Ideologically-Driven Tech Choices

Posted on by Robin

Most of my readers know how ideologically-driven I am, even down to my choices of software, operating systems, every. Little. Thing.

  • Mozilla – makers of the most popular web browser in the history of ever – went “woke” to the point of firing their CEO for daring to express an opinion (personally, not as a representative of the company) that wasn’t “politically correct” and conflicted with the toxic “wokeism” that has infected the country. When they did this (and a bunch of other stupid things they’ve done to Firefox since then), I dumped Firefox and switched to Brave browser.
  • Goya food brands was raked over the coals for daring to support Israel against the terrorists who have always sought to destroy them. When the media did that, I dumped a favorite (and ideologically left-leaning) food brand and switched to Goya.
  • Fox News – previously a reliable source of unbiased news – decided to compromise their own credibility and neutrality and start appealing to the far left. When Fox News did that, I switched to Newsmax.

I have a long and distinguished history of making choices based almost entirely on ideology as of first importance. I won’t settle for or do business with unethical companies like Google or Microshit. Not when there are viable alternatives! And if and when there are no viable alternatives, I’d rather do without than pay anything to an unethical business. Is that weird? Excessive? Obsessive? Maybe so, but I don’t care.

Now I’m talking about more than just some little bit of software, like a single web browser among hundreds to choose from. This time it’s an entire ecosystem which is supposed to a free, open-source, globally cooperative effort to produce and maintain the Linux kernel itself. It, too, has now sold out, gone woke, and abandoned the ideals that made it great. Right down to the very core – the Linux kernel itself – it’s ideologically unsupportable for me. Here is why:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/10/russian-coders-removed-from-linux-maintainers-list-due-to-sanction-concerns/

Linux kicked out all of it’s Russian maintainers – because they’re Russians. How dare they! And since that wasn’t enough,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sf0epTxkTE

They have changed the Code of Conduct to preclude “politically incorrect” contributors from working on the Linux kernel.

It’s official, folks: Linux has gone woke.

I’ve been a ‘nixer for years and years! Can I actually walk away from my beloved Linux family after all these years over “mere” ideology? You bet your booty I can. There are still alternatives to choose from. And I’ve already made the switch! More about that in my next post.

Social Media

Posted on by Robin

When we decided to get back into doing Living History again after all these years, it seems like almost every organization from the huge regional ones to the company-level units no longer bother with their own web sites or even email listservs anymore – they’re all on Facebook!

Why host on Facebook?

No expense and trouble with having their own domain name (dot com, dot org, dot whatever).
No need for running your own server
No big fuss over page designs and links
A place to host files, pictures, videos, stories, news, and events.

But at what cost?

Ads. Lots and lots of ads.
Loss of rights to your own content.
Loss of privacy for you and your visitors.
Getting inexplicably restricted for whatever “community standards” Facebook chooses.

Why lock yourself, your organization, and your site visitors into a single vendor who insists that all your visitors create an account on their platform to access it or contribute to it? Why ask your “customers,” members, and contributors to give up their privacy and intellectual property rights in order to participate? That’s not only unethical, it’s downright stupid. You give up so much and depend for everything on someone else’ terms of service! Remember how Amazon destroyed so many businesses who depended on their servers when Amazon decided those companies weren’t “woke” enough? It wasn’t that long ago, y’know.

Obviously hosting your own domain on your own server is the best solution as far as retaining your rights and respecting your users’ and contributors’ privacy and dignity. A small number of the reenacting groups I found do this, at least partially. But most just rely on Facebook in the same way Parler relied on Amazon. Not very smart.

There are perfectly sane and sensible alternatives to Facebook for cry’n out loud! 

How about any one of the platforms offered in the Fediverse? These are all free (as in beer), but also free (as in freedom!) Rights respected, privacy preserved, open-source software-driven, maintained by volunteers who may solicit donations to defray their expenses. Anyone can host their own, the software is free if you want to run your own instance of one or more of the federated – or distributed – networks: Mastodon (microblogging, like Twitter), for example, or Friendica (very busy social network with a steep learning curve), or the simple, intuitive Diaspora network – the oldest and probably still the largest of the macro-blogging social networks (like facebook, only easier).

Centralized networks like MeWe do what Facebook and some others do, but again – you’re locked into a single vendor and hosted on a single megaserver and you don’t retain control of your own data.

In my next post, I’ll describe the one federated network that is in my opinion the easiest to learn and to use. Here’s a hint: diaspora*

Principled Action

Posted on by Robin

Dear Readers,

I found an old Gmail account I haven’t used in a while, signed in, and deleted it. Screw you, Google. I deleted Facebook and moved to Diaspora. I’m also toying with MeWe, but probably not for long since it’s centralized and even deleted a friend’s whole group because they disagreed. I also dumped Microsoft Windows®, since I have no wish to contribute to Bill Gates’ bullcrap, in favor of Linux.
Now it’s Mozilla to delete, because of this. New default setting to filter out content the new dictators don’t like. So it’s Brave browser instead of Firefox, and Evolution instead of Thunderbird. I gave Geary a shot, but when I clicked on Preferences in Geary the app would crash (at least on my current Linux distro). My Internet provider, AT&T, owns CNN Fake News. So I’m working on changing my ISP as well.
My own family thinks I’m “paranoid,” but I’d be hypocritical not to put my convictions into action. They agree that Big Tech is a big, evil problem, but they’ll go ahead and continue giving big tech control over their Internet use, social media, and privacy. No, I’m not paranoid, I’m principled and doing what principle demands.

So, those of you have read my previous post about Diaspora are probably wondering what in hell I’m doing going back there again! Well… Here’s the thing:

It’s decentralized. Meaning it’s not under the control of one single person. If one server (“pod,” in Diaspora’s lingo) goes rogue, I can jump to another or for that matter, run my own!

I’ve found ways to clean up the crap and make Diaspora what I want it to be. It takes some time to do that, but I think it’s worth the trouble. Ask me how in the comments if you’d like to try it. And,

MeWe is such a bewildering, cluttered mess by comparison. Diaspora’s user interface is intuitive and simple, in spite of the learning curve which I think is comparable to Fakebook’s. While “Groups” are a thing on MeWe, I’m able to create my own groups on Diaspora, kinda sorta, by dedicating an Aspect (category) to share exclusively with.

Call me paranoid or a conspiracy type if you want, but one thing you can’t call me is a hypocrite. I’m acting on my beliefs, not just whining about what’s wrong with the rest of the world.