Disillusionist

I get where he’s coming from… I do… but it also sounds a lot like letting the dark side of the force win. The world is just better with more talent in open source. If only there was some recourse against letting LLM barons strip mine open source for all it’s worth and only leave behind ruin.

Some open source contributors are basically saints. Not everyone can be, but it still makes things look more bleak when the those fighting for the decent and good of the digital world abandon it and pick up the red sabre.

The more people who demand better out of their employers (and services, governments, etc.), the better we’ll get of those things in the long run. When you surrender your rights, you worsen not only your own situation, but that of everyone else, as you validate and contribute to the system that violates them. Capitulation is the single greatest reason we have these kinds of problems.

We need more people doing exactly as you did, simply saying no. Thank you for fighting, and thank you for sharing. Best wishes in your job hunt.

Fair enough. I posted this rather long comment elsewhere, but what I said there pretty much explains a lot of my thoughts on the situation.

I wouldn’t put much past the current American administration. I haven’t been able to shake this impression that we might really be looking a the telegraphing of an invasion. From what we know and have seen, the administration is very much itching to apply the fullest extent of its powers. It’s defined by unprecedented and extraordinary use of extralegal action and complete disregard for how it might be seen by the world at large.

They said for years that Russia wouldn’t move on Ukraine, and then green men marched in and took over Crimea. It’s no secret how much America is becoming increasingly like Russia in every way. US already has significant military presence in Greenland — a green men play would be really easy. And Greenland also has a surprising number of politicians who openly say that they prefer the security offered by Trump’s America over Denmark, even as they declare that they want independence (experts argue that independence might make them even more vulnerable to takeover right now). It’s easy to assume that at least some Greenland doors would open up to an American green man advance.

Also, as far as consequences for taking over Greenland, we seem to be primarily looking at a breakup of NATO — something that is also on this US administration’s longstanding wish list. Experts don’t seem to think it’s ultimately likely to result in an actual war so much as make it crystal clear that the old rules no longer apply, and that the US isn’t a friend (the Article 5 debate is shaky, especially against the prospect of actually going to war against America, and especially while NATO is also dealing with the Russian war in Ukraine). On paper it kind of reads like a win-win-win situation for the current brazen, imperialist, and isolationist American kleptocracy.

I’d say we at least need to take this stuff seriously.

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Real serious stuff happening right now, including American threats and claims against other nations — like what this post is about (it’s really not bullshit at this point). Not everything is about Epstein.

Not enough people point to this, even though it sits close to the heart of most of our other big problems right now. Big Tech in general exists in a societal blindspot, even as it actively and deliberately fractures and exploits society from all possible angles for profit and power.