communist (PSL ☭) unix nerd who likes to unplug

fountain pen + traveler’s notebook, long hair + hats, photography, and spinning indie records that could be cooler than yours (but probably aren’t)

liverpool fc supporter - you’ll never walk alone

homepage: ~savoy

  • 41 Posts
  • 36 Comments
Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: April 5th, 2020

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  • Apple.

    I uses to be a huge Apple fan pre-2010. Everything worked, was smooth, wasn’t Windows, and it was fun trying out the terminal despite it being pretty useless for most things on Mac.

    At the new decade is when it felt like Apple was becoming what it is today: a walled garden with priority of mobile devices at the detriment of Macintosh. Started to really look at Linux as an alternative (only tried Ubuntu in a VM around the time of Unity coming out) early 2010s, but didn’t make the full leap until around 2013 when I installed Linux Mint and got a Raspberry Pi to begin to mess around with. Now I solely run a mix of Debian and Void on all my machines and I couldn’t be happier.












  • There’s a huge difference between expanding the Fediverse and allowing it to grow organically vs allowing communication with an entity as large and insidious as Meta, which Eugen doesn’t seem to get.

    There are comparisons to be made between Meta adopting ActivityPub for its new social media platform and Meta adopting XMPP for its Messenger service a decade ago. There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers, before each platform was locked down into the silos we know today. What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.

    This is the most ridiculous part to me. If Meta get to the point of locking people out and created a walled-garden separate from the Fedi, it’s because they accomplished their goal of taking users and content away. And until they reach that goal, the Fediverse would be harmed by the outpouring of shit, spam, corporate product placement, ✨influencers✨ etc. that plague mainstream social media. Also XMPP was disallowed growth because of Google abandoning it, and that would happen here as well.

    I just hope that most instances out of principal block them, but it isn’t looking so great.


  • It’s great to see AES countries beginning to adopt Linux and FOSS, even if it’s approached less from an ideological standpoint of FOSS == socialism and more from staying away from proprietary Western technology (Microsoft, Apple). If it’s solely the latter, that’s still the correct course of action.

    “What’s happening to Russian open-source developers gave a warning sign to Chinese developers,” one user commented on knowledge-sharing website Zhihu.com, referring to many software makers being blocked from the open-source community just because they are Russian or not supporting Ukraine. “Software without borders is just a dream that will never come true, and China needs to build its own open-source community.” … “This new version signifies that we have gained the ability to lead the OS’ development by ourselves,” Zhu said. “I hope more users will try our new version and give us feedback.”

    This is great to hear!





  • For sure, people definitely should be educated on what data is open (posts/comments), closed (voting on Lemmy as kbin seems to show them publically), “private” (DMs which are explicitly described as not private and to use Matrix etc. for actual encryption), or secure (Matrix). I feel like a lot of us on Lemmygrad are aware of privacy more than the average netizen, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a primer for new users.

    I think for social media the best thing would just be compartmentalization of identities, so the usual advice of don’t give away too much of who you are and keep usernames separate unless you want them to be connected/known.





  • There’s a lot of info and discussion on this post that explains why. Pretty much that voting has never been private on other platforms as votes must be tied to users, otherwise users could add more than one vote per post. And this data must also be federated so that other instances’ posts are also safeguarded.

    Lemmy isn’t designed as a privacy platform, it’s a socia media type link aggregator powered by ActivityPub. And with this federation brings decentralization, where it’s possible to not share data with other instances, but it will have to be shared in some way with any linked instances. There are pros/cons to each style: the current issues with Reddit show the problems with centralization, and there’s going to be an adjustment period as more people join Lemmy who don’t already know about the Fedi.



  • Don’t make yourself feel like you’re a “bad communist” if you’re not spending every available hour of your life organizing. You could eventually come to resent your work or comrades and burn yourself out, none of which is healthy for you or your org. A rested, focused, energized, and optimistic you is going to be a lot more productive in organization, and you’re going to be mentally in a better place.

    I’ve been down the route of using all my time for organizing, and it’s just not sustainable. Yes we’re dedicated communists and this is a sacrifice, but we’re not all Che. Each of us is not going to be a super-human organizer, which is why we build together as comrades and not individuals.








  • It goes hand-in-hand with a post-revolution socialist society. Proprietary software is essentially private property, which would be eradicated in a worker’s state. It would most likely not be a first priority for the new state as there are more pressing matters - for the US for example, the dismantling of the military and the closing down of all international bases - but it would be inevitable with socialism.




  • Focusing on it is definitely unhealthy; you let that resentment build and you’re down a path of pessimism and a view that the working class cannot be saved. We just have to remember that there are reasons why people flock to things like mutual aid and uphold them as exemplary actions: it’s personal, (relatively) easy to accomplish compared to base-building, and given it’s limited scope satisfying to see you do something that directly helps a handful of those most stricken by capitalist hegemony.

    Trying to work with them can be frustrating, but unless they’re actively hostile towards communists or deviations that counter the true needs of the working class, let them be. Use your energy to do what you know is right: organizing & agitating for socialism in a communist party.