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Why Free Software Evangelist Richard Stallman is Haunted by Stalin's Dream (factordaily.com)
Richard Stallman recently visited Mandya, a small town about 60 miles from Bengaluru, India, to give a talk. On the sidelines, Indian news outlet FactorDaily caught up with Stallman for an interview. In the wide-ranging interview, Stallman talked about companies that spy on users, popular Android apps, media streaming and transportation apps, smart devices, DRM, software backdoors, subscription software, and Apple and censorship. An excerpt from the interview: If you are carrying a mobile phone, it is always tracking your movements and it could have been modified to listen to the conversations around you. I call this product Stalin's dream. What would Stalin have wanted to hand out to every inhabitant of the former Soviet Union? Something to track that person's movements and listen to the person's conservations. Fortunately, Stalin could not do it because the technology didn't exist. Unfortunately for us, now it does exist and most people have been pressured or lured into carrying around such a Stalin's dream device, but not me.
I am suspicious of new digital technology. I expect it to have new malicious functionalities. It has happened so many times that I have learned to expect this, so I have always checked before I start using some new digital technology. I asked to find out what is nasty about it and I found out these two things. It was something like 20 years ago, and I decided it was my duty as a citizen to refuse, regardless of whatever convenience it might offer me. To surrender my freedom in this way was failing to defend a free society. This is why I do not have a portable phone. I refuse to carry a portable phone. I never have one and unless things change, I never will. I do use portable phones, lots of different ones. If I needed to call someone right now, I would ask one of you, "Could you please make a call for me?" If I am on a bus and it is late and I need to tell somebody that I am going to arrive late, there is always some other passenger in the bus who will make a call for me or send a text for me. Practically speaking, it is not that hard.
I am suspicious of new digital technology. I expect it to have new malicious functionalities. It has happened so many times that I have learned to expect this, so I have always checked before I start using some new digital technology. I asked to find out what is nasty about it and I found out these two things. It was something like 20 years ago, and I decided it was my duty as a citizen to refuse, regardless of whatever convenience it might offer me. To surrender my freedom in this way was failing to defend a free society. This is why I do not have a portable phone. I refuse to carry a portable phone. I never have one and unless things change, I never will. I do use portable phones, lots of different ones. If I needed to call someone right now, I would ask one of you, "Could you please make a call for me?" If I am on a bus and it is late and I need to tell somebody that I am going to arrive late, there is always some other passenger in the bus who will make a call for me or send a text for me. Practically speaking, it is not that hard.
That works because everyone else is carrying Stalin's dream.
If nobody did, it'd be like the times before everyone had a cell phone. Life was quite tolerable then too.
Leftist is a term used by people who have run out of arguments. And probably thoughts.
There are no leftists in America that want Stalin's Dream. The people running tech companies are hard core Libertarians who would run over their own dogs if that dog was getting in between them and their stock options.
That's Capitalism, sport, nothing leftist about it. Tech wants to spy on you and sell your information. There is nothing liberal about that.
Find a new word, "leftist" fails as an insult because it is meaningless to everyone outside of the Glenn Beck/Alex Jones/Q-Anon crowd.
Like most leftists, he's fine with using Stalin's Dream as long as it's invading your life and not his
Bullshit.
He's saying quite clearly no one who cares about their freedom and/or privacy should carry around one of these devices. He's right.
He's also (indirectly implying or saying) that most people choose convenience over freedom. He's right about that too.
Finally, he's making the point to those who might care _almost_ as much about their freedom as convenience that, as long as there are so many people willing to trade their freedom for convenience, those who care about such things can piggy-back off of them to get almost the same level of convenience without compromising their location 24/7/365.25. He's right about that as well.
He is not saying "Freedom for me, not for you" he's merely mentioning a useful workaround that he probably himself hopes will become untenable someday (because everyone "sees the light" and stops carrying surveillance devices around). He's also implicitly acknowledging that that is most likely a pipe-dream, and he's right about that most of all.
But nice try on the right-wing anti-leftist spin against a guy who had the audacity to share his source code with the world, and write a license to help others do the same. I'm sure Putin likes you very much.
It's interesting -- I remember the first time I read Utopia (probably in high school?), my objection was that Moore's premise of living a perfect life in a perfect society relied on letting somebody else fight all the wars.
I respect Stallman and I'm glad he's out there, but I smell a whiff of that here: it's "not that hard" for him to live without the convenience of a cell phone because he's able to assume someone else will be.
It's strange that he doesn't just carry a pre-paid phone with the battery taken out. I don't carry a cell phone either but, I keep a pre-paid one in my car (or sometimes laptop bag if I'm traveling) with the battery taken out. No tracking, no listening and I basically get a portable pay phone that doesn't need quarters to operate.
Liberal means 'pro liberty', more or less, the opposite of (leftist/marxist/socialist/progressive/American 'liberal').
Liberal means holding a broad worldview and being open to new ideas. It's not about liberty, per se. And that means having your eyes wide open and caring about the freedoms and rights of people other than yourself and not just your own interests.
Why do you want to write something like this? It's like proudly having a text saying "I'm ignorant" on ones forehead.
This. These people aren't spying because of their party. They are spying because it pays them billions to.
...unless we're in China.
This is not an argument for either "side" per se, but rather a note of comparison:
In generally free societies, you get spied on for profit (if they can), and little-to-nothing more. The worst they do with your data to is sell what they learn about you to advertisers, who them toss up ads that hopefully get past ad-blockers and try to entice you out of some of your money.
Now let's contrast that with a totalitarian-oriented society, where that data, coupled with omnipresent external cameras, facial recognition, a bit of AI to back it up, and a government-owned/run social credit rating that can either make your life easier (if you're a 'model citizen'), or infinitely harder (if you don't sufficiently conform)?
Now - which of the two do you figure to be the most dangerous to individual life and liberty?
To be honest, I don't much mind carrying a smartphone in the US (half the time I'm out of any cell range anyway, given my rural locale). By contrast, I'd be scared shitless to carry one around if I were a citizen and resident of, say, Shanghai.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
No. It means individual freedom, but for everyone rather than the elite.
Our loss of privacy was handed away gleefully, as if we were kids given candy.
Since early on, I advocated that whatever the level of transparency, it should be mutual. If government can read my conversations then I should be able to read theirs, as it pertains to mine. The same for commercial organizations. Of course, some level should be set. I mean regardless, I don't want them watching me poop. But then again, if it's my doctor and I can see that my doctor is doing this to monitor my health then I could be leanient even on that. So it's not a trade between privacy and security -- it's a balance of mutual privacy that we need.
On the other hand, I think the issues of fake information, information overload, and relationship destroying social media comments are all bigger issues.
Socialism creates a system in which everyone cares about the decisions that other people make. It does this to the point that people start mandating behaviors in other people.
Socialized medicine, for example, takes everyone's money and spends it on the group's health costs. I, as a dedicated taxpayer, now care when idiots start smoking - I have to pay for their cancer care, and I feel cheated by the poor decisions of others. It is only natural, in this scenario, that I should feel that people should be prevented from smoking in order to eliminate this unfair burden upon me - the system has set me up to make decisions for what others do to their own bodies. This is de facto slavery, and it is morally bankrupt and reprehensible.
If the system causes this, then the system is morally bankrupt and reprehensible.
How so? How do open borders = death to the working class? Our most productive time in American history saw a large amount of immigration. The minimum wage ensures legal citizens are paid at least at the same starting point. Oh, you must mean those illegals, right? Hmm...and I wonder how they're getting jobs that place them below the federally mandated minimum wage? Oh, that's right, corporations. See an illegal in America doesn't work a job unless a company hires him to begin with. So the real death of the working class isn't Jose from Mexico, it's Bob the CEO from Fuck You, USA who is saying "I'm going to break the law and hire this person and pay them under the table at a severely reduced wage, because fuck America." Perhaps instead of a wall, we need mandatory background checks and employer new-hire reporting and auditing.
You health insurers, your employers, and everyone who wants your money, your labor, or your vote, without necessarily having anything else to offer. Basically, everyone. Not everyone can afford it, yet.
Are we at the point where you will get charged an extra 10% because you have shown enthusiasm for a product, or paid a bad price before, or live in a wealthy area?
Are we at the point where your dentist will use your posts to see how much discomfort you are in, so that he can inflate the treatment?
Are you going to get a bad life insurance because you enjoy jetskying?
Are your kids going to have trouble getting into a specific talent school because they got into a fight when they were 10?
Is your coworker going to forward to your boss a statement you made on the clock, or a statement about some quality the boss has, or just something random the boss may dislike?
Is your work/school laptop/phone configured to spy on you on demand, and is the security going to be porous enough to let everyone and his grandmother join in?
Etc, etc, etc.
Most of the above has happened. The rest will, soon enough.
And that's without errors. With errors, your wife name will match that on a known (male!) terrorist, and you will spend three ours in a detention room abroad, or your house will match the location of a stolen item, you will be placed at the scene of a crime in the next state, and what not. Bounty hunters have already broken into the wrong person's house...
All of these can happen without the technology we accept into our houses and pockets. But with the technology, every idiot can get on the game. And with enough monkeys on the branch, any branch will break.
No good deed goes unpunished...
The wife name matching a terrorist name, and having to spend hours in a detention room in a Canadian airport happened to me. My wife's first name name is Alison, she goes by Allie, and I assume she matched an Ali from a former USSR republic (my last name is Slavic)
She is a redhead, out one year daughter was with us, and we were told the name of the list was male. It still took them hours to clear us.
Of course, you do not have to believe me.
No good deed goes unpunished...