True that, but did anyone count how many tools created by hackers for hackers had enabled the furious growth of monstrosities like Google, Amazon, Facebook etc, which I guess can't be more opposite to ideals of hackers?
And on the other hand, did those tools empower hackers themselves? Other than quick and dirty prototypes, did those result in any products to empower common people? Last open source GSM phone project I was subscribed to lingered for years, postponed release for lack of funding and finally, I guess, was abandoned. But at the same time I see shop shelves crammed with dirt-cheap locked-down surveillance contraptions from big known corporations who shamelessly use FOSS tools in their development.
Or is it just an inevitable vicious cycle of all opposition becoming exactly the entity it opposed?
What's the use in free knowledge how to build a turbine (or God forbid, a nuclear reactor) when all labor, materials, energy and machinery involved in its construction cost money?
That's right, the only use is that investors can save a hefty bit on the knowledge part. That's nowhere near the external looks of ideals of FOSS (but pretty much in line with its internal gist).
By the time everyone can tell conspiracy theories from conspiracy practices it's already too late.
It's all based on three words: 'already', 'will', and 'we'.
'We are already being tracked by our smartphones - So we will be wearing implanted radio chips soon".
Reject 'we' by not using one and you're not being 'aready' tracked, and hence 'will' not accept whatever coming after this.
But it requires some bravery, which is known to be eradicated in people these days.
Well my friend, the soil where you're trying to plant your sensible words is just totally barren. Here on HN you'll most probably face feedback only from those who work exactly for somebody who's coming after some group as you say, or zealous dupes who follow the former for free. And that feedback will never be positive!
Well my friend, the soil where you're trying to plant your sensible words is just totally barren. Here on HN you'll most probably face feedback only from those who work exactly for somebody who's coming after some group as you say, or zealous dupes who follow the former for free. And that feedback will never be positive.
When there are only vipers and toads in a barrell, warm-blooded creatures are few and go by throwaway accounts :)
We all are yet to see what this current youtube-raised generation of iChildren will turn out to be.
And I already don't like what I see, even though they are still only 5-10 years old: zero attention span, inability to be still and contemplative, useless hyperactivity, zero respect to parents yet enormous fear of police and other powers that be, lack of personal responsibility, whole life documented and filed in the cloud, total dependency on internet and electricity, so much that they are at the fringe of going insane or commiting a suicide when there's an outage...
And oh if it were only their parents who'll reap what they sow.
Everyone's detectors of this delta seem to have different thresholds of sensitivity... Simply put, some frogs feel small increments of water's temperature and try to warn others, so that they work out the means of escape instead of keeping their pool party going, but for those partying the increments pass as not alarming.
That of course does not mean that less sensitive ones don't feel some uneasiness in the environment. They do, but the cook keeps dressing the heating broth with promises of better future, and lulls the frogs into attributing this uneasiness to depression. Because you see, psychiatry is just another cook's tool among forks, spoons and knives.
Erich Fromm did not use the term 'punitive psychiatry' for no reason.
And on the other hand, did those tools empower hackers themselves? Other than quick and dirty prototypes, did those result in any products to empower common people? Last open source GSM phone project I was subscribed to lingered for years, postponed release for lack of funding and finally, I guess, was abandoned. But at the same time I see shop shelves crammed with dirt-cheap locked-down surveillance contraptions from big known corporations who shamelessly use FOSS tools in their development.
Or is it just an inevitable vicious cycle of all opposition becoming exactly the entity it opposed?