Zack Emmert @zemmert@librem.one

One of the key discussion points in the HBO series “Chernobyl” is how secrecy about the accident, fallout, etc. had to be maintained by the Soviet State.

I would like to share the experience of a teen living in Northern Italy when this happened.

The first cloud arrived over Northern Italy just in time to catch heavy rainfall, indeed, the Ticino region of Switzerland, geographically beyond the barrier of the Alps and adjacent to Northern Italy was badly…

Due to the recent discussions about Tusky merging their Gab ban, I'm reposting my series "Imagine if _all_ applications were developed the same way as Fedi apps" with slightly improved screenshots and a new one.

Also, I'd like to clarify my stance on this matter since people thought I'd support Gab or that I'd make inaccurate comparisons.

My motivation for posting these screenshots is that I think blocks like this don't belong in software that is completely detached from the stuff it displays.
Kinds of software that belong in this category are web browsers, email clients, music players, text editors, and also Fedi apps such as Tusky or Fedilab. They are merely tools that allow people to use certain contents or services, but they don't host them and therefore aren't responsible for them.
To me, this isn't a matter of free speech or some free software principles. As a user, I simply don't want developers to force their personal/political opinions onto me in that way. And here is why:

Imagine if more software implemented various kinds of blocks against things the developer doesn't want to support. I'm sure many of you now may think "Cool, so they block things for bad people. How is this a problem?"

The problem is that your view of what "bad people" are or how they should be handled by the software doesn't necessarily have to agree with the developers' views.

A good example for this is the file browser screenshot: Among other files, the message lists a Torrent for an Arch Linux image as blocked. Most likely, the imaginary developer thinks that Torrents are used too often to distribute illegal things, so making them harder to use is more beneficial than not doing it. Would you agree with this?

In the long run, this problem may become worse. What if the political climate in our society shifted and over time, some of the opinions you or people you like/follow/... hold were considered harmful by many software developers? What if you were confronted with messages like the ones in the screenshots all the time because of that?

Many people don't expect that measures taken against "bad people" could ever affect them negatively. After all, they are good people.
This is actually very similar to discussions about privacy invasions, where there are people who "have nothing to hide" and therefore don't care about such problems.

That's the situation I was trying to convey with these screenshots in the same way Black Mirror shows how current technological trends could lead to negative impacts on our society.
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Doris has box domination

#mastocats #cats

You don't have to give a shit about me. But understand what you are choosing to minimize, for the sake of FLOSS or tech advances or cowardly perversions of speech.

I'd still fight them if they come after you, too, because they will. They have no loyalty. I just don't want fascism to grow, because I've been up close and intimate with it, and I don't want anyone to see it closer. It makes a shadow in your heart. 3/3

Because these are actual human beings psyching each other up to kill folks like me.

Opposition to Nazis, in the abstract or on the streets, is a fucking moral duty, not a "political posture".

I have looked into the faces of people who'd rather I be dead, and felt vertigo as I tried to understand the words they were hissing. I've found out that people I've loved, or family members, or neighbors, would agree with the extermination of people groups I belong to.
2/3

I'm gonna get serious for a minute.

I hope like hell that, for most humans, "Nazis" remain the people we talk about, and not *to*. I hope they're just the creeps at the corner of the internet, or in that one house everyone avoids. Alone. Maybe we squint at them on TV as they go to jail. That would also be great.

I hope that, for most people, they remain an abstraction.

But please, for the love of gods, dont call opposing Nazis "political idealism". 1/?

> An operating system written in Common Lisp

God is smiling rn

https://github.com/froggey/Mezzano/

Ear and chin scritches for Pasha #cats

you either die a dansup or you live long enough to see yourself become a gargron

I had to take a picture of this license plate because I knew nobody would believe me

Did you know that with the Librem 5 smartphone you can remove the back and have access to :

- the battery
- a removable OpenPGP smart card
- a removable cellular modem
- and a microSD card so you can expand your storage later on

More here:
https://puri.sm/posts/with-purism-products-you-are-in-control/