Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago
#AdamBuxton describes Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) as a "douchbag philosopher", which is about right.

"... one of his examples is ... if you want a good laptop, then you want it from a company called Apple, which is run as a kind of monarchy, as an autocracy, there's someone at the top ... You wouldn't want ... your laptop designed by the local council, because it would take ages and it would be much worse."

https://shows.acast.com/adambuxton/episodes/ep253-squid

False dichotomy much Yarvin?

#podcasts#CurtisYarvin
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

Because I wouldn't expect a local council to be the right people to design laptops, right enough. But grApple are literally the last company I'd give money to if I was buying one new, precisely *because* they such an autocracy.

As well as all the reasons @codinghorror explained here back in 2008;

blog.codinghorror.com/why-does

... among many, many others, like these;

fsf.org/campaigns/apple

So who would I give that money to instead?

(1/?)
Jo
@jomangee@toot.io replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago
@strypey @codinghorror the first Apple computers I used weren’t paid for by me & when I could pay for hardware, I went with a desktop with integrated analogue video capture. My first office job used an Apple & having my *nix compatible shell and subsystem sold the iMac for me. Laptop again was Linux but I dreamed of decent Apple hardware. Mobile was iPod -> iPhone (both jailbroken).

If the software doesn’t give Freedom 0 - reflash the hardware to make it so.
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

If I was buying a new laptop, instead of giving money to grApple, I'd probably give it to a more collaborative company, like;

* (@pine64eu)

* @frameworkcomputer)

* Research (@mntmn)

* (@purism)

... or one of the companies listed here;

linuxpreloaded.com/

For a laptop that serves the interests of me and mine. Unlike grApple's digital handcuffs, or those of anyone still collaborating with BorgSoft's enshittification of the once-open "PC" (x86).

(2/?)
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

So laptops are a great example of why Yarvin and his camp followers are dead wrong about autocracy being a great way to develop and provide technology, or anything else for that matter. But he's right that electoral democracy isn't much better.

Fortunately there are a range of other forms of collaborative decision-making (which may or may not be forms of democracy, depending on how you define it). Consensus, sociocracy, deliberative assembly, etc.

(3/?)
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

Speaking of SillyCon Valley influencers being wrong about things, here's another one from the 'takes that didn't age well' files, quoted in @CodingHorror's blog post;

"... please know I’m not anti–open source. I frequently argue for it in various specific projects. But a politically correct dogma holds that open source is automatically the best path to creativity and innovation, and that claim is not borne out by the facts."

#JaronLanier, 2007

https://web.archive.org/web/20080123111854/http://discovermagazine.com/2007/dec/long-live-closed-source-software/

Where do I start?

(4/?)
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

Lanier continues;

"Why are so many of the more sophisticated examples of code in the online world—like the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines or like Adobe’s Flash—the results of proprietary development? Why did the adored iPhone come out of what many regard as the most closed, tyrannically managed software-development shop on Earth?"

https://web.archive.org/web/20080123111854/http://discovermagazine.com/2007/dec/long-live-closed-source-software/

The result of all this "innovation"? Surveillance capitalism;

https://ethical.net/ethical/google-alternatives/

https://scribe.rip/@shaysharon/why-doctors-and-scientists-should-stop-using-adobe-software-d1c5f2cd8f4d

(5/?)
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

Worse, the normalisation of malware, by Goggle;

https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.en.html

... Adobe;

https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-adobe.en.html

... And grApple;

https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.en.html

I'd love to find someone here who disagrees with the claim that proprietary development inevitably leads to enshittification, and can explain why. Without getting shouty when their apologetics are deconstructed and fact-checked, by someone who's been at this for a while (about ... 25 years).

Anyone agree with Curtis Yarvin on this?

(6/6)

1 more replies (not shown)
mike805
@mike805@noc.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago
@strypey All of the examples cited turned to crap. Author proved the opposite of his intended point. Anything built on top of commercial foundations will eventually be destroyed.

Also this would be a good place to point out that the iPhone is built on top of a FOSS kernel after Apple fell flat on its ass trying to create a proprietary one called Taligent.

And Google? A proprietary layer on top of free operating systems and tools.
Wulfy
@n_dimension@infosec.exchange replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago
@strypey

Every laptop is loaded to the gills with patents (the intellectual work of collective other).

I may be wrong about the exact numbers, but back in the day when IBM made think pads, there was 10,000 patents in each laptop.
In fact one of the reasons Lenovo was happy to pay the price for Think pads to IBM is because they also got the patents.

So, unsurprisingly #curtisyarvin is a dumb fascists shit that is dumb.
Wulfy
@n_dimension@infosec.exchange replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago
@strypey

Every laptop is loaded to the gills with parents (the intellectual work of others).

I may be wrong about the exact numbers, but back in the day when IBM made think pads, there was 10,000 patents in each laptop.
In fact one of the reasons Lenovo was happy to pay the price for Think pads to IBM is because they also got the patents.

So, unsurprisingly #curtisyarvin is a dumb fascists shit that is dumb.