Free Software and beliefs
How you think, Free Software conception suitable for person with such beliefs:
1.Democracy is cr*p,meritocracy is nice.
2.Planned economy is bad, "wild" market not better, hybrid economics is good.
3.Interest of Society must be superior individual interest. Always and for ever.
4.Rational egoism very useful for society members and the whole Society.
5.Privacy is not holy cow. If interest of Society dictate creation of "Big Brother", then it must be done.
6.If interest of Society dictate limitation of free will of society members, then it must be done. It is how the Law work, for example.
7.Social inequality among people is boon.
8.
8. In small doses wars beneficial to the Society
Logical consequences:
1.OpenSource projects with democratic model (Wikipedia, for example) is worse proprietary projects. They are "defective by design". Good example of OpenSource project with non-democratic model it is Linux kernel, IMHO.
2.(Crypto)Anarchic projects like Bitcoins, Freenet, etc, must be destroyed / abandoned. Anarchy is greatest evil for the Society.
3.Copileft licenses is good, because this is good example of how limitation of freedom serve interest of the Society.
4."Eternal copyright" is the evil, because this benefit social parasitism.
5.Anti-military licenses is not bad. It is just idiotism. Strong army is great good for the Society, this is defence from competitors.
6.Some most important OpenSource projects must be donated by the government.
Do you care about freedom? That's the main point of free software, so if the answer is "no", you won't agree with anything the free software movement says. However, you may change your mind if you look around.
For example, a book you might want to read if you haven't already is Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Also, The Right To Read by Richard Stallman:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
And of course, there's the many essays on the GNU Project website about freedom and free software:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
It is hard question. Firstly, give me definition of "freedom". That this word mean for you?
Freedom is the ability to control your own life. Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, etc. We believe that freedom to control your computing is a freedom everyone deserves, too.
My position about freedom:
"We are in bondage to the Law in order that we may be set free"(c)Cicero
How about this point of view?
"Even if you have not any worries about your freedom and privacy, if you will use FLOSS, then this will be beneficial to the Society"
I think you have a couple of serious issues with the ideas of free software.
Especially point 4 and 5 affect your attitude to many concerns of the free software movement directly.
The logical consequence of 1 is not as logical as you think. The idea of meritocracy does not have to be applied on _everything_. It's really about the government of a state.
I disagree with many other points, but they don't get in conflict with free software, as far as I can say.
"The idea of meritocracy does not have to be applied on everything."
IMHO, there is very few exception, when democracy or even anarchy may be useful.
But "Wikipedia and Company" not this exception.
What happens if taxi driver will participate in a medical board on a par with professional surgeon?
I think the consequences will be bad. It is how democracy works.
"Especially point 4 and 5"
What points are you mean?
About rational egoism and privacy or about"eternal copyright" and anti-military licences?
I meant egoism and privacy.
I think you are misunderstood conception of rational egoism. You need some explanations.
My definitions:
1.Irrational egoism. Behavior only for own sake.
2.Irrational altruism. Behavior only for sake of the Society.
3.Rational egoism. Balance of own interest and interest of the Society.
4.Rational altruism = Rational egoism.
About privacy:
I really can`t understand, why privacy is a holy cow for many of you?
Just imagine the marvels Stalin would have done by contacting Facebook and ask who is friend with Trotsky; by contacting Google and ask who searches information about the United States; by contacting Apple and ask where are those people; etc.
Those companies cannot refuse a large country those pieces of information. The large market at stake is too valuable.
In the end, people can only behave the way the power in place wants them to behave. Dictatorship wins.
NB: I chose Stalin because you are Russian. You can take another example if you wish. Even contemporary ones. Besides, the states themselves can control the Internet. See, for instance, the Eagle system (sold by the French company Amesys) that was monitoring everything in Libya under Muammar Gaddafi.
1.This is bad example. Stalin don't needed any evidences for repressions. Because repressions in most of cases had economic ground. Stalin needed slaves.
2.Stalin had the Big Brother without Google, Facebook, etc. He had an army of informers in all parts of the Society.
3.Don't flatter yourself. If a dictator cannot take something under control, then it will be destroyed.
If information on computers will not be available for the Big Brother, then using of a computer will be banned.
I think it is even WORSE.
4.If the nation will not be too apathetic to letting something like mass repression, then even if government of the country will have something like the Big Brother, it will be useless for dictatorship's purposes. For example, even if Putin
will know everything about every citizen of Russia, then he will not be able to use this information in Stalin`s way.
Otherwise, there will be the revolution(very bloody and ruthless)and then he will be, most probably, killed. Even in Russia many things have changed since the days of Stalin. Big Brother may be useful only if the nation too passive.
5.To be precise, I'm not Russian, and I not even citizen of Russia. It`s just a simplification for you.
I'm from Kazakhstan. I'm partly Jewish, partly Armenian. However, for you it does not make any difference.
You can call me Russian, if you prefer.
- Do you really pretend it is only a coincidence that the KGB was created under Stalin and became such a powerful agency?
- You are basically writing that there already were tedious ways to do bad things to convince us that it is right to tremendously ease those bad activities. Really?
- First of all, I do not understand where I flattered myself. Second of all, you have to explain us how a country where most people use computer will stop using computers. That has never happened and will never happen.
- How do you organize a revolution when you know all communications are spied? You cannot. You are right to say that Big Brother cannot happen if the people is vigilant enough... but you are the one that do not see any problem in not having any privacy! You are active... in saying that states (or any mighty organization) spying on the users is OK! It looks like you would welcome Big Brother! That you are even calling it!
- It makes a difference. Do not insult me. I was just repeating the information you wrote elsewhere in this forum.
1.I cannot understand your argument. Why the creation of the KGB denies my words?
2.I mean, even without Google, Facebook, etc. dictator can create the Big
Brother. No need to demonize the online services and spyware.
3."I do not understand where I flattered myself".
Sorry, I did not mean you personally. I mean free software community.
4."You have to explain ..."
It is very simple. If we consider it possible to create order a la North Korea in modern country,
then we must consider it possible to abandon computers. If such madness will begin, then it will knows no boundaries.
5."How do you organize ..."
There will be no organization. It will be blind are ruthless rebellions in different parts of the country.
6."not see any problem in not having any privacy!"
You got me wrong. Having absolute no privacy not normal for normal human mind. It seemed to me that we consider only one aspect of privacy, about the Big Brother. But there are others aspects. For example, I don't want the others to know about my actions in the past, for which I'm ashamed. But this is a purely psychological problem.
7."It makes a difference"
Why?
8."Do not insult me"
O_O What did you see offensive in my words??
- You wrote: "Stalin don't needed any evidences for repressions". I answered "Do you really pretend it is only a coincidence that the KGB was created under Stalin and became such a powerful agency?". If you cannot understand the link, I cannot help you.
- So, again, your argument is: when there are tedious ways for the mighty to do bad things (in our case: spying on everybody for repression purpose), we should not care about tremendously helping in achieving those evil goals (in our case: by giving up all our data in centralized databases the mighty can easily access). Does that argument really make sense to you?
- OK.
- Do you really believe that once the people has computers, no dictator can take over? Really? If only you could be right! Unfortunately, you are not, there are many dictatorships in the world we know. Most of them let the citizens have Internet connections... and they listen to everything for repression purpose.
- Individuals can make a revolution with no organization whatsoever? Are you serious? Do you realize that dictators have the police and, usually, the army with them? That those guys have weapons and are organized?
- I was obviously referring to the Big Brother type. You are just evading. So again: you started this thread with: "If interest of Society dictate creation of "Big Brother", then it must be done". Later you wrote "Big Brother may be useful [for mass repression] only if the nation too passive". Don't you see a problem? Don't you see that many governments all over the world are pretending "terrorists" justify mass surveillance even though the actual risk is insignificant (how many Americans died of "terrorism" since the Patriot Act was voted, how many of car accidents)? Don't you see the real objective is the control of the people, not its interest? Even if you do not want to actively fight against this problem, don't you understand that a large enough part of the society must care about privacy so that a few can actually seize it for real purpose (connections over Tor are safe unless there are too few of them, not being on Facebook should not be a reason to raise suspicions, etc.).
- If you felt like correcting me, it is probably that, like most inhabitants of Kazakhstan, you do not feel Russian. Citizens usually are pround of their nations and, obviously do not want to be confused with another nation that was occupying their country.
- Your sentence "for you it does not make any difference" sounded like "you cannot tell the difference and do not care about distant and poor countries". That simply is not true.
At other points I will answer later. They are very interesting, so I want to first discuss it with my friend.
1.1.By the way, I learned that Stalin didn't create KGB, it appeared only after his death.
7."correction me"
I didn't correct you. I just thought you should know the whole truth, so there was no misunderstanding.
"citizens usuall are pround of their nations"
This is not true for either Kazakhstan or Russia. There are many of people, who thought that s/he lives in a crazy country without any future. For example, I would gladly agreed to become a citizen of China, if I could.
"with another nation that was occuping their country"
Kazakhstan was very last country, that seceded from USSR.
8.I meant that the realities of Russia and Kazakhstan are very similar.
Citizens of Russia and Kazakhstan have almost the same thinking.