Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

  • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
    61·
    1 year ago

    I was feeling the last part had some more story behind it so I went ahead and found this:

    Seems like I’m a full-blown woke communist too

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.oneEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      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

      • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
        01·
        1 year ago

        In my mind, “woke” has two meanings that apply to this context:

        • positive: aware of the hardships different groups of people might face
        • negative: overboard political correctness, cancel culture

        It’s entirely possible to be pro-woke and anti-woke at the same time because of this.

    • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • 0_0@lemmy.world
        1·
        9 months ago

        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.

      • clover@slrpnk.net
        01·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • 0_0@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          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.

          • clover@slrpnk.netEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            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.

  • ConfusedLlama@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    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

  • StaySquared@lemmy.world
    1·
    4 months ago

    Am I doing it wrong because I’ve use Ubuntu (12 years) and Kali Linux (8 years) and… I’m still not a marxist?

  • xarexyouxmadx@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 months ago

    In my experience I’ve noticed Linux tends to (disproportionately) attract both libertarians and socialists/communists. I feel like I run into more of both within the Linux community than I do in other communities.

    I started using Linux because I couldn’t force myself to use Windows 8. Up to that point I used whatever version of Windows came right before the graphical interface but 8 was too awful so I started playing with mint and never went back…

    I got off the capitalism train in the middle of that but that was only because I decided to major in business and when I saw how the sausage was made I jumped ship but I didn’t know anything about socialism or communism or marxism or whatever you want to call it. I was so not into politics or economics that I literally had to search the Internet and ask people on social media what was an alternative to the crap I was reading for my classes… And then I went down that rabbit hole. If was enlightening. I learned a lot.

    Also… for people who think college is Marxist indoctrination…Marx was brought up for one paragraph in one book at the very very end of my 4 years. But by that point I already knew who he was just from the rabbit hole I went down when I was curious for some alternative to what I was being taught.

  • CaptKoala@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Yes, I agree, I am at stage 3 and stage 4 looks more enticing every single damn day.

  • whou@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • rk96@lemmy.one
    0·
    1 year ago

    I am a full blown capitalist, and I despise google and the entire online ad industry and its tracking, I’d say all of my apps (except for games) are foss or atleast somewhat open source

  • systemglitch@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 year ago

    I have trouble imagining ever being proud of being a communist. It’s right up there with all the bad things in society.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Keith@lemm.ee
      1·
      9 months ago

      He made a comment sarcastically and replied to an accusation labeling himself as such

  • mwguy@infosec.pub
    0·
    1 year ago

    Ironic as I went the other way. I was a Communist when I got into FOSS and as I got older I realized I could never defend the historical record of Communism.