mastodon - Link to source

Basically, what we’re saying to people today is:

You’re interested in tech and you want a nice home (or just any home) and stability? Go work at Google, Facebook, or some other surveillance capitalist.

What’s that? You want to work on free and open source? Sure, go work at IBM or Oracle… Oh… you don’t mean enterprise software? Tech to protect human rights/democracy? Not for profit hippie-dippie crap for the common good?

Oh, then suffer.

I mean, is it any surprise things are as they are?

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in reply to Kevin Karhan

mastodon - Link to source

Kevin Karhan

at this point basically all my projects are stalling due to lack of funding...

And since #NUCbook and other projects go against #SurveillanceCapitalism, #PlannedObsolescence and/or other #Rentseeking they won't get funded.

github.com/KBtechnologies/nucb…

GitHub - KBtechnologies/nucbook: A modular & open design 13" Notebook that can be customized and upgraded to fit user's needs

A modular & open design 13" Notebook that can be customized and upgraded to fit user's needs - GitHub - KBtechnologies/nucbook: A modular & open design 13" Notebook that can b...
GitHub
#surveillancecapitalism #plannedobsolescence #nucbook #rentSeeking
in reply to Kevin Karhan

friendica - Link to source

MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

@Kevin Karhan :verified: @Aral Balkan
And just out of curiosity - why is a project that is supposed to be against #SurveillanceCapitalism being hosted on a site that undoubtedly belongs to #SurveillanceCapitalism ? Well, unless we exclude (for convenience? Because not for lack of other options) #microsoft from it....
#microsoft #surveillancecapitalism @Aral Balkan @Kevin Karhan
in reply to Kevin Karhan

mastodon - Link to source

Kevin Karhan

Q: Do you also criticize anti-capitalists for using #Patreon and #YouTube?

Do you criticize #Prisoners from the USA for "being part" of a for-profit incarceration system??

I want you to think about this for a minute...
soc.citizen4.eu/display/94d439…

MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

2023-07-19 12:51:45


@Kevin Karhan :verified: @Aral Balkan
And just out of curiosity - why is a project that is supposed to be against #SurveillanceCapitalism being hosted on a site that undoubtedly belongs to #SurveillanceCapitalism ? Well, unless we exclude (for convenience? Because not for lack of other options) #microsoft from it....

in reply to Kevin Karhan

friendica - Link to source

MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

@Kevin Karhan :verified: @Aral Balkan
And do you feel you are a prisoner of Microsoft and Gooogle that you write like that ? I could understand it if github or youtube were the only tools in their field. But thanks to the people who put a lot of work into their #foss / #decentralised alternatives, we no longer have to be prisoners of Microsoft and Google.
@Aral Balkan @Kevin Karhan
This entry was edited (2 years ago)
in reply to MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

mastodon - Link to source

Kevin Karhan

Please feel free to controbute to the project but stop wasting my personal time.

Needless to say that my projects only create cost on Microsoft's end and no profit whatsoever as I never even paid a single cent to them.

If they ever go full asshole onto me I'd just move the project when the need exists.

Meanwhile it's irrelevant for a #git where it's hosted.

I just have neither the time nor budget nor spoons to setup a #GitLab or #Gitea at this point...

in reply to MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

mastodon - Link to source

Aral Balkan

@miklo @kkarhan Not everyone has the time or energy to do everything perfectly according to every possible set of purist criteria. Should we try to use alternatives if they exist? Sure. Should we make those alternatives as easy to use as possible so more people use them? Yes, please. Should we give hell to folks doing the best they can with the right intentions if they don’t meet our criteria 100%? Please, no. Let’s try and keep things in perspective and to be kind.
@MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛 @Kevin Karhan
in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓪𝓽𝓱【ツ】☮(📍🇨🇦)

The big guys have their money printer with their politician amigos to decide who gets the monies.

techstartups.com/2021/12/18/80…

It goes into Corporation to bail them out or Investors and Startups to do nonsense ...and from their into the employee salaries too.

Independent peeps need to make their own money printer or suffer forever.
Do you have any alternative ideas how this will ever change?
Maybe vote for the right folks?

in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

Ben Werdmuller

I was just joking with someone about this the other day. My software was used by movements all over the world to rally and organize for justice. I only was able to get out of debt and find some retirement savings when I took a left turn into VC-funded startups for a while.

And now here I am in non profit open source, and, well, those savings were fun to have while they lasted.

Not that I did it for the money. But still.

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in reply to Ben Werdmuller

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Aral Balkan

@ben Similar.

Initially sold a couple of flats we had in Turkey to fund our work but, when that money ran out, Laura started contracting for Stately (which is VC-funded) and that’s what’s keeping us off the streets currently.

We’ve been turned down for every EU fund we’ve applied for and I’m done wasting time with it.

So, yeah, we’re not directly funded by VC (nor would we be) but we’re still more funded by Silicon Valley than by the commons though everything we do is for the common good.

@Ben Werdmuller
in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

Ben Werdmuller

Perhaps ironically, Elgg was doing really well when we were a British limited company with no investment. It all went to pot when we lost focus on customer-aligned revenue, when investors entered the picture.

So that’s how I’m thinking about these things these days. Open source at the center of a small business. I’m done trying to think about investors or non profit grants. I just want to find people who will pay for a solution, in order to underwrite software for all.

in reply to Aral Balkan

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Tio

That's exactly what we talk about in our just released documentary tromsite.com/documentaries/tro… - and this applies to every "job" out there.

If you want to help with anything because you want to see a better society, good luck! We are all figurines on a Monopoly board and have to roll the dice, jump to the next block, pay fees, and so forth.

Survival mode, Planet Earth.

in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

Chris Gioran 💔

This hits incredibly close to home for me.

That's exactly why i quit my job. I want to build _something_ that gives people the opportunity to be creative without being beholden to an exploitative system rotten to the core.

I think it's possible. Perhaps i want to believe it's possible. But if its not, then it's still worth doing.

I am so fucking pumped to be in these conversations. ✊

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in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

FranksAgain

I think it’s the same crisis all over though. Mega corporations leading to cog-in-the-machine jobs. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Gen Z want to work ‘lazy girl jobs’. Who can blame them?

Young women are eschewing hustle culture to focus on life outside of work. Perhaps they are beating capitalism at its own game, says author and editor Daisy Jones
Daisy Jones (The Guardian)
in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

Alex Granford

one of the best career paths still is, and has been for the past few decades, is to start with IT consultancies of the world, get a good real world exposure, get beaten into some core SDLC processes, work with decent solutions and platforms (cloud, enterprise, foss, anything) and discipline, then go explore the world as you see fit.

Not sure what exactly you want to say and to whom with that message….

Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Aral Balkan

Hmm… if only we could crowdfund it somehow… you know, if we all agreed to pay a portion of our earnings so that they could be used for things that benefited us all. We could call it… I don’t know… faxes? No. Taken. Paxes? Nope, doesn’t sound right. Wait, I got it… how about taxes?

ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of…

The Future of Internet Regulation at the European Parliament

A brief write-up of my talk at the EU Parliament last week with embedded videos of my talk and a link to my slides.
Aral Balkan
This entry was edited (2 years ago)
in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

Migsar Navarro

I was thinking in a small reply about legitimization, it is sad but it seems that working for big corporations is the only way to legitimate skills.
After reading the thread, I can only wonder if the answer also lies here, to make money within the system you just build on top of it, but to create alternatives you have to start by fighting everyone else with a slightly different point of view, including those that do not want to have strong opinions but just comfortable lives.
in reply to scottehzxor

mastodon - Link to source

Aral Balkan

@scottehzxor “Evolution by natural selection is the explanation for why we exist. It is not something to guide our lives in our own society. If we were to be guided by the evolution principle, then we would be living in a kind of ultra-Thatcherite, Reaganite society.

Study your Darwinism for two reasons: because it explains why you’re here, and the second reason is, study your Darwinism in order to learn what to avoid in setting up society.”

– Richard Dawkins 1/2

@scottehzxor

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mastodon - Link to source

Aral Balkan

@scottehzxor “What we need is a truly anti-Darwinian society. Anti-Darwinian in the sense that we don’t wish to live in a society where the weakest go to the wall, where the strongest suppress the weak, and even kill the weak. We—I, at least—do not wish to live in that kind of society. I want to live in the sort of society where we take care of the sick, where we take care of the weak, take care of the oppressed, which is a very anti-Darwinian society.”

– Richard Dawkins 2/2

@scottehzxor

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in reply to Aral Balkan

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Loukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️

@scottehzxor

I would go one step further and say that what we see as the market selecting the fittest is actually a system that desperately relies on community, sharing, mutual aid and kindness, but which does not include those things in its metrics. They are unmeasured and invisible but without them the whole system would collapse.

@scottehzxor
in reply to Loukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️

mastodon - Link to source

Jonathan D. Cope, Esq.

@Loukas @scottehzxor I agree that capitalism is brutal but there is a way to stop the more devastating aspects of capitalism, such as stopping capital accumulation while, at the same time, giving benefits to workers more akin to European social security without having to resort to anarchy.
@Loukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️ @scottehzxor
This entry was edited (2 years ago)
in reply to Aral Balkan

glitchsoc - Link to source

Cogito ergo mecagoendios

@scottehzxor hi, I just want to pint out that evolution is not like trial-by-combat. Evolution is like a random walk algorithm for non convex optimization. It converges to local minima, only defined by lack of change, and it does so slowly. People really don't get that. There is absolutely no guarantee that the point it brings you to is good for everyone, and even it it did there is no good reason to believe you couldn't reach there faster by planning.
@scottehzxor
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Aral Balkan

He’s a cis white man with a huge amount of privilege who has failed spectacularly at staying in his lane (as cis white men with huge amounts of privilege often do). Needless to say, I neither approve of nor share his transphobic views. In this specific quote, however, he is spot on (even if his own actions contradict the possibility of having the sort of society he states he wants because we can’t have that while denying the basic humanity of any group of people).
This entry was edited (2 years ago)
in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

Alex / catileptic

my dream is to have Computer Science courses in colleges talk about a career as a tech activist, or a programmer in the civic society as a very reputable and viable career option.

I work as a programmer supporting journalists and activists exclusively. I've worked for the IT industry in the first part of my career. In my mind and, really, in my body, these two environments feel drastically different.

The humanity in tech keeps us sane.

in reply to Aral Balkan

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M8_d

1 more is, overall spying is a illegal or criminal behavior, with only 2 exceptions: in a critical relationship between countries for government and government and on job officers, not for any normal ppl; in a war situation between government and government officially announced, not for government served country's all citizen, unless there is a court order in track; other than these, should be sued in court and punished by laws.
in reply to Aral Balkan

mastodon - Link to source

Stanley Jones

I’ve tried hard to find work that I believe in that still pays the bills.

I joined a cool company but it pivoted to adtech, then a cool company but it pivoted to crypto, then a cool company but it pivoted to AI. Each time leadership had to follow what could get funded. I’m looking again but I’m so cynical at this point…

Anyway, following these comments in hopes of an answer (or at least a good conversation).

⇧