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.

Comments

Bad for me, but not for thee

[PrimeWaveZ]

Like most leftists, he's fine with using Stalin's Dream as long as it's invading your life and not his

Re: Bad for me, but not for thee

[Richard Stalin]

The funny thing is that the US police state has its roots in the post-WWII anti-Soviet CIA, and these witch hunts spread for decades, being wildly accelerated by both Bushes and Obama. The past several decades have seen a drastic increase in media conglomeration to be owned by a few wealthy individuals while they push the facets of socialism to the unwashed masses (as we see on this site, thanks, BizX) to create a nation of dependents. What was there is now here.

Welcome to Soviet America.
Land of the fee and home of the slave.

Re:Bad for me, but not for thee

[HornWumpus]

There is nothing liberal about leftism. Liberal means 'pro liberty', more or less, the opposite of (leftist/marxist/socialist/progressive/American 'liberal').

Leftist say they aren't authoritarians. But they lie, the dumb ones lie to themselves, the half smart ones lie to the dumb ones. Any non-imaginary political philosophy based on Marxism is a command economy, which has to be authoritarian by definition. Can't self organize, no markets, no price signals.

You can claim leftist don't exist, _nobody_ believes you. Are we to believe you, or our own lying eyes and ears? They just have to change names about every 20 years, as people figure out it's just 'them' again.

Re:Seems like a weird approach

[UnknownSoldier]

> So RMS won't carry a cell phone himself, but he will borrow someone else's, placing a call or a text to people he knows. Which would then be traceable back to a location. That doesn't make sense.

It's called being a hypocrite.

All he has done is defer the problem.

He's fine with someone else trading their freedoms when it's convenient for HIM but when it comes to him trading his freedom it's now inconvenient. That's a REAL nice double standard you got there.

Standing for your principles doesn't let you off the hook with people who don't share them.

Analogy of Stallman's "Logic":

I don't murder people so I'll hire this hit man to do it for me.

HUH!?!?

Either you are part of the solution or part of the problem. He is still part of the problem -- regardless of how he justifies it.