RE: https://social.treehouse.systems/@ariadne/117579594140229264
If free software is not about ethics, then what the fuck is its point.
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@Gargron How is that a ‘yes’..
“We could shoot ourself in the foot but we could also choose not too. We chose yes.”
@stux @Gargron Because for some forms of libertarian “freedom” mainly refers to property and what _they_ can do it with, not what people in general can do. He further goes on to state “it would split the community” if they refused to accept slave created software, as if a ruling that accepting such software isn’t devisive in the first place.
@Gargron Eugen Rochko being on the right side of history counter: ∞
@Gargron for me free software has been, can we make a world where everyone has free, same access to software? and an ecosystem where if you don’t like what you see, you can change it.
but if the software you use is built off of trash morals why use it?
@mrkeen @Gargron @jpeisach IF I were to assume this is not slavery normalizing (and an on the nose example of why so many boosters are supremacist mindset adjacent) AND take it as a good faith argument... the analogy would be: if my neighbor forces their slave to bake bread and insists I serve that bread at a gathering for friends and family, why don't I have the right to refuse that bread and bar my neighbor from attending?
@mrkeen the response was directed at your comments
you gonna stop relying on trigonometry if you find out Pythagoras was way into slavery?
if your neighbour has slaves, do you go over to his house and kill him?
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@shom @Gargron @jpeisach Right, thanks. I think I see what I was going for, and probably fucked up tbh.
Gargron posted a screenshot of a rant about LLMs which used slavery as a rhetorical device. Not only must we not use LLM ourselves, but we have to turn down labour from those who do.
I wanted to know if we turn down basic mathematics too, but he dodged the question.
If this thing is really as bad as slavery, well, what are supposedly moral folks doing about it?
Not only must we not use LLM ourselves, but we have to turn down labour from those who do.
You don't have to do anything. You also don't have to question choices that others make, using extreme hypotheticals like "if your neighbour has slaves, do you go over to his house and kill him?" Just like I don't have to respond, but I chose to by providing an analogy that was, in my assessment, closer to the issue being discussed:
if my neighbor forces their slave to bake bread and insists I serve that bread at a gathering for friends and family, why don't I have the right to refuse that bread and bar my neighbor from attending?
The point is, we both exercised our choice.
I wanted to know if we turn down basic mathematics too, but he dodged the question.
Again assuming this was asked in good faith, we can't "turn down basic mathematics" because it's a property of reality, baked into the physics of the universe. However, we could choose to not name those principles after individuals.
If this thing is really as bad as slavery, well, what are supposedly moral folks doing about it?
People are choosing a whole range of reactions from actively pushing back against LLMs, not using LLMs, not voluntarily using LLMs, not boosting LLMs, not accepting LLMs as an inevitability that has to permeate every aspect of life.
The point is choice and agency; not submitting to the talking points of big tech, engaging in whataboutism, submitting to a false sense of inevitability, and not outsourcing all critical thinking to the machines run by broligarchs. It is a choice.
@Gargron That’s the whole difference between free software and open source, we can thank Eric Raymond…
@Gargron Depends on who defines the ethics. I like free software and, personally, I would like to see everything released under more permissive licenses which also includes usage in commercial software without attribution.