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xkcd #743: Infrastructures (imgs.xkcd.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/xkcd

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Title text: The heartfelt tune it plays is CC licensed, and you can get it from my seed on JoinDiaspora.net whenever that project gets going.

Transcript

2003:

[Cueball approaches a bearded fellow.]

Cueball: Did you get my essay?
Bearded Fellow: Yeah, it was good! But it was a .doc; You should really use a more open-
Cueball: Give it a rest already. Maybe we just want to live our lives and use software that works, not get wrapped up in your stupid nerd turf wars.
Bearded Fellow: I just want people to care about the infrastructures we're building and who-
Cueball: No, you just want to feel smugly superior. You have no sense of perspective and are probably autistic.

2010:

Cueball: Oh my God! We handed control of our social world to Facebook and they're DOING EVIL STUFF!
Bearded Fellow: Do you see this?

[Inset, the bearded fellow rubs his index and middle fingers against his thumb.]

Bearded Fellow: It's the world's tiniest open-source violin.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Richard Stallman is rarely wrong

[–] TheBat 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Except when he eats something from his foot.

[–] TheGrandNagus 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Or talks about paedophilia...

"The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, 'prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia' also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness."

RMS on June 28th, 2003

"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "

RMS on June 5th, 2006

"There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That's not willing participation, it's imposed participation, a different issue. "

RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

That said, when he's talking about the potential dangers of proprietary software, he's usually bang on.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Taking RMS's word as law outside of dev space is like asking Michael Jordan to solve all the geopolitical conflicts in the middle east. Why the fuck would you think he knows anything about that?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

...I mean if Michael Jordon went around saying "we should just like, carpet bomb the place and take over" I think people would also be pretty horrified

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I went from "he was probably defending pedophiles not acting on it" to "HOLY FUCK" real fast...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I understand this is not an easy topic, but what is the "HOLY FUCK" bit you're referring to here?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That I can't find any sort of charitable explanation or missing context for those quotes. They start utterly awful and only get worse.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'll bet he doesn't even tie his dick in a knot.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

We're just too pedestrian to get it.