Discussion
With respect to GNU developers openly and publicly endorsing slavery (phew, that's a hell of a statement), I think white folks like me who are not under direct threat of that brutal institution and who do not bear the generational results of that violence to pause for just a moment and sit with that.
In particular, I think we need to sit with how that interacts with eugenics-fueled AI boosterism more broadly.
@Khrys @xgranade I think you need to look to the origins of the orgs. When you have selfish folks starting an org for indvidiual reasons, it doesn't matter how many well meaning folks surround them. The harmful arseholes are still there.
The soul of the FSF came out of libertarian principles.
The Four Freedoms are based on Individual Rights and some very privileged folks who benefit from their trust in the law. So it's very easy to sidestep ethical questions about technology.
@Khrys @xgranade For the past five years neither Free Software or Open Source have felt like a home to me.
That discussion is pretty much happening elsewhere. Technology isn't neutral, but some folks think I'm the right hands it's all fine. But you cannot separate the technology from the beliefs and politics of their creators.
There's also the various times marginalised folks have had to leave. Because of those arseholes. Because lots of those arseholes "do good work"
I want software to be available to everyone. The project I work with is under the GPL v3.
We can critique those that our communities choose to keep working with.
But our projects first principles are to Human Rights. I don't think that's the FSFs first principles.
We've never been shy about that and trying to infer that if we don't believe in Free Software we must believe in proprietary software is an argument that's beneath you.
I have a personal policy of not comparing things to slavery, because nothing we have seen in modern-day American culture can compare to the sheer scope of the violence that was slavery. Nothing. Full stop. The violence of slavery simply cannot be overstated, it's not possible.
I think it is also true that regardless of what harm boosters actually perpetuate in the world, their stated *goals* are to replicate that violence.
It is difficult to capture the nuance of comparing their goals to slavery but never their actions, but I think it's an important nuance to arrive at. If AI is actually, well, intelligent (it's not), then what boosters describe wanting to do is enslavement.
It is in that context, aspiring to recreate one of the most violent institutions the world has ever seen, that I read that GNU developer's endorsement.
I don't think his goals are necessarily to be a modern-day slaveowner, but I do think developers like him are in the position of deciding how to interact with people whose ambition is to become modern-day slaveowners, and in that context his endorsement is a severe practical failing of morals as well as an academic one.
@xgranade I used to have respect for him, even though I thought his opinions on technical topics was often not in line with mine. I was, however, under the (clearly mistaken) assumption that he had high moral standards.
Now, I wonder if he went into a shop to buy a pair of jeans, and he had to choose between one very nice pair which were also cheap, and another pair which have perhaps not the right colour and was also more expensive. If the only issue with the former had a label that said "proudly made by authentic slave labour", would he think twice?
If yes, then I wonder why he'd reconsider when it comes to manual labour but not code contributions? If no, then no further questions are needed.
So, yeah, fellow racially privileged folks, we need to sit with that, I think. That there are people who share our skin color and that attendant privilege that confers and who, when faced with people who aspire to recreate violence so complete and brutal that its harms are felt *centuries* later, choose to offer apologia for that violence instead of opposing it.
@xgranade Just a question : is it ALL GNU developers or is it only ONE ?
In every community there are bastards.
Don't be one by making hasty generalizations.