[GTALUG] Surveillance Capitalism [was another thread]

[Evan Leibovitch]

Out of all the rationales for malice out there, hypocrisy is among the
weakest. Because a person/corporation did bad thing A does not silence them
when speaking out against unrelated bad thing B. Compounding this with
guilt-by-association -- of Red Hat bearing the weight of all IBM's past
(and very real) sins -- makes such accusations even weaker.

SUSE also withdrew their FSF funding. Anyone care to draw a link between
that and the fact that its HQ is in Nuremberg? And what dirt are we going
to dig up about the Electronic Frontier Foundation, whose position on the
FSF is well more extreme than Red Hat's?

In any case, let's remember that the actions taken are against the FSF, not
Stallman himself who has not been muzzled at all (last I checked his blog
is unaffected by all the commotion). It is the FSF that is being rightfully
being punished for bringing him back to leadership when what is needed is
diplomacy and allies, and there are so many good software freedom advocates
out there who are not divisive assholes. It is telling that the loudest
voices against the FSF are those who have actually interacted with Stallman
(including those who have shared his ideology for decades), while most of
his defenders have never met him.

Maybe RMS spoke out against surveillance capitalism. So what? Who cares?
He's spoken about a bunch of stuff unrelated to what he's best known for,
which is trying to re-invent Unix and promoting software freedom. He's a
seminal speaker on those two issues, but far from expert in the others.
Indeed, it's largely regarding his stances on issues far removed from
software freedom that RMS finds himself banished from MIT and in this
current mess.

As for me, when I think of people I want to follow on the issue of
corporate surveillance, there are many better versed and articulate
commentators on the issue than Stallman. Zuboff. Snowden. Braxman. Orwell!
Many others. Indeed, it's *good* that these others are *not* funded by orgs
involved in surveillance (or even supposed countermeasures such as VPNs)
because that would clearly suggest conflicts of interest.

Sure, IBM's interests and agendas are suspect. Ditto Microsoft, Oracle and
many others. But these days I prefer vigilance and skepticism over
conspiratorial thinking.

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch / @el56


On Fri, 2 Apr 2021 at 14:30, Russell Reiter via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

> Red Hat has just dropped its Free Software Foundation funding and support.
>
> Now that Red Hat is pretty well owned by IBM, wouldn't you like to ask all
> those people, how far back in IBM's own history of misdeeds;
> notwithstanding rumors, innuendo and just plain gossip; the rest of us
> should look when judging the actions of  others.
>
> I sure would.
>
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
>
> Stallman was outspoken about surveillance capitalisim and WSL. Those are
> big cages to rattle with one tiny tin cup.
>
> Just in case you don't think an NGO is capable of such insider
> machinations. I highly recommend the following book which has a pretty good
> evaluation of how the powers that be; leveraged trends, NGO (charity)
> connections and industry (read IBM) influences which gave Bill Gates his
> silver spoon running head start with MS DOS.
>
> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2760759-the-making-of-microsoft
>
> Don't even get me started on WSL as an organized plan to disrupt linux
> freedom.
>
> Engage Encompass and Eradicate are proven techniques of imperialism and
> capitalisim.
>
> I think Red Hats "Woke Spoke" is Broke on this one, but with all that IBM
> money behind them, they will break this one guy out of the big picture,
> just because they can.
>
>
> Russell
>
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