Oddbean new post about login | logout The early open source developers were almost universally very left wing. They were anti private property and believed that everything should be free. Bitcoin is the most prefect form of private property ever invented. 40 years on, the open source movement is almost universally capitalist. Did Bitcoin change us?
3 out of 4 mate! FOSS is absolutely not universally capitalist. There are definitely elements of Darwinism, but that is usually not profit driven. Bitcoin is a perfect form of private property but the protocol itself is a commons; a point I feel some Bitcoiners contort themselves over constantly.
I haven’t really noticed a change in political affiliation in open source software but I’m not sure how one would determine that. I do remember relatively recent left-motivated changes to terms in code, such as replacing “master/slave”. In general, I believe the left and right have somewhat swapped in their valuing of free speech, which open source software is.
It looks like the mainstream has shifted to the left. The media and the uniparty government appear to be quietly headed towards communism. It makes sense that the counter culture might find itself more comfortable on the right in the modern world. The interesting thing that has occurred over the last 40 years is the importance that they digital world has taken on, in the lives of each of us. With the current structure, ownership in the digital space is limited only to bitcoin and Nostr identities. Most of our data is centrally held and not really controlled by us. There is the potential to change this with further developments to Nostr. Enabling encrypted content, that is unlockable with lightning payments is the first stage in this process.
Yup. It’s the party in power that tends to be against free speech. Always been that way.
Yep, everyone wants free speech when they are criticising the rulers. The rulers don't want free speech, because they don't want to be criticised. The thing that is strange right now is that the rules are trying to use the interests of minority groups in the form of virtue signalling to shut down any form of debate.
Well, the people belonging to the tribes which currently make up "acceptable discourse" (some of which are still heavily targeted by others, but still promoted by the regime. See Andrew Tate, if the "other side" hadnt constantly gone on and on about him, nobody would know who that guy is, so hes still at the fringes of acceptable discourse but within it and promoted to fortify the outer border of acceptable discourse. Its still all democrats, ultimately, i.e. people who beleive in voting. I dont. I believe voting is essentially communism. Nationalism, too, is a very new revolutionary socialist ideology under whcih even the state itself, the means of producing law, defense and justice are no longer privately owned which i of course do not deem acceptable. And if you are gonna have democracy, at least dont let women who will never be forced to fight the wars they are voting for to vote. Weve seen in 1933 germany what womens suffrage leads to.
Have we fundamentally changed? I cant speak for others, but i dont think i have, i was just naive and hadnt quite gotten over their propaganda about reality and history just yet. I would reject the term "capitalism" as an otherwise meaningless anitsemitic slur. If you know your history, thats what it was coined as. Hence why they can call even the USA capitalist despite the extreme socialism it was created on in 1787, where you had to follow government "law" even on what is allegedly your own "property" therby making it government property. Thats what "property" means, its a synonoum of soverignty. Hence why church asylum was a thing, church property was recognised as such, thus nobody else could enforce their "law" there. Andrew Ryan: "What is the greatest lie ever created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It's the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism. Whenever anyone wants others to do their work, they call upon their altruism. 'Never mind your own needs.', they say. 'Think of the needs of....' Of... whoever. Of the state, of the poor, of the army, of the king, of God. The list goes on and on. How many catastrophes were launched with the words 'Think of yourself.'? It's the king and country crowd who light the torch of destruction. It is this great inversion, this ancient lie, which has chained humanity to an endless cycle of guilt and failure. My journey to Rapture was my second exodus. In 1919, I fled a country that had traded in despotism for insanity. The Marxist Revolution simply traded one lie for another. Instead of one man, the Czar, owning the work of all the people, all of the people owned the work of all of the people. And so, I came to America, where a man could own his own work, where a man could benefit from the brilliance of his own mind, the strength of his own muscles, the MIGHT of his own will. I had thought I had left the parasites of Moscow behind me. I had thought I had left the Marxist altruists to their collective farms and their five-year plans, but as the German fools threw themselves on Hitler's sword for the good of the Reich, the Americans drank deeper and deeper of the Bolshevik poison, spoon-fed to them by Roosevelt and his New Dealers. And so, I asked myself, in what country was there a place for men like me? Men who refused to say yes to the Parasites and the doubters? Men who believed that work was sacred and property rights inviolate? And then one day, the happy answer came to me, my friends: there was no country for people like me and that was the moment I decided... to build one."