Most people just think whatever the media tells them to think, and the media is owned by the ruling class

Yeah, it’s not for everyone, I have mild dyslexia and I find it a lot easier to read!

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…

Sorry, just saw your edit - I’m genuinely not working backwards from a conclusion, I’m trying to explore the issue with you, when you replied with your original terse comment I assumed I had touched a nerve so I backed off, but I’m genuinely not sure where I’m going wrong, if you can help me understand your position, I’d genuinely really appreciate it.

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?

deleted by creator

…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.

Yeah, I’m against buying animals, like I said. I think there’s nothing wrong with adopting an animal with the intention of caring for and building a relationship with that animal, though, in the same way that one might adopt a child - what do you think about that?

Thanks for the quick and thoughtful reply, I appreciate it! I’m interested in discussing this further, I’ll reply inline, if I don’t mention something you may assume that I agree with you or that I’m happy to concede the point for the sake of discussion

If you can’t get what you want without an animal, then definitionally you need to exploit the animal to get what you want.

I disagree with that - for example, I think you’d agree that birdwatching isn’t exploitative, right? For me, exploitation is when you put your own needs/wants before the needs/wants of an animal. Just simply gaining some benefit from an interaction with an animal isn’t necessarily exploitative - though it certainly can be, and often is.

To your broader point, it sounds to me like you’re kind of scared of yourself, like you don’t trust your own abilities to discern right from wrong. I completely understand that perspective, because I have issues with feeling that way about myself sometimes too.

Your points about emotion clouding our judgment and not necessarily always putting the interests of the animal before our own is well made, but it kind of assumes that the staff at the animal shelter would be somehow more resistant to this issue. It’s like you’re offloading the ethical burden of having to make decisions for an animal’s wellbeing to someone else and assuming that they’ll handle it better than you will - an assumption which, frankly, is probably wrong.

I get the vibe that you want to live as closely aligned with your values as possible, which results in a kind of pathological avoidance of responsibility - we can’t get it wrong/make a mistake if we just choose not to take any action.

But the reality is that, as vegans, we’re far better than average at being able to provide a loving, caring home for animals than most. Shelters have limited space, staffing and resources, and while I agree from a utilitarian perspective that the money you’d spend on housing one animal would do more good if it was allocated to shelters, it doesn’t make the selfish choice inherently exploitative, I don’t think.

Anyways, not criticising you at all, I trust you know what’s best for you, but I’m still very skeptical that acting as a guardian for an animal is inherently non-vegan.

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