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The Imperative of Free Software

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   From: Davis Remmel
Subject: The Imperative of Free Software
   Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2023 15:51:17 -0500

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Dear all,


I'm probably preaching to the choir, but I am really tired of the
ultra-wealthy.



They are a self-enriching plutocracy, and I mean that in the most
literal sense. I am not just throwing fancy words around. I mean: the
rich use their riches to woo and shoo ordinary folks to enriching
them even more by stoking fear and influencing the public's
collective actions through their control of mass media. Our entire
country has been captured by a legitimate plutocracy, a society ruled
by the wealthiest, which is fundamentally an existential threat to
the mass' ability to democratically govern ourselves.



I don't know how to fix the mess that's already been created, but I
do know that without free software, the masses are forever captive to
their wealthy overlords. The exchange of information and work, and
therefore the core of society, is totally controlled by the decisions
of software. That software and its control, today, is dominantly
proprietary and unaccountable.



Software control is social control. That it, too, was ever thought
legal that one could posses not only a billion dollars of wealth, but
a billion dollars of sole discretion, was the greatest swindle ever
pulled. The amplification of the wealthiest's messages through
proprietary technology, and their ability to censor, quell dissent,
and influence public opinion give them unthinkable power.



Today, the masses will get fucked by them. Tomorrow, the masses will
get fucked again, forgetting about today's. And this will repeat.



Some of the population, perhaps, even desire being controlled, and
feel comfortable and cradled, without worry. These people are
authoritarians; if not overt authoritarians, then submissive ones.
And this behavior is anti-social, anti-liberty, and contrary to
American values.



And, I feel so horribly grossed that the wealthiest's schemes keep
working every goddamn day. I am _exhausted_ of living with the
richest's wooing and shooing, and my constitutional liberties, which
I dearly treasure and which legions of people died to leave me with,
discarded because nearly everyone else has been intentionally and
subliminally feared into authoritarian, corporate comfort. The masses
don't have the vocabulary or time to gaze at the power structures
that control them, or if they do then still be helpless and too
socially weak to do anything about it, until they finally reach their
limit and either submit or bust.



Free software might be the only thing that can restore our republic's
democratic control. It's cheapness to copy, plus its ratcheting and
blanketing legal copyleft, catalyzes its propagation and crystalizes
the power of the people. The only way to break authoritarian
manipulation is to choose against using their tools and vocabulary,
and to stand up for what we know to be true, right, and just. Our
fears cannot be manipulated if we choose against consuming the
programming of those who stoke them. The decisions and future of our
technological society can only be free if we choose free software
_now_.


Be well,
Davis




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  * The Imperative of Free Software, Davis Remmel <=
      + Re: The Imperative of Free Software, Abe Indoria, 2023/04/25
          o Re: The Imperative of Free Software, Davis Remmel, 2023/
            04/25
              # Re: The Imperative of Free Software, Abe Indoria,
                2023/04/25
              # Re: The Imperative of Free Software, Davis Remmel,
                2023/04/25
              # Re: The Imperative of Free Software, Greg Farough,
                2023/04/25

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