Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)
Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement. Open source ecosystem primarily run by volunteers has produces some of the most interesting and innovative technologies that we’ve seen. The reality is that people make interesting things because they’re curious and they enjoy making stuff. Pretty much nobody makes anything interesting with profit being the primary motive.
Also without open source the capitalist tech sector would collapse
It wouldn’t necessarily collapse (it wasn’t exactly suffering before FOSS stuff “hit the shelves”, so to speak) but the gatekeeping that comes with it would certainly cause a tremendous amount of stagnation
I work in software development. Almost all modern architecture would collapse without the open source ecosystem.
Isnt every important server run on linux?
Half the user-facing internet broke for a few hours when one guy withdrew a shitty one-liner piece of JavaScript (the whole leftpad thing) because someone somewhere added it as a dependency to a dependency to a dependency until it was pulled into an enormous frontend library. The internet relies more on random open source contributions than a lot of people are aware of.
Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive
Wrong! Linux and open source only shows that the profit motive is not the only motive. One should broaden the definition of profit to encompass value in all its forms. ie A person can gain value from the satisfaction of DIY as it can be self-empowering. One can gain emotional value from sharing. It also invokes the law of reciprocation - value exchange but without a $ sign. The Open source ecosystem is also heavily funded by business who relies on open source components. It is a capital investment.
If the profit motive is not the only motive that drives innovation, as you just agreed, then it isn’t necessary, logically. And not sure why you would then go on to expand the definition of profit into meaninglessness after agreeing there are other motives.
What? How the f do you transition from ‘not only’ to ‘isn’t necessary’? That is not logic - that is mental gymnastics with a triple back flip! Profit is the PRIMARY motivator! People wish to move away from discomfort more than anything else. Currency is the best way of alleviating discomfort!
- If X is a necessary motive for Y, then in the absence of X, Y cannot happen.
- Innovation can happen in the absence of a profit motive.
- Therefore, the profit motive is not necessary for innovation.
People can grow food in the absence of technology - but subsistence living is a hell of time!
nb. Marxists still have no answer for the calculation problem.
So I guess you agree that the profit motive isn’t necessary, because you moved to a completely unrelated point
So I guess you cannot process anything other than black/white logical fallacies let alone analogies.
capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement
I don’t know who is arguing this because it’s incredibly stupid. The greatest scientific minds of history, the mathematicians, the physicists, the inventors, were not capitalists, they’re people with passion for their work.
If we move to a society that guarantees basic human needs and good education, we’re only going to have more scientists and engineers that progress technology even faster.
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
Guy’s Finnish. The chances of him being actually communist are pretty much zero.
The Linux to trans anarchocommunist catgirl pipeline is very real. The moment you move to Arch it’s already over.
I just installed pop!_os am I safe?
that’s how I started. nobody’s safe.
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.
This meme shows completely my journey. I became a FOSS advocate in 2020 after realized that all sites that I visited wanted my “cookies”. I started to questioning myself about and after some research I became a disciple of Richard Stallman and a Marxist-Leninist.
ITT: people who have no idea what communism is
I think there is something fundamental about the pull of investigating, understanding, and reading that leads to so much crossover between the two.
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.
Just began using Linux, was already Marxist
sorted by controversial and found this post. why? this is amazing
In my view Torvalds is more of a pragmatic stoicist.
The multi millionaire linus torvalds is a communist?
Hahaha…
I don’t think you actually know what communism is.
That tends to be the case for vast majority of anti-communists out there.
Am I doing it wrong because I’ve use Ubuntu (12 years) and Kali Linux (8 years) and… I’m still not a marxist?
Skill issue
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.
This is what happens when everything you know is based on vibes instead of actually reading any theory or history from primary source historians instead of third.
Not really sure what you’re trying to say here.
I’m saying I don’t believe you’ve ever engaged with communism. I don’t believe you’ve read a single book. I don’t believe you’ve even read a single pamphlet. I don’t think you could give me a simplified breakdown of what historical materialism is and I don’t believe you could tell me what the 5 basic classes are that marxists define, along with a simple 1 sentence description of their scientific definition. I don’t think you were a communist and I don’t think you know anything about the “historical record of communism” beyond what you have passively consumed from the far right wing fuckwads that you’ve surrounded yourself with and allowed to rot your brain. I’m saying that the confident manner in which you bullshit about these things is a severe personal failing.
All of these are 101 things that anyone who has actually engaged with the topic of socialism for more than like 1 single week would be able to answer instantly and easily.
I’m saying that your political opinions and knowledge of history is based on vibes that you have attained from the massive quantity of propaganda you uncritically consume and not from any actual meaningful knowledge.
Clear enough?
You’ve not looked into Communism too much have you?
Marx had the opportunity to see Communist movements rise in his own timeline. And he opposed the implementation of Communism in a Democratic manner. And wrote about it in his criticiques of the Germany’s Communist movements source. In his criticiques he lays out how he believes a transitional state should be laid out, how it should be organized. And later Lenin refers extensively to this blueprint in his written works and it’s clear to me upon reading that he truly believes what he says.
In my experience about almost every modern day Communist hear arguments made about the USSR not being based in Communism and have failed to even hear of this critique of the mythic Democratic Communism they believe I’m so much.
Read the critique, and given everything you know about human beings tell me honestly, do you truly believe a multi-generational dictatorship of the proletariat, led by you (or someone whom you’d champion), would really work?
I’m saying that your political opinions and knowledge of history is based on vibes…
I’ve been on the internet a very long time. But this is the first time I’ve seen a Communist (or anyone really) ague their position based on the vibes of the person their arguing against.
Yeah so you’re avoiding everything I said and injecting a completely different topic that you also don’t understand.
Marx’s critique isn’t with democracy it’s with bourgeoise-democracy. You would understand this if you understood even the basic bare minimum about marxist theory. All you are doing here is demonstrating that you do not understand the difference between what marxists refer to as a bourgeoise-democracy and what marxists refer to as a proletarian-democracy. Or if you prefer, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie vs the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Marx’s “opposition to democracy” that you are utilising for bullshit propaganda here is opposition to using the mechanisms of bourgeoise-democracy to achieve socialism (because they’re designed for the bourgeoisie and to produce outcomes the bourgeoisie want) and instead advocates for revolution to destroy that dictatorship-of-class and install a new democracy of the workers, a new dictatorship of class but one instead run by the working class (the vast majority) instead of the former ruling class (the bourgeoisie, the vast minority).
These are incredibly basic 101 concepts that, if you were a communist as you claim, you would already be aware of and understand. You were not a communist. You haven’t even read a pamphlet like the manifesto, let alone the Critique Gotha Programme that you’re linking to. I have though. And to anyone that actually HAS read these things that you’re pretending to have read you look like and absolute clown who is winging it.
Marx’s critique isn’t with democracy it’s with bourgeoise-democracy.
Marx’s critique isn’t with democracy, it’s with democracy that disagrees with him.
All you are doing here is demonstrating that you do not understand the difference between what marxists refer to as a bourgeoise-democracy and what marxists refer to as a proletarian-democracy.
I do understand the difference. The difference is that to transition from the former to the later, Marx advocates for violent revolution and the establishment of a dictatorship to “re-educate” the populace. It’s practically hand waved over by Marx and modern Communists, but it’s the most important part of the process. Who controls that dictatorship has all the effective powers of a dictatorship and has the ability to make life for the people they rule hell. Essentially Marx unironically created a worse version of Feudalism where there was no check on the power of the ruler(s) on the assumption that compassion.
a new dictatorship of class but one instead run by the working class (the vast majority) instead of the former ruling class (the bourgeoisie, the vast minority).
Unfortunately, even in a post revolution environment; the working class will never voluntarily choose to rule in the fashion that Marx things they would. No matter the re-education instilled.
You haven’t even read a pamphlet like the manifesto, let alone the Critique Gotha Programme that you’re linking to. I have though. And to anyone that actually HAS read these things that you’re pretending to have read you look like and absolute clown who is winging it.
My interpretation of it is essentially Lenin and Mao’s interpretation of it, just with the benefits of historical hindsight. I imagine, a younger, more idealistic me in 1920s St. Petersburg would have been a proud Bolshevik with the utmost confidence in the party leadership to lead us into a glorious, worker led future. If that makes me a clown whose winging it; my only request is that I get some ranch dipping sauce so at least I can get my vibes right.
“Dictatorship” doesn’t mean the same thing when Marx uses it vs what you understand the word to mean. Marx is talking about a dictatorship of CLASS. IE a large group of people within society. In liberal democracy the “ruling class” are the bourgeoisie, the capitalists, the billionaires and millionaires. They are the ruling class because when they led the revolutions to overthrow feudalism they designed the new system so that they would be the ruling class. That’s how it works. A dictatorship of CLASS.
Marx calls for exactly the same thing. A revolution that overthrows the current ruling class and installs a new ruling class. When the bourgeoisie overthrew the monarchs and their aristocracy they installed themselves as the ruling class, Marx calls for overthrowing the bourgeoisie and installing the proletariat as the new ruling class.
This isn’t a downgrade to democracy it is an UPGRADE to democracy. The current system only produces the results that the bourgeoisie wants. Socialism on the other hand with the proletariat in charge produces the results that the proletariat want.
My interpretation of it is essentially Lenin and Mao’s interpretation of it, just with the benefits of historical hindsight.
No it isn’t because your description above is fucking wrong. I’m telling you what Lenin and Mao’s interpretation is literally right now. This is basic as fuck stuff.
Who controls that dictatorship has all the effective powers of a dictatorship and has the ability to make life for the people they rule hell.
You’re acting like socialist countries don’t objectively provide a better quality of life than capitalist countries when compared at an equal level of development lmao. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/
Your understanding of any of these topics is incredibly vulgar. A warped and contorted understanding that you’ve only learned through extremely passive engagement with the topic.
you don’t have to defend the history of communism-aspiring countries to be in favor of communism ;)
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?
