post by aptj »

adastra22 wrote: post #52
bolognafairy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Fuck laws. The fact that there are potential negative consequences means that we should throw them all out!

It means we should engineer incentives rather than trying to regulate outcomes. Policy choices aren’t binary.

Well, good laws should facilitate healthy incentives, also by restricting/discouraging bad behaviors, right? How do we engineer incentives for regulators to be willing to prioritize the broader and industrial engineering of healthier incentives?

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#79

Post by merouan »

imgabe wrote: post #77
merouan wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments are pushed to do things to protect people by the people. Seat belts were not a thing (i.e., required by law) until there was sufficient public pressure to make them so. Heard of Ralph Nader? Food is made in unsafe conditions and governments are fine with it until there is pressure - have you ever heard of "The Jungle"?

Yeah, you'll notice that we didn't get seat belts in cars by boycotting car companies until they promised to add them.

Your point being? There are multiple levers we can pull, sometimes this one, sometimes that one. That is no surprise.

Re: The tools I love are made by awful people

#80

Post by the_third_wave »

disillusioned wrote: post #40
mergy wrote: post #3

Switching to Linux is not easy. You almost have to hit a wall when you are just done with the bargaining to keep something like Apple or Windows. It kind of takes a major jump. You also need to be persistent after that jump and not retrench when you can't pull from the familiar. You'll get there at some point just don't think or care about the awful people - think about how and in what way you want to operate directi…

I still remember getting all amped up at taking the leap to Linux when I read this or that guide for doing so in a 90s issue of MaximumPC and I made it as far as realizing there weren't drivers that would work with my mouse (without _considerable_ effort) and noped right out.

> taking the leap to Linux when I read ... there weren't drivers that would work with my mouse (without _considerable_ effort) and noped [sic.] right out.

That wasn't much of a leap you were planning it a mouse got in your way, especially given you seem to have planned this "leap" in the 90's - solidly within Windows 9X territory which was infamous for its instability and reboot-tendency:

   You moved your mouse pointer,
   your PC needs to be restarted
   for this change to be implemented.
   .
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