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Periodic reports, Linux and User Agents
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    If MS was to sell less licenses than there out there, or claims more than actual, I would suspect there would a tax-ivasion liability against them. So if they have claimed sales of 3bil then they brag of 4bil users, someone would notice.

    On the other hand, in terms of anonymity of browsing you'd rather be identified as one of the many with the exact same setup than being unique. TB actually used this to even the mozilla version that was most popular, and even advised not to adjust the default screen size or window size to merge with the "croud".

    But you have a valid concern, when rags come out and say 97% don't use linux/bsd when in fact 14% do.

    Using vanilla ff or chrome is the worst possible way to protect your personal information. https://digdeeper.neocities.org/articles/browsers

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    Posted on self-hosted, but figured it's more appropriate here!
  • The largest machines, the largest servers, nearly all supercomputers, are running on linux, or some form of unix to a lesser extent, not MSwin or other crappy non-FOSS mass-produced profit maker for the dumb and innocent "user".

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    Posted on self-hosted, but figured it's more appropriate here!
  • I am surprised nobody even acknowledged your post, and this may be an indication that not many have made this connection. So I applaud your initiative that has not received much attention since everyone is too scared to append classical political theory (are you listening Marxist?), let alone challenge it in its inability to interpret material realities of today.

    Yes, the idea of contributing "work", produce, openly and freely, for anyone to consume, alter, reprodruce, without a direct "exchange" is probably the only area of the market that this is happening. Maybe public domain documents, art, theory, A/V material licensed as CC or Gpl are also important. Imagine we could do this with basic core survival necessities and construct autonomous communities with such an economy (or really lack of an economic system). But it may be happening with products that are not really material, and can be shared through a medium of low or no-cost. It would be hard to do this grains, building materials, fruit, vegetables, eggs (vegan god forbid :).

    But, but, but, there are problems within this "commune" of open AND free sw.

    1. The small problem is the elitism pushed by the ultra-libre foss crowd which lacks the self criticism that in order for people to locate the proper hardware so they can run ALL libre-sw they have to pay high prices, which some can't afford. Getting pseudo-refurbished used industrial equipment (DELL/HP workstations/pcs mostly) in sub 100 ($/Euro) values is what the vast majority of the world can afford and use. Nearly all hw in x86-64 platform though, even those that provide libre firmware/drivers etc, are not all open/free source. Most only work through binary blobs that are neither open or free. We can speculate but we may never know what is "iinside"... and just the specs of what they can do are scary enough.

    2. The apolitical, non-critical, perspective among FOSS developers is that if "corporations" provide FOSS, or just open source, we can use that is good and we should rush to use it if it is functional and helps our experience and work. But especially large corporations have used this FOSS channel to manipulate, steer, and control the FOSS development, towards a direction that benefits them (and maybe the state agencies under which those mega-corps are protected, can profit, and exist). It is always an exchange system that rules those relationships. So companies like IBM/RH, Qt, Oracle, HP, google, facebook, ....etc. can provide foss code and push development towards something that is compatible with their tools, so independent developers can and will incorporate their platforms and move their direction.

    It is like creating an autonomous community and allowing representatives of a corporation to work the fields but also participate in assemblies on how to run the community.

    With linux foundation having the largest industrial names as seats of the board, and be paying 7digit salaries to the top signers of the kernel, within a year or two alone the kernel has grown more than 2X in size, full of industrial firmware and code, that most common mortals will never even see from a distance. So who are they contributing code to/for? Yes, 7digits in $/Eu yearly salary + "benefits", paid trips, paid talks, workshops, ... and the occassional consulting contract to sweeten the defaults of the next gen kernel.

    So, enjoy your stay in this hippie pacifist commune called FOSS, but don't expect too much critical political thinking. Most devs are really dreaming of those 6-7digit salaries in the industry doing non-foss work while you are thinking commune. This is why their big fat name is placed on every little bit that is published. BUY ME BUY ME I AM FOR SALE!!! :)

    1. We are at war, remember, nobody is innocent till proven not-guilty.
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    The Subjectless Rule of Capital
  • I can hardly find one thing I could agree in this and wonder what on earth is such useless documents be promoted in here for?

    This analysis could have come from any Marxist party, in a cowardly traditional manner of being unable to challenge a comma or an exclanation mark of classic M&E theory.

    In the dead ends and tremendous contradictions of marxist theoretical development this is just another attempt of trying to paint a reality in such a way as to fit the theory, and we all thought it was meant the other way around, and in this "WE" I would include Karl Marx but especially Engels who was the true dialectical materialist. There is somewhere in Karl's writing that says that he would have been most happy to alter and revise the thery if reality show that the theory is invalid. Marxists since then have elevated those books into theology where terror and exile is upon those who dare challenge the theology.

    Neo-liberalism in the 80s ... because this is what fits in theory? By the time the term neo-liberalism was announced and made public as part of politics it was at a period where a 40+ year transformation of state an economy was taken place to fit this propaganda. It was safe to mention it. It was pretty much the same time that social democracy died, for which many Marxist would die defending.

    You can't reverse history, you can only write the future, and going back to social democracy would mean a revolution and a total overthrow of the globalized economy.

    Unless the Marxist has the all powerful, autonomous, and manageable state as a safe harbor, the Marixst has nothing to step on and propagandize. A bankrupt ideology based on a weak theory, even though it may be the only theory we have ever had.

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    Rule of being a free speech absolutist
  • 1st of all globally libertarian is a specific mode with the anarchist movement, definitely anti-capitalist and anti-inequality of any sort (economic or political). What the FBI fabricated a pseudo ideology full of contradictions and sold it/financed it as libertarianism since the 50s (part of their counter-movement anti-communism enterprise which some of it was later banned in court) and spilled over to 3-4 other English speaking nations, has nothing at all to do with libertarianism (left libertarianism or libertarian socialist are also fake tags admitted by passive people that wanted to distance themselves from this "disease". Anarcho-capitalism is equally a pseudo ideology. The rest of the world just laughs at the immaturity of the English speaking people shifting tags around to contradictory things because they are "pop". The US effort to redefine a century and a half of political philosophy tradition to serve its own internal governmental pathology is purely a laughing matter for the world. Immature people develop immature movements. Or should I say people who refuse to read more than a page at a time can go out on social media and speak as theoretical authorities.

    Libertarianism is well documented for a century and a half, it doesn't need US fed propaganda and social media to defend itself. Pathetic UK monkeys seeing the US propaganda and reproducing it like good pups, have also fallen for this anarcho-capitalist/libertarian construct for the mentally challenged.

    The one thing libertarians are known for is the proposal for class and social organization, to organize under certain minimal principles that ensure and protect the absolute equality of its members. And for communities (either work or living communities) to accept one and only one authority, of their collective organization and assembly, their collective decisions, on which they are free to participate and whose decisions only affect those who are part of it. That and rational communication within the assembly because individual leaps into the supernatural and metaphysical can only develop to collective chaos. So before entering the assembly you can leave your personal individualistic philosophy at the front door basket and pick it up on your way out.

    Now, you want to build a house, within a libertarian community, other than your own labor and physical technical abilities, to house yourself, you need resources (tools and supplies, metaphysics you can add on your own to your own house, see if some entity through preyer holds the beams up on top of your head). The available resources are those that are collectively available to the community, whether in shortage or abundance it is a communal problem to determine, One thing will be for sure, if there is shortage you can't have more than your share because that will prevent someone else from also building a needed house. Fortunately, since the libertarian uprising there is no market, no industrial market you can get supplies, You have what the community has.

    You must be building that house for yourself, not to rent or exploit other people by it, correct? I don't see why any libertarian community would have a problem with it.

    In theory, in practice I suspect that a true libertarian community helps as a community everyone to build a house and expect everyone to be helping you, not because it is a law or a decision of the assembly to do so, but as part of solidarity and the realization that shelter, food, health care, education, entertainment, are all human necessities and the community is founded in providing all this for the community.

    Does everyone get to have the same house, just as big, or just as complex, it is not up to theoretical or ideological criteria to determine, that would have been anti-libertarian, to have some mora/ideological authority to enforce an agenda on the community. It is simply up to the community to decide. If all one needs is a shady room, or a basement, to sit and play cello in their free time, why oppose it. If one needs a room and a kitchen and a small pad to raise spices and herbs and cook funky things, why not. Now if one wants to build a motorcycle that does 350km/h and we have no raw titanium and machining facilities to make valves for it, I am sure the community will have their objections to prostituting collectively just to get you those much needed 16 valves.

    So, libertarianism is not for all, it is for those who are in need to end their exploitation (economic) and oppression (political), whether that is by boss, parent, spouce, teacher, cop, those who feel it know who they will be liberated from. The rest are only worried about losing luxuries and toys during a possible transition to an eggalitarian social organization. They are not ready because they benefit from capitalism, Fortunately they are a small minority in N/W Europe, N.America, Japan, HK, Australia/NZ and a handful of urban centers elsewhere where either intense industrialization is controlled by them or extraction of tremendous amounts of raw materials in high demand by industry (oil minerals etc.). The rest of the world is happy to be able to grow beans, rice, corn and eat it too without been treated as slaves.

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    important rulepost
  • The country that holds the record for number and percentage of people in prison is the US. In the US the percentage of black people in prison was higher than the percentage of black people in prison in South Africa during apartheid.

    No other western/industrialized (at some stage) nation has had so many political exilees and people whose citizenship was revoked based on "anti-american" views than the US. At some point the general secretary of RCP was in exile in France with his citizenship revoked. So, not all states are equal, and their historic development as modern capitalist states should be studied within context.

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    important rulepost
  • anarchism acknowledges Marxist theory, but rejects the need for a state/beaurocratic apparatus, as it is considered to be fundamentally oppressive.

    Acknowledges Marxist theory as much as acknowledging Newtonian gravitational theory may be a way to put it. Most of the ones I know either accept Marxist general theory as a whole, non-critically, and the rest are anti-communist/anti-marxist idealists, as much as any fascist would be. Because the true essence and reason for the existence of fascism is anti-communism.

    There are many social relations that are oppressive, why limit it to state? Parents are oppressive, teachers, professors, bosses, cops, military higher officers, spouses, parents in law, ... prison guards ... they are all oppressive. Is it just the state? Is it a different class of people who oppress from those being oppressed?

    the state is an abstraction of capital, and cannot liberate the working class, as it exists to perpetuate its own hegemonic existence, our subjugation.

    Between the late 1800s and early 1900s the state became an insurer of labor law and justice, the welfare state was born, rights to pension, an 8hr day, sick leave, vacation, overtime pay, were all provided and were promised by the state. So we can say the state backed off and became hostile to capital. Between struggle (labor syndicalism) and the capitalist state there was a dialectic transformation, the social democracy was born. Today the state has absolutely surrendered to the powers of the banking financial world system, made out of a handful of banks and financial institutions mainly based in NY, London, Frankfurt, Paris, maybe even in HKong, Tokyo, to a lesser extent. All states owe to private global markets to such a degree that just one or two clicks down on their bond ratings and they are bankrupt and in the hands of IMF and other bankers to implement the most vicious neo-liberal reform anyone can imagine.

    This means that when leninists propose on taking over a state that just means removing it from the markets and sentencing the population to starvation and misery. "Abolishing the state" is just as suicidal. Should there be a thing like political responsibility for genocide proposed by pseudo revolutionaries, who want to enforce their fantasy on people already suffering because of capitalism?

    governance need not be heirarchichal; I promote collective mutual determination as an egalitarian system by which society can organize.

    As long as you speak of "a system" you imply, like it or not, a centralized system, a system that supervises whether the system is implemented correctly or not. That constitutes an authority. Whether this authority and enforcement is conducted by "anti-authoritarians" who as a minority forced their terms and conditions on a society, we are speaking of a revolutionary vanguard, an authoritarian force over the entire society (under the state and within state borders).

    By the way, the collapse of the Syrian state had a gradual effect of Turkey moving sourth, Israel and Libanon moving further east, Iran moving west, I am uncleat of Jordan is taking a piece of the pie, and some Iraqi authorities are eyeballing the Kurdish management of some areas they would like to grub as well. So by abolishing a state these days the remaining states in the globe legitimize the neighbors all grubbing a piece without anyone being a state to protest. Assad's only friend is too busy fighting the entirety of NATO playing a game on the heads of the residents of ex-Ukraine.

    can’t dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools

    As long as your focus is to destroy and dismantle instead of constructing an alternative and an escape route from capitalism you will be condemned by history as a force of nothing beneficial to humanity.

    As long as you preach -isms- from a high tower looking down on people without ideology, and you refuse to accept that the dialectic between leninism and libertarianism has already materialized, that more than a million people have been living OUTSIDE of capitalism, in autonomous communities, for nearly 30years (this next new year's eve), decide in their communities EVERYTHING about their own lives, mostly using consensus, and their federation (2 levels) is designed to serve the community not to dictate to the community, you are more authoritarian and stuck up than you really think. Now these people have liberated themselves from capitalism, they live outside it, they are unaffected by it, other by having to fend off some para-military attacks here and there 2-3 times a year, their values and principles are even more strict than the early 1900s CNT constitution, and they laugh really hard and stick a finger up to all revolutionary vanguards, but you keep speaking hypothetically, what if society did this and that and the other thing.

    If you want to be heard, you should be looking up to indigenous peasants, farmers, not down. If you want the residents of the favela to follow bureaucrats and academics to social change, you are in worse shape and dillusion than the average tankies. If you want children industrial workers in SE Asia to look up to your ideology and rhetoric, to buy your story, I assure you they think you are dumber than they are.

    Who gives a flying ** what "anarchism" acknowledges.

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    Update: The hottest 21 days ever recorded were the last 3 weeks
  • I will look up this work, but 7.5bil people can no longer survive at the rate of current land/water use, not for long that is. Even if development was to halt at this very moment, the planet's resources will be depleated, and equalization of material conditions will never have enough time to reach the other half of the population suffering.

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    Update: The hottest 21 days ever recorded were the last 3 weeks
  • Socialism is really an economic system based on equality, but as all economic systems require centralized authority and overseeing/supervising to maintain. As capitalism is a system of organized inequality, socialism is one of organized equality. Centralized authority creates an endless political inequality, in some way much worse than found in capitalism.

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    Update: The hottest 21 days ever recorded were the last 3 weeks
  • In what way would socialism prevent extinction, environmental degradation, or global warming? It might even make things worse, as capitalists only exploit the earth and its people to make profit. Marxism has a goal to expand industrialization to relieve humanity of harsh labor and to provide products for all people. The love affair with development is as much a capitalist value as it is a Marxist infatuation.

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    Rules, regulations, or: why am I banned???
  • That's Popper's and Milt.Friedman's way of laundering fascism as a legitimate ideology, a useful tool for capitalist domination and anti-communism.

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    Rules, regulations, or: why am I banned???
  • Being against humans can't possibly be a human ideology, so fascists don''t count under this protectionist umbrella, I hope.

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    Rules, regulations, or: why am I banned???
  • Now this is a wider issue, the Red Army did liberate the largest part of Europe from Nazi rule, the US basically tried to liberate France but the Red Army was in Germany before the US crossed the border. In Yalta the three, US/UK/USSR divided the pie, Spain and Greece went on the other half and remained fascist till the 70s (meaning anticapitalists were executed, prisoned, exiled, etc). Yugoslavia went its own way. The US UK handed Hung/CZ over to them, but unlike other places the USSR had to use force to take over what was given to them in the pe cutting.

    This is not defense of tankie-ism it is pretty much what happened. Now between 90 and 2024 the 90/1 agreement was no Nato expansion beyond its current borders, and that was severely violated by NATO, to the last ring around the chain being Ukr and Belarus. So the not so red not so hot army anymore had to either react or accept total defeat and submission to NATO. There was no alternative for Russia other than to turn history back which in 30y proved impossible.

    I am not passing judgement on which dictator is better, I hate Biden as much as the next guy, but the narrative of recent history appears to have left out all petitions to the UN filed by Russia for the violation of the agreement. The UN's excuse, NATO is not a UN member, and you can't blame any particular state member of NATO for what NATO does. Unfortunately a state (Russia) which wasn't part of the Yalta agreement the SU was, signed an agreement with NATO, not with any particular country. They should have had a better lawyer and not a drunk for a president.

    So Russia will evolve to yet another oil-rich country that is blockaded and cut-off from world markets like Iran and Venezuela. Unlike Iranians and Venzuelans Russians get really nasty when they get pissed, hungry, or out of vodka. So this is not going to go well too far too long. We shall see. Oil production and distribution, held by a handful of US based multinationals, will increase their profits in a further restricted oil market. So Iran, Russia, and Venezuela's isolation does serve a profitable industry's interests.

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    Republicans Are at War With College Towns. And They’re Losing.
  • It was the mishaps of the internet effect and social media, being inherently hierarchical and non-democratic, "owners" of virtual space dictating communication to be a-political, under the preface that people get along when they are a-political. It is the same generation that you see as winning to be the motor for losing. The reason you can't develop democracy on the internet is that "the internet" doesn't exist over public space but is solely built on private space (land or wire doesn't matter). It is always the host, not the tenants, that place the rules for being on or off.

    The age-polarization was a dillemma for many generations it was always a false polarization. Unless you would consider an anarchist/libertarian community of equals participating in decision processes, all hierarchical systems of organization will float the elders to the top and youth to serve in the bottom. Whether it is GOP, or a communist party, a club, or anything else, when do you find anyone young at the top. And by what means do you expect that someone younger will be more democratic, and less of a fascist?

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    Republicans Are at War With College Towns. And They’re Losing.
  • With the democratic party moving as far to the right as it had, there was little room for the rep.party to move to, other than where it is now.

    This is the US political system's reaction to the popular uprising of the Trump years, the transition of Occupy-xyz to BLM ... It is like America of the 30s reacting and ending in the AmeriKKKa of the 50s.

    One thing that the American left has way overlooked is the power over 80% of the population that Sunday morning propaganda and indoctrination has. Zombies like Biden can be drawn out of the alter closets and dropped as saviors of a crisis.

    The health of the democratic tendencies of the US was evaluated by the revolution the Snowden revelations created. Since there was none, consider the corpse cold and stiff.

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