Especially the MIT license lends itself super well to exploitation by big tech. I just don’t get why it’s become all the rage in the open source space the past couple decades.

There’s a few reasons I think, some cool new things have big corporate sponsorships to get them off the ground and those sponsors would want a permissive license, MIT license has also long been linked to BSD so BSD fanboys like it, and also the open source community is pretty split between libertarians and leftists, MIT is generally popular with the libertarians, and GPL is generally popular with the leftists. Just in my personal experience!

And yet, within the span of 3 comments, I’ve learned enough…

It’s easy to say “no, I oppose genocide, actually”, but you’re so blinded by pure obedience to the democratic party line that you put team sports before humanity. it’s genuinely really sad.

Yeah, that’s a fair point, although, Nazi Germany was toppled by literal communists and there were very successful resistance and partisan movements throughout the regime.

The brain washing will continue until there is nobody left who even thinks of resistance.

I don’t think that’s true. At the risk of being cringe, I’ll quote Nemik’s manifesto from Star Wars Andor:

There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try.

Authoritarian regimes are generally quite unstable compared to democracies, because humans naturally resist being oppressed. You’re totally right that it’s harder and that we need to organize now, and that’s what I’m trying to encourage people to do.

and a modicum of nuance is when you support a genocide, I’m assuming?

…so you don’t even know? Or what?

It’s fucking unbelievable to me the way you write about this, like supporting a genocide is like some little understandable human foible or something. Supporting a genocide makes you completely nonviable. Full stop. Nothing more needs to be said. You would vote for Hitler himself if he ran on a Dem ticket against Mussolini.

You can just read the rest of my comments for the answer to your questions, I’ve already explained it at least half a dozen times and I’m getting a bit tired of doing so.

boiled down their argument so you could understand

Man, just fuck off. This comment is so overwhelmingly smarmy.

America isn’t a democracy for a whole number of reasons and they’re not pedantic. I would explain it to you but you probably wouldn’t understand so I’ll just not fucking bother.

Authoritarian regimes are only ever toppled by resistance movements like this, but they’re MUCH harder to build once the authoritarian regime tightens its grip. That’s why we need to do it now, instead of wasting time campaigning for Gavin Newsom or whatever fucking ghoul the democrats nominate.

People in this thread really do sure love telling me what my point is and getting it completely wrong somehow despite my having written literally thousands of words explaining my point today.

My point is that there are only marginal differences between the Republicans and the Democrats, and that a stance of “Vote Blue, No Matter Who” is a completely ineffective measure of harm reduction in the long run, and actually makes things worse.

Also, what “multiple genocides” are you referring to? I have some ideas but I don’t want to jump to conclusions.

Kamala literally supported the genocide in Gaza, and Obama and Biden killed a shitload of kids. They really aren’t that different. The differences are primarily aesthetic and procedural.

Carter was a neoliberal who paved the path towards fascism that we are now walking on. He undermined FDR’s New Deal style policies, weakened labor unions and normalized austerity and pro-market, anti-regulatory reforms that his successor, Reagan, milked the shit out of. But, yes, he performatively put solar panels on the roof of the White House. You make my point for me.

Re-read my comment, concentrate, and try again

Ehhhh, it’s not really so clear cut, especially with non-GPL licensed open source software - corporations love unpaid labor

I don’t see how I’m talking past you, I directly addressed the argument. The differences between the democrats and the republicans are mainly aesthetic and procedural. The whole “no war without a vote in congress” is a great example, they’re not mad that kids are being blown up, they’re mad that the proper procedure to blow up kids was not followed.

I’m not using sweeping generalizations and I’m not doing nothing. I’m encouraging people to get involved with activism and it’s people like you throwing a tantrum about that because I am daring to question your world view.

If you have an argument, then make it. I’m done with the meta-argument.

I broadly agree with you, but I think this kind of debate is actually very productive, I don’t see it as wasteful fighting at all, if I can convince a single person who would have otherwise just voted and take no other action to realize that just voting isn’t enough and to get involved with activism efforts, then all of my efforts in this thread will have been worthwhile. That’s what I’m here to do, building solidarity across the working class, and raising awareness of the issues with electoralism.

I think a democratic leadership might be able to arrest the slide towards a dictatorship, but the chance of that is quite low - it would require a socialist to win the democratic nomination, and I just don’t see that happening. Anything less than a socialist would inadequately address the underlying material conditions which foment fascism, so there would be four years of neoliberalism or moderate social democracy or whatever - another four years of worsening conditions among the working class - thereafter, the authoritarian dictatorship would come into power.

I think the best way - probably, the only way - to prevent dictatorship would be for the working class to continue organizing and building a people-led direct action movement, like the Black Panther Party did.

I’m just autistic :(

You’re still not seeing the wood for the trees - it’s not about republican vs. democrat, I thought you already understood that electoralism isn’t going to solve the problem we have. It’s about working class vs. ruling class. The ruling class own and control 99.9% of the media.

I agree with the first paragraph, but I disagree with the second, the media is owned and controlled by the ruling class, they’re not an ally or a weapon that we can really use, except in extremely niche cases. What we really need to do is organize the working class, and the best weapon that the ruling class have against class-conscious organizing is elections. Instead of spending our energy and efforts on building our own movements, the Democrats absorb all of that, parasitically siphoning all of the blood, sweat, and tears of (mainly young) voters to run their campaigns for them, which instead could have gone into a worker-led movement actually capable of shaking the foundations of power.

That’s why I care so much about trying to get people to come to terms with the reality, that the democrats are not going to save us, elections aren’t going to save us, we need to find an alternative path towards achieving our goals. I encourage people to vote for their preferred candidates, but not to expect them to actually improve anything.