Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)
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Doesn’t read like he’s an actual communist, more insulting people (rightly so) that would call liberals communists.
Nvm
er… did torvalds just say trans rights? based alert
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God I wish that were true but there are a LOT of people (well, conservatives) who are vehemently against wider society allowing cross dressing or medical transition. It’s not 90% :(
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It’s strange to me that any of the things he said is controversial.
I don’t think it’s that controversial unless you’re hardcore conservative. Realistically he just laid out the view of most of the Libertarian party. Nothing he said denotes woke or communist except for the part or him claiming to be one. I’d like to see the full context, because that woke communist comment probably wasn’t directed at Linus’ views
The communist part reads as sarcasm because he was accused of being one
Just when I thought I couldn’t admire him more…
Common sense on the internet in this economy 😮
Where do I sign up for my Atheist card?
I’m definitely woke af. And proud of it.
I have come to think that when profits are at odds with health, happiness, the good of society and humanity, then either a non profit foundation needs to be running it or it needs to be in the hands of the government—but a much less corrupt one. And I believe oligopolies need to be broken up and anti trust laws greatly expanded and enforced. Then we can deal with the oligopoly / plutocracy. We set a maximum wage (including all earnings) and tax 100% above that. Penalties for regulatory breaches include jail time. For corporations. With corporations reigned in, oligopolies and oligarchies crumbled, we can prevent regulatory capture and corruption. Campaign finance is abolished and it is paid for out of public funds. We abolish first past the post voting in favor of scientifically determined better alternatives to ensure voters actually have a variety of choices.
Idk wtf that makes me except maybe a ranting lunatic lol
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As a full fledged Ancapper, I respect your opinion
In German we call it “Links Grün vesifft”
Aber die Grüneeeeeeeeennnnnn!!!
I personally think communism especially Marxism sounds really good on paper. The problem is that just about every time it has been attempted things didn’t really seem to work like they are supposed to.
Its like every state that attempts communism just ends up being a perpetual Vanguard state, and it ends up being authoritarian and terrible.
I really think there are several good ideas in Marx theories, but the actual implementation of those theories needs some work to figure out how they should be incorporated without being corrupted and overtaken by tyrants.
Capitalism didn’t appear over night. It took several attempts and iterations to get it anywhere near what it is today. Most modern theories on the implementation of Marxism focus less on centralized government authority and more on democracy in the work place, and eliminating 3rd party shareholders’ control. Much of the struggle with implementation of this, is that the existing financial structures aren’t set up to handle this type of thing well.
What we have today isn’t really even capitalism anymore. It is becoming something else. We don’t have free markets, for example, because large corporate players are not allowed to fail. Under a central banking system, the state can simply print money to fund its corporate protectorates while artificially suppressing interest rates to avoid paying any interest on the debt. And then we use tariffs and policy to pick and choose winners, suppressing competition. This is about as far from capitalism as one can imagine.
Can you point me to a time when capitalism did happen? Where governments and outside forces weren’t picking winners and losers in the market? In such a time what was the plight of the common worker? Did we see overwork, workplace safety, and child labor issues?
Third wave communism doesn’t seek to abandon the “free market” (which is free within bounds), it instead favors democracy in the workplace. Where all members of the organization are employee-owners including ceos and middle management and the “Board” is dissolved into either a representative or direct democracy made up of employee-owners. In this way one increases the incentives for each individual to perform and see the company perform well. This also mitigates much income inequality by allowing the workers a say in the compensation of middle and upper management.
I personally think communism especially Marxism sounds really good on paper. The problem is that just about every time it has been attempted things didn’t really seem to work like they are supposed to.
Boy, that’s the understatement of the century. Not only did it not work, it often results in mass murder and the ushering in of a totalitarian regime.
That’s why no country has achieved communism they are all authoritarian!
You’re right. Communism is like the greatest social form a society can possibly achieve. The Problem is, that humans are dumb and will always try to get the best out of it for themselves so the concept of communism is ruined by those people. It maybe is practicable in small “society’s” (your family as example) but fails in big societies like states.
Yes, Communism fails to acknowledge human psychology and will therefore never work. People are individuals with self interests. This can never be controlled (without violence) by a socialist/communist society. The good news is you only need selfishness in a free market society. In order for people to get their needs met they need to offer value. Value exchange means all people are better off (on average).
Context for those who are baffled (I was)
https://news.itsfoss.com/linus-torvalds-woke-communists/
No Linus hasn’t grabbed a red rag and isn’t off to foment revolution
I liked the take by the utterly clueless Polish guy in the comment. I think his complete lack of understanding of any context is quite typical of online political conversation, especially when semantics come into play.
Also Linus did call for “Total world domination” (I have the tshirt).
Yes of course, who doesn’t remember how woke Lenin created a woke revolution based on woke teachings of woke Marx and even woker Engels.
Guy’s Finnish. The chances of him being actually communist are pretty much zero.
This might be a dumb question: what do you mean? I know very little about Finland, so I’m just genuinely curious. Are the Finns in particular well-known for being anti-communist or is it more like a geopolitical thing since they share a border with Russia?
I don’t know where this idea that all Finns are anti-communist comes from. Finland had one of the strongest communist movements in Western Europe during the cold war. At the height of their popularity about one in four Finns voted for communists in elections. Card carrying communists sat as ministers in multiple cabinets, up to the early 1980s. Like many young people of his generation, Linus Torvalds’ father was a member of the Communist Party of Finland in the 1970s. And all this happened after Finland had fought against the Soviet Union in the 2nd world war.
Geopolitical yeah
Minor historical event called the Winter War
Fair enough, I suppose. Sometimes it’s hard to tease out cause & effect with things like this (e.g.: the relationships between Germany/France, U.S./Japan, Canada/U.K.). Not that I mind a simple & straightforward bloody historical hate-boner every once in a while.
His father was into the communist party
The Linux to trans anarchocommunist catgirl pipeline is very real. The moment you move to Arch it’s already over.
I’m feeling called out
I just installed pop!_os am I safe?
that’s how I started. nobody’s safe.
Sorry, I don’t speak nyah
Slippery slope my friend!
Oh and don’t forget the autistic-to-linuxer pipeline
I think I could have backed off after moving to Arch. The point of no return was Rust
It didn’t happen to me despite using Linux for 8 years. I guess I am a Windows user in disguise.
As someone who recently fell in love with EndeavorOS I don’t wanna fall down the cat girl pipeline…
It’s to late brother. It’s to late.
uWu
:3 .
Well, I’m probably fucked then. I even have Arch on my gaming PC with KDE and Arch on my school laptop with GNOME(Gnome for Laptops is insanely cool)
I skipped straight to Gentoo.
Catgirls hate this simple trick!
Good thing I’m never going to arch then, lol.
I’m happy with Manjaro.
rant:
I have been using Linux since 2006, a lefty and against the super-rich and big corporations since I remember (to the point of avoiding their products like the plague), also never having understood or accepted gender roles and other stupid traditional concepts, yet never turned into a communist 🤷
It baffles me that so many people think that respecting gender equality, understanding the evil in big corporations and avoiding them, valuing community and being tolerant (except for intolerance) and against discrimination somehow equals communism… I say this because I’ve been called a communist by many people who know me, while I have always rejected it explicitly!
/rant
Id recommend you reading “socialism: utopian and scientific” by Engels. Because to me you sound exactly like the utopian socialist of the past.
What economic model do you believe in?
I can’t really say I believe in a specific model, but to my knowledge, and for the current version of our world, welfare states seem to be doing the least worse currently. But really, I think our world is kinda too fucked up right now to be able to have any good social-economic system (in terms of maximum equality and minimum suffering, I guess.)
Ideally, I’d prefer no state, only local communities managing themselves (something like city states, maybe?) and their relations to other communities… but I know it’s just a dream, at least for the foreseeable future, considering the current realities and the ass-people in power. Because that would need many really peaceful, non-greedy and non-selfish people, which… well, never mind.
P.s. Sorry for the pessimism, and I might be wrong of course, which I really hope I am.
You’re describing communalism, if you’re interested.
Thanks. Maybe, kind of. My knowledge on the topic is limited, but I think communalism (or some version of it) could involve some form of loyalty to one’s ethnic group or community, which absolutely disagree with.
Social responsibility: Yes. But loyalty, especially towards something ultimately meaningless such as ethnicity: No.
My values are respecting individual choices, rights and well-being of others (which also entails some responsibility).I completely agree. However, as I understand, the tradition as it stems from Murray Bookchin explicitly condemns this arbitrary categorisation.
local communities managing themselves (something like city states maybe?) and their relations to other communities
Your describing a Soviet you filthy commie.
But for real what your describing is communism as marx originally thought of it. The one example marx gave as a model for what communism would be was the Paris commune which adheres to a lot of what you said. Most leftist agree that that’s the end goal it’s just a matter of how to get there. Lenin originally pitched the Soviet Union as just that, a bunch of local councils(soviets) freely cooperating and making there own rules. He saw how the Paris commune’s openness and military indecisiveness led to it being brutally suppressed though and wanted an interim top down dictatorship and rapid brutal industrialization to handle this threat. The threat never went away though, first with the Nazis almost annihilating them then the u.s. pointing nukes at them, so neither did the dictatorship.
Their end goal was still avowedly the same though, and communism, to me at least, is about that goal. Their are a bunch of different theoretical paths to it, and there’s tonnes of infighting as to which ones the best, but all communists agree that the commune/Soviet/city state should have all the power.
Thanks for the explanation.
The problem is exactly the “how”, as you described. And personally, I don’t really have any idea, since all the possible ways seem to involve somehow contradicting that goal “temporarily” (by using violence, limiting individual liberties, etc.), which I don’t like. I think maybe over time, (a very long time, perhaps?) the way of thinking of human societies will slowly (and through a painful process) shift to that direction (and maybe not! who knows!).
Either way, life is painful and world is cruel.
Reformism is the term for a path to socialism without the use of violence.
Lenin did not seize absolute power out of some lofty ideal of protecting the workers. He was very motivated about reclaiming the Russian Empire and murdering any workers or separatists that were in his way. Even contemporary communists like Rosa Luxembourg recognized that. Lenin and Stalin had over 20 years to dismantle the state before the Nazis became a threat. Not to mention, the original plan was to ally with the Nazis! The leaders never had any interest in helping workers.
On your first point you should read the question of nationalities which Lenin wrote shortly before his death. He clearly wanted to take down the tsarist apparatus after all the existential threats to the Soviet Union were gone.
Where did Luxembourg say Lenin was trying to recreate the tsarist empire? She was critical of the Bolsheviks authoritarianism but If anything she was also critical of the Bolsheviks limited allowance for nationalism and would’ve suppressed nationalism further, she was a strict internationalist.
If they did dismantle the state apparatus before the Nazis came what do you think would happen? The Soviet Union was barely able to turn the tide of the war with a united front and 20 years of intense, brutal industrialization. If they had dismantled the state and Russia was just a bunch of rural locally run villages in a loose confederation in 1939 the Nazis would’ve steamrolled over them and genocided the population.
Lenin is not the first leader to whitewash imperialism.
That’s pretty similar to the social democratic system that they had in Sweden before the 90s. Many critical services were government agencies, such as the railroad, the phone network, and the pharmacies. Health care and rental housing were handled by the municipality or the county.
And they got the idea from URSS
I’m sure that it could be argued that Sweden had Soviet influence, there was definitely a soviet-backed communist party in Sweden from 1917 until 1977.
But at the same time, Swedish Social Democracy is a completely separate ideology from Soviet Communism, and the parties that implemented these “folkhemmet” policies were 100% hostile to the Soviet Union and any Soviet influence. Sweden has never had any system of communism, nor any USSR-friendly prime ministers or ministers.
Specifically, Per Albin Hansson’s “the people’s home” ideology that he advocated for as prime minister was a reformist, anti-marxist form of social liberalism.
I would say you are somewhere between arnachism and socialism with that view but I am no expert ether!
Those two have big overlaps. “Libertarian socialism” used to be another term for anarchism.
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Sounds a lot like me. That’s not communism, that’s just being a decent person. One that respects others and just wants everyone to live a good life without being the target of hate and harassment.
That’s overlapping with communism.
Linus Torvalds is a “full-blown woke communist”? Citation needed.
I have been a FOSS enthusiast since my preteen or early teenage years (mid-to-late 2000s), yet I am not in any sense a communist.
“full-blown woke communist” is US-speak for “Scandinavian socialist”
The term you want is social democrat, which isn’t socialism but hey, it tries to like, stop people starving to death on the street, if only because it looks ugly.
Nah literally anyone who advocates for basic human rights is a “full blown woke communist”.
Scandinavian corporatist-social-democrat*
Did you know the Scandanavian countries have more economic freedom than the USA! Its their saving grace. They also have many private roads. The early 20th c saw capitalist Nordic countries become very wealthy and store up sovereign funds. These funds were than blown dry in the later half of the century as they became more socialist. They have now abandoned many socialist policies and again adopted freedom. They do however still have high taxation.
His dad was a straight up member of the Finnish Communist Party. He’s still alive, and is even a member of the European Parliament, but seems more liberal/centrist these days.
Linus himself seems to be pretty mum on politics.
To me it always seemed like Linus Torvalds is mostly a pragmatist.
Richard M Stallman on the other hand…
I think the dates are more relevant than the software. COVID pandemic was probably more impactful here than Linux.
He made a comment sarcastically and replied to an accusation labeling himself as such
sudo apt-get install anarchismI now love Debian more than I previously thought possible.
brb installing Debian on all my hardware.
edit: there’s a
fortune-anarchismtoo, amazing.
AUR package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/anarchism
(the pkgbuild is literally just extracting the deb and archiving it again to an arch package lol)
ITT: people who have no idea what communism is
…I just didn’t want windows advertising to me.
But that is sort of why it’s the first step. You were using Windows and were bothered with ads. So you may have looked into an alternative you heard about called Linux. You are new to Linux and maybe ask some questions on forums and interact with people from all over the world that are taking time out of their day to help you, which gives you a sense of community. Then you learn that Linux is licensed as Open Source Software, and that people are working together to create something for the benefit of people, not for profits. Then you start to wonder, what else in my life that bothers me is a result of profit motivation?
You mean the picture is a windows ad ? [edit] typo
Fine, but dont defend tyranical regimes. They are bad no mather who they say they read. They could could claim to be following the teachings of fucking Mr Roggers but if they have concentration camps then thats not utopic or very humanitarian in my opinion, specially if ther is some mad dictator in power with everything no matter how manny extra steps are in between.
On Lemmy? Shock
https://moneyinc.com/linus-torvalds-net-worth/
How Linus Torvalds Achieved a Net Worth of $150 Million
Red Hat and VA Linux went public, and since they acknowledged it would not have been possible without the programmer, Torvalds received shares reportedly worth $20 million. Before it went public, Red Hat had allegedly paid Torvalds $1 million in stock, which the programmer claims was the only big payout he received.
He revealed that the rest of the stock Transmeta and another Linux startup awarded him were not worth much by the time he could sell them. However, in the case of his Red Hat stock, it must have been worth his while because, in 2012, Red Hat became the first $1 billion open-source company when it reached the billion-dollar mark in annual revenue.
Whether he exercised his stock options is unclear, but the money he makes from the gains could be the reason why his net worth has continued to soar.
Well, that’s one definition of being communist, I suppose. Myself, I think that it’s fairly safe to say that Torvalds is okay with private ownership of industry.
People may have read this and got too excited. He just believes in socially left policy. He’s probably not a communist.
I don’t know about his political views, but I think Linus deserves every last penny he got from Red Hat.
I’m no communist, but your argument is flawed.
Linus is not representative of the Linux community and I think the famous Stallman rant regarding GNU/Linux is actually relevant here.
The free software movement is certainly pretty left leaning, though I wouldn’t call them communist.
Tell me you haven’t read the Communist Manifesto without telling me you haven’t read the Communist Manifesto.
There’s a gaping and dangerous misunderstanding in there. Having money or being successful under capitalism doesn’t mean you don’t see its flaws. The idea that rich people can’t be communists is like saying that only gay people can support gay rights.
Believing that the world would be a better place if we pooled our resources has nothing to do with whether you created an operating system that all of global computing relies on.
I don’t even think the meme is about communism as much as it is just venting about how corps turned free-software into the panopticon it is today.
But Idc if Torvalds is a Marxist bc I’m not either, but marx wrote about how the proletariat should own stocks, so that isn’t even disqualifying tho.
And tbh I think most “marxists” just adopt that term because our political discourse is so corrupted that anyone who thinks that we shouldn’t curb-stomp an Amazon employee for wanting a bathroom break is treated like they’re Mao anyway.
Literally same, even the years match up lol
Me too
Fuck communist statist, foss is pure anarchism.
My
brother in ChristComrade in the revolution, Communism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society. Whatever self-proclaimed “Statist Communists” thare are, are no-more Communist than the National “Socialists” who sent our kind to the death camps.The end stage of the dialectic is that, yes. But that’s doesn’t just appear from nothing. Read state and Revolution or What is to be done.
But that’s doesn’t just appear from nothing.
Yea I think that’s kinda their point
Personally while I think all states should be abolished and all resources should be shared on a global scale, I also think that the company that serves my house with Internet should be forced to compete so that we (the people in my city) can get the benefits of capitalism: improved prices and service.
I also believe that the latter is actually a step towards the former - though it’s just a guess.
Anarchism does not necessarily exclude Communism! :)
Good Explanations: https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/index.html for those interested
If only communism could function under voluntarism.
FLOSS is Voluntaryism - it only requires voluntary participation.
Eh, depends on the project
How so?
It seeks to undermind the corrupt copywrite systems and promotes decenteralizrd collaberation and cooperation.
FOSS is Ricks group from The Walking Dead
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Disagree. If FOSS were an anarchism what would be the point of FOSS lincences of which some are very long legal documents? Also corporations would just take your code, say its theirs and tell you to go fuck yourself.
Foss licenses are copyleft, they bar individuals from enclosing the commons built by the collective for profit. Anarchism isn’t just letting people do whatever they want. Anarchism means against hierarchy. Having rules that prevent unjustified hierarchies from forming is entirely with in the bounds of anarchism. Including rules that prevent using copyright as a coercive hierarchy.
All heirarchies are unjustified.
I’d look at foss licenses more as tools of defence against (and within) the current system/context than “rules” that serve to enforce some kind of anti-capitalist “heirarchy”.
Honest question: “Without any authority who gets to enforce the rules?”. Everyone, as they see fit it seems. What makes “your” hierarchy better than “my” hierarchy?
Everyone sort of enforces the rules as they see fit now. The difference is there is an expectation to not resist when someone is abusing their power because they are an authority figure. Under anarchism, it is your peers holding each other accountable, and your right to question actions against you is accepted.
I look at it the other way. In a free and prosperous armed society where common sense rules are respected and insisted upon by the majority who would be stupid enough to break the rules? Let us look at it some other ways. Ebay is one of the largest merchant structures in the world. It is not an authority, but has for decades now used in-house arbitration for disputes. Detroit has a private ‘police force’. It is not an authority. It is a private defence org that also runs a volunteer community protection unit that uses psychology as its main policing tool. Historically we had Panarchy in Ireland. People regardless of territory could voluntarily join a tuath. It would offer legal services. If unsatisfactory the client could join another tuath. Even today way much more is spent on private security than on policing. Maratine law orignally ran on banishment. Did not pay your contract or larder bill. You could no longer dock your ship or be served at a tavern etc. Before the state co-opted the law, there was Common Law! Law does not require authority.
Copyleft is NOT against profit! Go read Stallman! Anarchy mean ‘No Rulers’ not no hierarchy. Call yourself an Anorderist otherwise! Hierarchy is just a form of structure. Some people have management and coordination skills. Others specialise in an area that fits into a greater project. There is nothing wrong in a voluntary structure system. It is only the initiation of force upon structure (see. Government) or otherwise that is a problem.
Tell me you don’t understand anarchism without telling me you don’t understand anarchism.
Communism is when government does something. Anarchism is when you do fuck all to protect yourself.
Government is when an involuntary institution has a mafia protection racket. They show up after a crime and write a report. Anarchism is when you take responsibility for your own protection.
I too just turned into a Marxist after finding out about Linux and software freedom in 2020 lol
I think there might be more than a handful of us. Welcome, comrade.
🫡
What? These things are not related to each other by a good margin. In fact, since the FOSS is completely orderless, it goes against communism; which requires some sort of order just to be able to function. But either way, the parallel is not there or questionable at best, not to mention irrelevant.
Can we NOT drag useless politics into FOSS?
