Alt text; An image showing a meme about open source software. The top part shows an elephant standing on a beach with text reading “The entire world’s IT infrastructure” superimposed on the elephant. Below this is a large, colorful beach ball being supported by tiny ants, with text reading “Unpaid open source devs.” The meme illustrates how the global IT ecosystem heavily relies on open source software that is often maintained by unpaid volunteer developers who carry a disproportionate burden despite their small numbers.
“cOmMuNisM wOuLdN’t WoRk BeCaUsE hUmAnS aReN’t MoTiVaTeD wItHoUt MonEy!!!”
Yeah, that was always a bad argument. The truth is it will always fail in the transitional step where the state owns everything. People in power do not want to give up that power, so it inevitably leads to dictatorship followed by eventual collapse.
Capitalism is the gold standard in economic systems, but we’re living the end game where so much money has funneled up that the rich own us and our legislatures. Not sure how that trap can be avoided. How do we propose to tax the snot out of the very people and institutions that own our collective ass and write the tax laws?
I think they’d love it if all us poor’s died of preventable disease, violent crime, died in their wars, starved to death in food deserts, or willingly subjugated ourselves to become their servants and concubines. If only the rich are left, then essentially the game starts over again.
The enlightened poors want to remove the top 10% of the pyramid; the rich don’t care what happens to the bottom 90% as long as they get to keep growing their money, power, and control.
If we stop buying their products, stop working in their businesses, stop consuming their media, and start reappropriating their assets, the balance of power would shift very quickly.
Having said that, I’m a hypocrite who bought something off Amazon in the last 3 months, works for a megacorp, and continues to use big tech in many aspects of my life out of convenience. I’ve maybe made 20% of the changes I need to make to feel happy about my level of ideological purity and I have an advantage because I understand computers, philosophy, and politics better than most normies in my life.
LOL, no, they don’t want us dying, en masse anyway. They need workers to prop them up.
But yes, we need to stop consuming. When I say that on here, people have all the excuses in the world. OTOH, I find so much free shit on the side of the road. How hard up are we really?
I could go on all night, but just this last summer we scored 2 new bikes (one with the tags still on it!) for the kids, a new wine fridge, brand new toaster oven, and so on. LOL, I grabbed an old mattress, took 20-minutes with a box knife and made a sweet trellis for my ferns where nothing else would grow.
Fridge finally died beyond my ability to repair. Got the nicest one I’ve ever owned off FB, $200. Same deal with the clothes washer, FB, $200. Found a near-new flattop stove on the road, free, 1-hour to wipe it off, yank the old and install. I could show you around my house for an hour, easy, just showing off stuff I found and repaired for free or near enough.
And nothing wrong with the occasional Amazon purchase, I do that all the time. Saves money and time. Consider, if 100 people need a thing at Walmart, and those 100 people all get in their cars and trucks and make the 16-mile round trip, yikes! Versus one van driving the hood everyday. And not to mention, much of those goods are delivered by the mailman, who is coming by anyway!
Nothing wrong with working for a megacorp, we gotta do what we gotta do. I just quit Lowe’s because they were a pain, but not too bad overall, not for that kinda shit employer! My best gigs were for small companies, and that’s where most Americans work. Looking now. Need an IT guy?
As to consuming media, I’ll be blunt as fuck, I steal it. No way I’m paying a dime.
We should be friends.
The problem is the concentration of power. We need enough different groups in power that they’re too busy undermining each other to consolidate.
this is why i pray for benevolent alien and/or AI takeover
This is the most interesting thing I’ve seen on the subject of motivation, and one of the most interesting videos I’ve ever watched. 10 minutes. Do it y’all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
It explains so much of why I happy or unhappy at jobs, even if being paid far more for less work. Making more money does not equate to satisfaction or better productivity. It explains why we work for free, the very subject at hand. There’s much I’m unhappy about working at Lowe’s, quite the pay cut from my IT career and it’s physically beating my old ass, but I have the 3 things he talks about in the video, and it turns out, those things are gold.
That’s why a universal basic income is a good idea. I’ve also always been very interested in anarchism. I think what it does well is that it gets people to do exactly what they think is right, it creates a society where people are motivated by their inner workings not by external power structures, and it makes sense to think there’s some untapped potential there. But I also tend to think Anarchism might be a bit naive, or far from where we are as a society right now. But UBI seems more realistic and might get us a bit further down this path than we are now. People could still work for a loan, full time or part time or whatever they want, but it becomes more realistic for people to choose to do voluntary work.
Projecting a bit are we?
They’re literally mock-quoting people who make that claim, as OP is a great example as to why that claim is fucking stupid
No where in this post was communism mentioned
The fact that they are commenting stuff like this shows that they believe this narrative in some form or another.
How the hell did you arrive there? Their entire point is that SO MUCH of our IT infrastructure is community built and supported, no capital incentive required, regardless of what capitalists claim.
I don’t want to start a political debate here so I’ll keep it brief. Foss is mostly supported by corporate interests. Sure there are plenty of community projects but the core stuff is funded by big tech companies.
I don’t like the idea of Foss being mixed in with Communism and Authoritarianism.