Re: A mathematical, non-corruptable, algorithmic, democratic and free system of government and society
On 10/01/2022 17:02, Andrew Yu via libreplanet-discuss wrote: Hi, friends at Libreplanet. During a discussion in #fsf, we were quite critical of modern society, especially on copyright, patents, "intellectual property", healthcare and Capitalism. A (possibly sarcastic of modern society) suggestion was raised to build islands in the middle of oceans from plastic waste and run a free society there. This is obviously infeasible, but it reinforced my thoughts that free software isn't enough. With people constantly in poverty, healthcare being so expensive in countries such as the United States, companies and individuals focusing on profit rather than genuine good for society, etc., free software is a step to bring us closer to good-old freedom, but with a society that hasn't woken up from the endless advertising (brainwashing) of cooprporations and governments, we'll almost inevitably be forced to use nonfree software, and have our right to freedom violated in countless other ways. I thought: Why aren't we doing a great job convincing users to switch to free software as a replacement to the proprietary software they use? Some classmates that I tried convincing into using Trisquel GNU/Linux noted that most modern programs that they use day-to-day only run on Android, Apple iOS, Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows, and these themselves are nonfree software that they can't escape using (For example, school here in China requires the use of WeChat and Tencent Meetings to have online classes, and does not have a way to let me dial-in by phone, despite my efforts explaining the Constitution and my rights to deny a contract I disagree with. [1] They even went as far as saying "We don't care what the Constitution says, you play by our rules", which was a surprise to me.). I reconsidered the situation, explained to them what freedom is in this context, and linked them to a comprimise, Deepin Linux, a (GNU/)Linux distribution targeted at new Chinese users who need WeChat, Tencent Meetings and all that in the application center. This was a comprimise, but this is the best I could do given their situation. Personally I use virtual machines that reset to snapshots every boot to run these programs, sometimes even run a GNU/Linux distribution inside the virtual machine and use Wine from there. They aren't technically skilled and couldn't handle this. Some sources state that US courts require the use of Zoom, which is frustrating to think about. I asked myself: Why do people choose convenience over freedom? This is still a mystery to me, as this one of the problems in the to-solve list of the upcoming project. I have a theory that it's a combination of social pressure and coorporate brainwashing, as companies are taking advantage of human psycology, creating an information cocoon of "convenience is the most important thing in your life", pushing products to users with social engineering in order to profit from sales or the information of their users. They do everything for profit; they even sign contracts with schools to push their products to students, often with the students unable to reject. In this case, how the school and government handles this situation is a good example of short-term thinking (Or, it might be not caring about their students, I hope it's the first, but my conversation with school makes me afraid it's the latter.) My family has been to the US in 2013. One of my biggest negative impressions was that health care was terrifyingly expensive. A simple X-ray, a two dollar checkup in most hospitals in Shanghai, China costs hundreds of dollars in the US (I do not remember which state or region it was, I was just 5 years old then. What I do remember is that we had some kind of medicaid; even then, the prices are in hundreds). A standard CT scan, around 20--35 dollars in Shanghai, costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars. A ride in the ambulance costs 10 dollars on average in Shanghai, but thousands in ths US. (Note that by "the US", I am referring to the state I was in, I do hope that there are saner ones.) Apparantly this is caused by the US not having a good system of medicaid, which I hope gets better implemented with Obamacare, but that seems to be just a wish. This leads me to the point that governments are responsible for their citizens in exchange for the citizens giving up certain liberties (note that liberty isn't freedom exactly), including keeping citizens healthy---it is impossible to have a prosperous planet with bad healthcare. (Don't get me wrong, I have more positive impressions in the US :P) For a government to be able to handle social needs, it must not be corruputed. Theories such as the separation of powers exist, but in contemperory times, implementations such as the US have sometimes-corrupt but almost always ineffective governments. The Senate fillibuster is a important reason, but not the culprit. The culprit is the inherent eager to compete with other
A mathematical, non-corruptable, algorithmic, democratic and free system of government and society
Hi, friends at Libreplanet. During a discussion in #fsf, we were quite critical of modern society, especially on copyright, patents, "intellectual property", healthcare and Capitalism. A (possibly sarcastic of modern society) suggestion was raised to build islands in the middle of oceans from plastic waste and run a free society there. This is obviously infeasible, but it reinforced my thoughts that free software isn't enough. With people constantly in poverty, healthcare being so expensive in countries such as the United States, companies and individuals focusing on profit rather than genuine good for society, etc., free software is a step to bring us closer to good-old freedom, but with a society that hasn't woken up from the endless advertising (brainwashing) of cooprporations and governments, we'll almost inevitably be forced to use nonfree software, and have our right to freedom violated in countless other ways. I thought: Why aren't we doing a great job convincing users to switch to free software as a replacement to the proprietary software they use? Some classmates that I tried convincing into using Trisquel GNU/Linux noted that most modern programs that they use day-to-day only run on Android, Apple iOS, Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows, and these themselves are nonfree software that they can't escape using (For example, school here in China requires the use of WeChat and Tencent Meetings to have online classes, and does not have a way to let me dial-in by phone, despite my efforts explaining the Constitution and my rights to deny a contract I disagree with. [1] They even went as far as saying "We don't care what the Constitution says, you play by our rules", which was a surprise to me.). I reconsidered the situation, explained to them what freedom is in this context, and linked them to a comprimise, Deepin Linux, a (GNU/)Linux distribution targeted at new Chinese users who need WeChat, Tencent Meetings and all that in the application center. This was a comprimise, but this is the best I could do given their situation. Personally I use virtual machines that reset to snapshots every boot to run these programs, sometimes even run a GNU/Linux distribution inside the virtual machine and use Wine from there. They aren't technically skilled and couldn't handle this. Some sources state that US courts require the use of Zoom, which is frustrating to think about. I asked myself: Why do people choose convenience over freedom? This is still a mystery to me, as this one of the problems in the to-solve list of the upcoming project. I have a theory that it's a combination of social pressure and coorporate brainwashing, as companies are taking advantage of human psycology, creating an information cocoon of "convenience is the most important thing in your life", pushing products to users with social engineering in order to profit from sales or the information of their users. They do everything for profit; they even sign contracts with schools to push their products to students, often with the students unable to reject. In this case, how the school and government handles this situation is a good example of short-term thinking (Or, it might be not caring about their students, I hope it's the first, but my conversation with school makes me afraid it's the latter.) My family has been to the US in 2013. One of my biggest negative impressions was that health care was terrifyingly expensive. A simple X-ray, a two dollar checkup in most hospitals in Shanghai, China costs hundreds of dollars in the US (I do not remember which state or region it was, I was just 5 years old then. What I do remember is that we had some kind of medicaid; even then, the prices are in hundreds). A standard CT scan, around 20--35 dollars in Shanghai, costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars. A ride in the ambulance costs 10 dollars on average in Shanghai, but thousands in ths US. (Note that by "the US", I am referring to the state I was in, I do hope that there are saner ones.) Apparantly this is caused by the US not having a good system of medicaid, which I hope gets better implemented with Obamacare, but that seems to be just a wish. This leads me to the point that governments are responsible for their citizens in exchange for the citizens giving up certain liberties (note that liberty isn't freedom exactly), including keeping citizens healthy---it is impossible to have a prosperous planet with bad healthcare. (Don't get me wrong, I have more positive impressions in the US :P) For a government to be able to handle social needs, it must not be corruputed. Theories such as the separation of powers exist, but in contemperory times, implementations such as the US have sometimes-corrupt but almost always ineffective governments. The Senate fillibuster is a important reason, but not the culprit. The culprit is the inherent eager to compete with other political parties and to gain a political advantage, rather than
