FOSS is about freedom, and freedom is about letting people you don't like do things you don't like as well as letting people you like do things you do like.
Personally, I've seen projects claiming to be FOSS that try to dictate who can use their software and how, and I don't think they're really Free Software at all. It's highly restrictive software with a shared source license.
Personally, I've seen projects claiming to be FOSS that try to dictate who can use their software and how, and I don't think they're really Free Software at all. It's highly restrictive software with a shared source license.
A little part of me was sorta pulling for the cockroach in the end. like "Oh, well obviously it's dead, but maybe the twist is it's ok?"
What inspired me to write The Graysonian Ethic is that I am aware of many sons and daughters who rely on their parents very late into life. I know 40 year olds who are going grey and still live in their parents basements and have very little in terms of their own personal prospects for the future. I'm already 38, and my son is going to be coming of age just as I retire, so I can't really do that. Because of that, I need to do everything I possibly can to help him achieve success early on, because I can't support him for his whole life.
The book's name is based on the nichomachean ethic by aristotle. The book was apparently a work where he was trying to impart good ethics onto his son. The cover is a line drawing of my hand with my son's hand holding onto one of my fingers. It represents fatherhood and the passing of wisdom from one generation to the next.
I live in research mode, I'm always trying to find out more about the world. I wrote the book by choosing a subject every weekend and writing an essay on that topic. Once I was completed, I sent it to my editor to edit, then before publishing I went through one last time with a text to speech to make sure it sounds good and completed the formatting.
The era before my son was born had a lot of spare time, so it wasn't too hard to balance writing with my other responsibilities. An hour or two one day of the weekend was quite manageable. The fact that these are very heartfelt essays meant they were largely easy to write.
To me, success isn't about sales or reviews, it's about whether the process and the book helps me to raise a good son. The process itself really forced me to consider what I find important, what sort of lessons I want to pass on and how I want to do that, and what lessons need to be reinforced and what lessons maybe aren't as important. Some chapters in retrospect I really started to realize how little current events matter in the grand scheme of things, and what really matters is the broader ideas that you need to think for yourself because even good and just causes can be turned to evil if you stop thinking for yourself and let someone else do it for you. The book has gotten nothing but positive reviews so far, which I'm thankful for.
The book's name is based on the nichomachean ethic by aristotle. The book was apparently a work where he was trying to impart good ethics onto his son. The cover is a line drawing of my hand with my son's hand holding onto one of my fingers. It represents fatherhood and the passing of wisdom from one generation to the next.
I live in research mode, I'm always trying to find out more about the world. I wrote the book by choosing a subject every weekend and writing an essay on that topic. Once I was completed, I sent it to my editor to edit, then before publishing I went through one last time with a text to speech to make sure it sounds good and completed the formatting.
The era before my son was born had a lot of spare time, so it wasn't too hard to balance writing with my other responsibilities. An hour or two one day of the weekend was quite manageable. The fact that these are very heartfelt essays meant they were largely easy to write.
To me, success isn't about sales or reviews, it's about whether the process and the book helps me to raise a good son. The process itself really forced me to consider what I find important, what sort of lessons I want to pass on and how I want to do that, and what lessons need to be reinforced and what lessons maybe aren't as important. Some chapters in retrospect I really started to realize how little current events matter in the grand scheme of things, and what really matters is the broader ideas that you need to think for yourself because even good and just causes can be turned to evil if you stop thinking for yourself and let someone else do it for you. The book has gotten nothing but positive reviews so far, which I'm thankful for.
So... my interpretation of events....
Is that the world was largely agrarian prior to the industrial revolution.
The industrial revolution sparked the gilded age of growing inequality and social strife, and eventually World War 1 occurred.
World war 1 was a world-scale war taking advantage of the power of the industrial revolution, and it traumatized the world. This led to the modernist movement which started to disregard tradition and while it relied on authority was working to create new answers in a new world.
Modernism obviously led to some new answers, and some were better and some were much worse, but eventually that led to World War 2.
World war 2 was another world-scale war taking advantage of the technologies and ideologies of the modern age, and it too was deeply traumatizing. This is one of the factors that led to postmodernism, which disregards tradition but additionally disregards authority.
And it seems that modernism tries to find universal objective truths and post-modernism rejects universal objective truths. It could be said that both viewpoints are asking the wrong question.
If one is looking for universal truth, and they think they find it, then it gives one an ironclad moral certitude that they've found "The Truth", so anything in pursuit of "The Truth" is acceptable. This led to ideologies like fascism and national socialism which were convinced of their superiority to everything to the point of violent conflict.
By contrast, if one totally rejects universal truth, then it becomes too easy to disregard things that are "universal enough". It can cause your ideology to reject things that are real and true because they're inconvenient or because there's a miniscule minority that might be an exception to the rule. For example, there are countless examples where postmodernists reject fundamental realities of humanity because it's inconvenient or because there's a miniscule minority that might be an exception to the rule.
So both embracing of total universal truth and the rejection of any universal truth are not productive.
There is a universe that is objective and so regardless of our point of view we ought to try to understand the objective universe because for example if you are hit by a speeding train then no amount of argumentation will protect you from physical harm.
Moreover, there are commonalities that come from our shared humanity that can be considered to be objective for the purposes of discussions with other humans. Our brains are almost universally wired in certain ways and identifying those commonalities and our shared humanity is deeply important because sometimes those objective human truths aren't rational or logical, but they are important because we are human.
On the other hand, there are things that aren't universal, and that's where we need to be careful not to ascribe things to universality that aren't universal. Some of the attitudes we believe are universal are in fact cultural constructs. A good example would be the modern era's rejection of slavery. In the history of culture, slavery is more common than uncommon. The western rejection of slavery is partially cultural due to the influence of Christianity and the idea that all men are created equal, and partially practical due to the reduced requirement for slavery in the wake of the industrial revolution. It's a deeply held conviction, but it isn't by any means universal.
I know I'm focusing a lot on the attribute of rejecting tradition or objectivity in both and the rejection of authority in the one, but in the same way as if you're crossing the ocean a change in bearing of just a degree or two could land you in a completely different country, the first principles of a philosophy fundamentally change the destination it might come to.
If history is any indication, the next phase of history is going to be a historical revival where many of the traditions we've cast aside will be reclaimed. Not all of them, because some of them were cast aside for good reasons, and we won't reject all the novel things we've created because they were created for good reasons.
Don't get me wrong, I'm deeply concerned with a traditional revival because while our novelty has become decadent, it has also brought about a lot of new and good ways of looking at the world. Whether I like the idea of something coming or not, or whether I think it's the right direction or not, cannot have a bearing on whether I predict such a thing occurring.
One beneficial thing to a traditional revival on an environmental front would be a return to the sort of "salt of the earth" actions that benefit everyone, such as having a garden in your back yard. Rediscovering the pride in making things with your hands and reaping the benefits of food and craft with a smaller environmental footprint because they literally take place using materials from a small geographical area.
Technology would play a large role in improving such traditions, for example by letting people who are better at a thing spread information about successes over the Internet on a scale that was impossible previously.
The Internet can also democratize access to information about these things, ensuring that individuals who would otherwise be blind can instead get access to the best way to do things, ensuring that their time is spent most productively even if they're not doing things in a modern industrialized manner.
The biggest danger from my view is that the Internet is slowly losing its status as a free place. Little by little, interests are getting their fingers into it. Governments are increasingly legislating the Internet with a hope to amplify messages the powers that be prefer and silence or minimize messages the powers that be disagree with or don't want out there. That could very quickly become stuff like information about gardening because they don't get tax money or campaign contributions off of free food grown in your back yard.
Is that the world was largely agrarian prior to the industrial revolution.
The industrial revolution sparked the gilded age of growing inequality and social strife, and eventually World War 1 occurred.
World war 1 was a world-scale war taking advantage of the power of the industrial revolution, and it traumatized the world. This led to the modernist movement which started to disregard tradition and while it relied on authority was working to create new answers in a new world.
Modernism obviously led to some new answers, and some were better and some were much worse, but eventually that led to World War 2.
World war 2 was another world-scale war taking advantage of the technologies and ideologies of the modern age, and it too was deeply traumatizing. This is one of the factors that led to postmodernism, which disregards tradition but additionally disregards authority.
And it seems that modernism tries to find universal objective truths and post-modernism rejects universal objective truths. It could be said that both viewpoints are asking the wrong question.
If one is looking for universal truth, and they think they find it, then it gives one an ironclad moral certitude that they've found "The Truth", so anything in pursuit of "The Truth" is acceptable. This led to ideologies like fascism and national socialism which were convinced of their superiority to everything to the point of violent conflict.
By contrast, if one totally rejects universal truth, then it becomes too easy to disregard things that are "universal enough". It can cause your ideology to reject things that are real and true because they're inconvenient or because there's a miniscule minority that might be an exception to the rule. For example, there are countless examples where postmodernists reject fundamental realities of humanity because it's inconvenient or because there's a miniscule minority that might be an exception to the rule.
So both embracing of total universal truth and the rejection of any universal truth are not productive.
There is a universe that is objective and so regardless of our point of view we ought to try to understand the objective universe because for example if you are hit by a speeding train then no amount of argumentation will protect you from physical harm.
Moreover, there are commonalities that come from our shared humanity that can be considered to be objective for the purposes of discussions with other humans. Our brains are almost universally wired in certain ways and identifying those commonalities and our shared humanity is deeply important because sometimes those objective human truths aren't rational or logical, but they are important because we are human.
On the other hand, there are things that aren't universal, and that's where we need to be careful not to ascribe things to universality that aren't universal. Some of the attitudes we believe are universal are in fact cultural constructs. A good example would be the modern era's rejection of slavery. In the history of culture, slavery is more common than uncommon. The western rejection of slavery is partially cultural due to the influence of Christianity and the idea that all men are created equal, and partially practical due to the reduced requirement for slavery in the wake of the industrial revolution. It's a deeply held conviction, but it isn't by any means universal.
I know I'm focusing a lot on the attribute of rejecting tradition or objectivity in both and the rejection of authority in the one, but in the same way as if you're crossing the ocean a change in bearing of just a degree or two could land you in a completely different country, the first principles of a philosophy fundamentally change the destination it might come to.
If history is any indication, the next phase of history is going to be a historical revival where many of the traditions we've cast aside will be reclaimed. Not all of them, because some of them were cast aside for good reasons, and we won't reject all the novel things we've created because they were created for good reasons.
Don't get me wrong, I'm deeply concerned with a traditional revival because while our novelty has become decadent, it has also brought about a lot of new and good ways of looking at the world. Whether I like the idea of something coming or not, or whether I think it's the right direction or not, cannot have a bearing on whether I predict such a thing occurring.
One beneficial thing to a traditional revival on an environmental front would be a return to the sort of "salt of the earth" actions that benefit everyone, such as having a garden in your back yard. Rediscovering the pride in making things with your hands and reaping the benefits of food and craft with a smaller environmental footprint because they literally take place using materials from a small geographical area.
Technology would play a large role in improving such traditions, for example by letting people who are better at a thing spread information about successes over the Internet on a scale that was impossible previously.
The Internet can also democratize access to information about these things, ensuring that individuals who would otherwise be blind can instead get access to the best way to do things, ensuring that their time is spent most productively even if they're not doing things in a modern industrialized manner.
The biggest danger from my view is that the Internet is slowly losing its status as a free place. Little by little, interests are getting their fingers into it. Governments are increasingly legislating the Internet with a hope to amplify messages the powers that be prefer and silence or minimize messages the powers that be disagree with or don't want out there. That could very quickly become stuff like information about gardening because they don't get tax money or campaign contributions off of free food grown in your back yard.
On one hand, fuck da po-lice. On the other hand, fuck people who are on their phone while driving. I was out for a walk on Friday, and this car belted past, and we saw the person driving the car never looked up from their lap.
Peanut butter and pickle is actually ok.
Anyone who hasn't had a nice peanut butter and bread and butter pickle sandwich is missing out.
Anyone who hasn't had a nice peanut butter and bread and butter pickle sandwich is missing out.
I think I need to go to bed. I didn't read the "in", and I was like "eating your car is degenerate? I guess so, but why bring that up?"
#nextcloud So I played a bit more with external samba shares on my nextcloud, but I found that there were some real issues with it. Unfortunately, in my application trying to access the smb share killed php! Can't explain it, but once I got a few levels deep, the game was over and I couldn't even access the instance anymore until I either rebooted the computer or later figured out I could reboot php-fpm.
I tried webdav next and it worked a bit better but I couldn't pull any files. Finally, I moved to ftp and while it wasn't happy at first, but after restarting php-fpm one more time, everything clicked and I was able to navigate the share and more importantly pull files from the share.
I tried webdav next and it worked a bit better but I couldn't pull any files. Finally, I moved to ftp and while it wasn't happy at first, but after restarting php-fpm one more time, everything clicked and I was able to navigate the share and more importantly pull files from the share.
dangit. I was hoping to avoid that, the point of the planter box was to not have to get down on my hands and knees to do some gardening.
One thing that a lot of studies do with respect to who is feeding the planet is they conflate a "small farm" and a "family farm". The study I found showed that the two are definitely not the same. Defining a "family farm" as a farm owned by one individual or group of individuals and a "small farm" as a farm that has less than two hectares of land, the study I found said that 85% of food was produced by "family farms", but only 35% of food was produced by "small farms". This is due to the fact that the majority of land is operated by family farms of all sizes and a minority of agricultural land is operated by small farms.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2100067X
Historically, this reality that some families end up with massive and quite productive farms is one of the truths that led to the massacres of the kulaks in the soviet union, since some of the former serfs were more successful than the others.
According to one analysis, organic farming methods were generally between 20 and 50% less productive per acre for food crops.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/283996769/The-Yield-Gap-For-Organic-Farming
That's really bad. 20-50% reduced global productivity would put a lot of places that are ok today in bad shape.
On the topic of biofuels, my mind is actually changed -- you're right, we shouldn't be wasting like that. I didn't think they were that bad, but looking at just how much food they're using up, it's a vanity project we're spending overwhelming amounts of energy wastefully on, especially when there's questions about where regular people are getting their next meal from.
https://www.ifpri.org/blog/food-versus-fuel-v20-biofuel-policies-and-current-food-crisis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2100067X
Historically, this reality that some families end up with massive and quite productive farms is one of the truths that led to the massacres of the kulaks in the soviet union, since some of the former serfs were more successful than the others.
According to one analysis, organic farming methods were generally between 20 and 50% less productive per acre for food crops.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/283996769/The-Yield-Gap-For-Organic-Farming
That's really bad. 20-50% reduced global productivity would put a lot of places that are ok today in bad shape.
On the topic of biofuels, my mind is actually changed -- you're right, we shouldn't be wasting like that. I didn't think they were that bad, but looking at just how much food they're using up, it's a vanity project we're spending overwhelming amounts of energy wastefully on, especially when there's questions about where regular people are getting their next meal from.
https://www.ifpri.org/blog/food-versus-fuel-v20-biofuel-policies-and-current-food-crisis
I have a problem with statements like that, because I've lived my entire life listening to people tell us what's going to work and then it doesn't work. Rubber needs to hit road and a thing needs to work.
Whether we like it or not, there's entire countries that weren't able to previously feed their own people with their farmland that are now exporting food because they started chemical fertilizer on what was previously sustenance farming. You can say it's wrong, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating -- and ammonium nitrate fertilizer helps feed the globe.
That's why I'm so much about proven technologies like hydroelectric and streetcars, because we know they can work because they did work, they are working, and they can continue to work.
Whether we like it or not, there's entire countries that weren't able to previously feed their own people with their farmland that are now exporting food because they started chemical fertilizer on what was previously sustenance farming. You can say it's wrong, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating -- and ammonium nitrate fertilizer helps feed the globe.
That's why I'm so much about proven technologies like hydroelectric and streetcars, because we know they can work because they did work, they are working, and they can continue to work.
And tbh, not even the people in charge of the world are fully in charge of the world. You control your generals maybe 90%, and they control their lieutenants maybe 80%, and through layers and layers eventually even authoritarians only exert so much control over the masses of people.