May 2019

Do not join the free software movement

Submitted by Duion on

This is kind of a follow up to my last blog post, but with a more specific example, I had lots of experience with myself.

Most people probably never considered to join that movement anyway, since they are not for free or open source software, but this advice is for people that are for free and open source software and understand why you should be for it.

So what should you do to progress free and open source software? I don't really know what to do, but now I know with high certainty what not do to, don't join the movement that is for free and open source software, since that is probably the most destructive thing you can do to promote free and open source software.

So why do I say that? Well first my personal experiences with that community and my experiences with outsiders of that community. Now I think that movement is a cult. Viewed from outside of that community it is universally hated, especially for the GPL license which I wrote about before ( https://duion.com/blogs/why-i-dont-use-gpl-license ). In short almost everyone hates it, because of the high restrictions it brings, even though it is supposed to progress freedom, but it is designed to be so restrictive, that a good use outside of the free software cult becomes as close to impossible as possible. People inside the cult do not realize, that they are hated from normal people, since they only live and interact within their cult and  to become hated is obviously not a good way to promote a thing. I was even hated for just wanting to promote free and open source software, because people directly associated me with the "official" movement that is supposed to promote it and since they hated that, they hated me. So overall not a good start, but it gets much worse.

Then when I tried to engage with the cult members, they seemed nice and friendly at first and seemed to be for promoting free and open source software, there was only the spirit of stagnation inside I did not really want to realize at first. So I tried to socialize and contributed, in my case I developed open source games and game content, but over time I realized I did not receive any form of gratitude from that movement, even though I was one of their best contributors, not only were they not grateful, they did not even help me, not even mention me as form of promotion, there was absolutely nothing, but it gets even worse. Over time people started to criticize me (even though they always tried to censor criticism made by me) and started to complain, that my contributions were not good enough and my license was not good enough ( it was too liberal, they wanted more restrictive GPL cancer licenses ). I still did not thing negatively about that and continued, after that their harassment became worse and they constantly threatened me I would have to change my behavior and censored things I said, they did not like and then later they banned me on most of their platforms and even when I left some cult members followed me around the rest of the internet and kept harassing me, which is what finally pissed me off. First they do not let me join or help me, but then they also do not want to let me go, well of course they don't want to, since I'm one of their best contributors, in a certain niche probably the only contributor that existed.

I don't understand what goes on inside those peoples heads, they sit on their ass, do nothing on their own to progress their supposed cause for free software, but then complain to others who actually do something, that their contribution is not good enough and their behavior is wrong and has to be "corrected" otherwise they need to be censored. It looks like those people just organize themselves to steal credit of other peoples work, sure most of those people did some mostly minor contributions in the past at some point, but then switched over to doing nothing and only running the movement and trying to hire other people into their cult and they think by "motivating others" they can progress the cause. "Motivating" to them means only to talk positive and censor everyone who says something critical, like me. What they try to do is some form of human farming which I wrote about also as well ( https://duion.com/blogs/social-media-human-farming ), of course it is much easier to let others do the work, then take credit for it and even collect donations for stealing credit from others, so they steal money from others through donations for stealing credit from others, so others do the work and you get the credit and the money, seems like a good deal.

I tried to tell them, if they would spend their efforts into actually doing something and giving the donation money to people who actually do something for real, they could progress infinitely faster than now doing nothing. There are many people from poorer countries that would do a lot of work for that money, but a fat well fed lazy westerner will not even move a finger for that money, I had even guys argue to me like that "Dude I make 200 per hour, I would not even stand up for that few hundred dollars", what wonders me in those cases is why those people not donate any of their own money to progress their cause instead, it would be even more productive than doing the work yourself, since others do better work for less money, but they did not like that suggestion as well. They did not like my highly logical and convincing arguments and banned me instead and because I'm censored everywhere on their platforms I have to write in my own corner again.

Well in the end it was just to be supposed to be an argument why not to join that movement. Of course most people never get into that trouble, because they are well behaved slave cult members, but they will not progress the supposed charitable project for more free software either, nor do they become significantly productive within their cult. Of course they praise each other constantly, but since they censor real criticism, they never progress and the whole thing just looks like a joke to outsiders and they don't take it serious or understand the issue.

If your really want to progress free and open source software, I would suggest you to stay normal and not become a cult weirdo, but try to teach people common sense why free and open source software is important. People don't care about the politics or idealistic side so much, they rather care about how it practically benefits them and it will benefit them a lot, they just don't understand it yet. Then pick some project you would like to contribute and do so and find like minded people outside of cults, if possible, or try to get them out of it. Also never donate money to organizations, it is almost always totally wasted, rather do something yourself, or pay someone to do something you can then use or contribute yourself, you at least see a result that way or donate to private people who actually do something directly.

Always remember, actually doing something for real does help much more than not doing anything for real and just talking nicely each other and throwing money somewhere down the drain and hoping it will change something. And of course don't join that cult, especially if you are for it, this may sound illogical at first, but you have to understand hypocrisy and that many people don't actually mean what they say and not actually do what they pretend to do.

Blog Reference: 
Software

Never join groups if you want to be free

Submitted by Duion on

This is another important life lesson I have learned. I'm not sure yet if it is a universal rule and one should absolutely never join groups or if it just should be a general guideline that one should be skeptic of the groups and joining them sometimes is justified. After many experiences of that kind I tend to think it is some kind of universal rule and absolute statements sound better anyway.

I probably need to define group first, since it could be confusing what is meant with that. Well let me explain it with an allegory, it is obvious to most people that you should not join cults. Why should you not join cults? Because you get brainwashed, exploited, enslaved, harassed, harmed etc, well not absolutely, but tendential you will encounter at least some of those negative consequences to some degree. What does that have to do with "groups"? Well a group is the same as a cult, it usually just has a lower intensity and is therefore not recognized as a cult.

The social dynamics of cult like behavior probably starts as soon as you form or join groups. On one side you have the individual, which is the most independent and free form of human being and on the other side of the spectrum you have the fully assimilated group member who is fully dependent on the group and fully identified by it. The individual can think and behave how he wants, he is free, but as soon as he starts to be part of a group, he has to limit his individuality and his freedom to be part of the group and the more he is part of the group, the less he is himself. Don't tell me you can be in a group and an individual at the same time, since if you have a group completely made out of complete individuals, there would be nothing that would identify them as being in that group and so they are not a group.

People usually join groups because they like the benefits of the group, for example they automatically gain the reputation that the group brings with it and they can be together with others and feel loved and accepted. However this all is a dangerous double edged sword since you first have to give up something of yourself in order to gain the groups favor and the acceptance and love you gain turns into rejection and hate, if you don't conform enough. For example you  gain the groups reputation by being a good member slave, but you also automatically gain the bad reputation the group may have in the normal population or in rivaling groups, which is almost always the case. Even if the group is universally hated by anyone else except the group itself, people still see it as a benefit, because it strengthens the relationship inside the group, but this is where cults start and you start going down a one way road into hell and/ or insanity, since you lose touch with the real world.

Most of you probably have had experiences where they were judged by the group they were in or judged others because of the group the others were in. If you are in a group, you make it easy for others to label and judge you and when you are in a group that is very cult-like already, you are automatically dismissed by normal people and not taken serious ever again by anyone outside your cult. That is why I see it as very important now to never join groups, of course sometimes you have to go into groups etc but you should never assimilate into them fully and keep your individuality.

For example if you want to play tennis, you may need to join a tennis club and be part of that group so you have someone to play with, but you don't have to become a snob like everyone else there, you can stay yourself in your private life.

That's how I deal with it in my life also if the group tries to draw me in and starts trying to manipulate me, I just leave or better said, I get banned, because I don't go along with their manipulation. Very cult like groups automatically kick out non compatible people, but it usually takes a while for them to find that out, so you better figure it out before them and leave to save yourself a lot of drama and trouble. But don't worry if you fall for cults again, since even I as very non cult compatible person who is pretty much an expert in that area occasionally falls for cults, since cult like dynamics can start very subtle as soon as you have groups and only get worse over time. That's why I say to never join any groups to make sure you never fall for that again.

First I wanted to write about my personal experiences with several cult groups, but then I decided to make it more general, since if I name the cults I just get harassed again by their cult members. It is already bad enough since they already attack me, if they just think I'm talking about them, even though I ignore them. But luckily most of the cult members cannot escape their cults and move freely on the real internet to be able to read that here anyway.

Blog Reference: 
General

Social media is human farming

Submitted by Duion on

Recently I realized how genius the invention of social media is, it is probably one of the biggest cons to ever exist.

Let me make an analogy:

Imagine you go into a store that sells nothing, but over time the customers bring products into the store, that are then owned by the store and the customer then buys the products made from other customers, but does not pay the maker of the products for it, but the store owner and the customers are also owned by the store and the store can also sell the customers to other stores as he wants, additionally he can make up the rules what the customers are allowed to produce, bring in and buy or take out, sometimes the customers can even be made to maintain the store as well for free, or even pay the store for its great "service" it delivers, for just being there.

Such a store is totally insane and nobody would go into that, but that is pretty much what social media on the internet is and people love it.

I never undestood why people worship the owners of certain platforms on the internet so much. They justify it by that the platform is offering a "free service" to them and that the platform needs so much maintenance and admins etc, but in reality there is not so much efford and cost involved for the platform owner once the initial setup has been done. A well setup platform is almost maintenance free and even the maintenance can be outsourced to the customers, so they work for free to help maintain the platform. Sometimes the platform even manages to collect donations for that, so the cusomter pays the platform, for the right that the customers can work for it.

The real costs are processing power and traffic volume, but this is in the fraction of cents per customer. You also need a competent sysadmin, since mistakes in that area can destroy the whole platform at once. But once that hurdle is made and the customers are so many that the costs rise significantly, you have lots of opportunities to capitalize on them. My point is just that what the platforms offer is much less than most people imagine, some companies manage millions of customers through a handful of employees and the more competent the employees are, the more can be automated to be done by computers.

The genius behind that is hardly imagineable. It is like a farm where once you have trapped the farm animals/humans, you practically own them and everything they produce, so you can sell their products as you want and even the farm animals itself. Of course you cannot directly own human slaves, but you can sell those humans as customers in form of advertising or their data which then can be used to manipulate them into making them buy more of what they themselves have produced anyway.

Of course not all social media is like that, social media itself just means that the users can interact and contribute, but in the long run this gives power to the platform itself, which in almost all cases will be abused, to create human farms of various degrees of severity. Some human farms are almost not exploiting their farm animals and are satisfied with having the maintenance paid and sell clicks or ads, but some other farms try to capitalize on everything and even try to invent terms of service where everything the farm animal has created on the farm is owned by the farm.

Sometimes I feel like an idiot doing actual work to create content myself, when I see that other people are just running platforms and receive much more fame and money even though they are doing nothing, except farming other people for their content. Sure the initial step is pretty hard to create a good system and to trap people in it, but once that is achieved you receive constant income, since farm animals once trapped, hardly ever leave, because of some form of Stockholm Syndrome.

There also exist ineffective farms which hardly bring profit or operate at a loss constantly, but the incompetent operators are happy with their privileged status on the platform itself, like being an admin or so. Their main goal is to extort power over other people, regardless of the initial intention of the platform. It is similar to the charity organisations that at first do real charity, but in the long run all donations are "lost" in the "management" process aka corruption. The same seems to apply to internet organizations like social media platforms, that once they are up and running they stop to do any real work and stop producing anything and just take in the profits that others generate for them for free.

So if you really want to become successful, you cannot do real work yourself, since you cannot do more than you can do yourself, but have to make others do the work for you. Once you accumulate the work of others, you become more famous than you could be with your own work and then you will be worshipped even more by the farm animals which in turn makes you gain more farm animals that produce more for you, which then will repeat the cycle. Well this sounds easy in theory, but the problem in reality is, once you become a human farmer instead of a human slave worker, you enter a whole other area of the game, where you then compete with other human farmers and this competition is hard, since most farmland is already owned by someone who will not give it away.

However I don't really recommend becoming a human farmer, since exploiting others is immoral and additionally I think it creates products of inferior quality, since most people you can trap into such systems are incompetent to begin with and of not much use when it comes to producing quality and also a human farm limits of what can be done, especially in art it is important to have freedom of expression which is necessary to create quality art.

Blog Reference: 
Internet