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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?

reshared this

in reply to Aral Balkan

Kevin Karhan :verified:
Kevin Karhan :verified:
• •
Eeyupp...

Either one has to sell their soul to some corporation or suffer...

No matter if it's #GigWork [#UberEats] , #GrindWork [Any fast food job] or whatever...
#UberEats #gigwork #grindwork
in reply to Kevin Karhan :verified:

Kevin Karhan :verified:
Kevin Karhan :verified:
• •
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.

https://github.com/KBtechnologies/nucbook

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 :verified:

MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
• •
@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 :verified:
in reply to Kevin Karhan :verified:

Kevin Karhan :verified:
Kevin Karhan :verified:
• •

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...
https://soc.citizen4.eu/display/94d43991-9964-b7dc-61eb-bef311031412

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 :verified:

MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
• •
@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 :verified:
This entry was edited (10 months ago)
in reply to MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

Kevin Karhan :verified:
Kevin Karhan :verified:
• •
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$💙💛

Aral Balkan
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 :verified:
in reply to Aral Balkan

Kevin Karhan :verified:
Kevin Karhan :verified:
• •
@miklo thx.

For Same does for a lot of of other things:
I'd love to get #FSF / #GNUtils out of my tech stack just for them letting #Stllman back in but alas I'm kinda forced to work with #bash and #nano and stuff...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2SKenHRhMg
#bash #fsf #nano #gnutils #stllman @MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
in reply to Aral Balkan

CartyBoston
CartyBoston
• •
Valley tech bro billionaire infatuation was *such* a distraction, we lost a decade.
in reply to Aral Balkan

𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓪𝓽𝓱🍐【ツ】☮(📍🇬🇧)
𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓪𝓽𝓱🍐【ツ】☮(📍🇬🇧)
• •
The big guys have their money printer with their politician amigos to decide who gets the monies.

https://techstartups.com/2021/12/18/80-us-dollars-existence-printed-january-2020-october-2021/

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

Ben Werdmuller
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.

Aral Balkan reshared this.

in reply to Ben Werdmuller

Aral Balkan
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

Ben Werdmuller
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

charlie :linux: :mastodon:
charlie :linux: :mastodon:
• •
I think it’s the same in all industries, you can’t make good money simply by good will😮‍💨

Even in big NGO you can earn more than you do some good business to the poor
in reply to Aral Balkan

Mandy May
Mandy May
• •
But the open source coders also have time to grow legumes and tubers and explore microdosing...
@BigAngBlack
@Ang Black
in reply to Aral Balkan

whereisk
whereisk
• •
I mean, were things ever different?
in reply to whereisk

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@whereisk I feel the more important question is: can things be made better?

(And yes, yes they can. Whether there’s any political will for it… that‘s a whole other question entirely.)
@whereisk
in reply to Aral Balkan

Tio
Tio
•
That's exactly what we talk about in our just released documentary https://www.tromsite.com/documentaries/trom2/ - 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.

TROM 2

TROM II: A Message to the Aliens Year: 2023   /   Duration: 4 parts, 5 hours We live in a world where everyone is busy, everyone is consumed, everyone seems confused. Money, social credits, ads, data collection, prices and billionaires.
TROM
in reply to Aral Balkan

Chris Gioran 💔
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. ✊

Aral Balkan reshared this.

in reply to Aral Balkan

FranksAgain
FranksAgain
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I think it’s the same crisis all over though. Mega corporations leading to cog-in-the-machine jobs. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/09/gen-z-lazy-girl-jobs-tiktok-work

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

Edward L Platt
Edward L Platt
• •
I feel this. "Do no harm" has been the bare minimum for my tech career, and it has been challenging. Opportunities are out there, but rare. One of my main goals is to find ways to create more opportunities for like-minded tech workers.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Andreu Casablanca 🐀
Andreu Casablanca 🐀
• •
When I talk about this problem with some of my (non-tech) acquaintances I can see them struggling to not yell at me something like "fucking spoiled brat, just suck it".

"Normies" are also clearly at fault for this clusterfuck when they not only do nothing to fix it or prevent it, but also prefer to attack those who oppose it.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Jacky Tweedie
Jacky Tweedie
• •
there are alternatives and it's a good time to get creative about them
in reply to Aral Balkan

Edward L Platt
Edward L Platt
• •
part of the problem is that work outside large firms or vc-funded startups isn't valued by donors or the media. The director of a tech for "social good' program once told me I didn't have "experience working on real projects" because I hadn't worked for Google (despite their recruiters' best efforts).

Aral Balkan reshared this.

in reply to Aral Balkan

msb98
msb98
• •
it sucks, but that's life. If your goal is money, then you're forced to work with even greedier people.

Is there even any open source, human-right conscious tech companies that can guarantee you a nice house and the same level of stability as Google/Facebook?
in reply to Aral Balkan

Avocado Toast
Avocado Toast
• •
tech isn't the only field like this... Almost all of them are.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Still Just Tim
Still Just Tim
• •
When society as a collective decides that our purpose as humans is to struggle to survive, we get to where we are.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Mark T. Tomczak
Mark T. Tomczak
• •
I don't think it's ever been otherwise. The open source movement more or less grew out of the academic class, which is a vanishingly-small ivory tower of "People who get paid to think." Everyone else gets paid to do something concrete for someone, so it's no surprise that there's no money in just open source software.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Katherine Cox-Buday
Katherine Cox-Buday
• •
we could have a conv about isms, but if we start with where we're at, we have to look at why there's no $ in this.

I believe these are contributing:

1. People aren't aware that things could be better.
2. People don't understand why they should care about these things.
3. People have been spread too thin to grow beyond anything but getting by.

I'm not sure if that last one is on purpose or an emergent property of a deeply sick society.

Fix these and I think you fix the problem.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Alex Granford
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….
in reply to Aral Balkan

SquidAceBoi
SquidAceBoi
• •
screwing people over is damn good money. Privatize the wins, socialize the losses.
Unknown parent

Aral Balkan
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?

https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/

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 (10 months ago)
in reply to Aral Balkan

teknomunk
teknomunk
• •
@aral@mastodon.ar.al @AudraTran@fosstodon.org

> if we all agreed

Well, generally people start having problems with taxes precisely because they DIDN'T agree to it.

Someone else decided to take their money.

Usually that's theft, but calling it that causes more people to resist the collection.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Pusher Of Pixels (old account)
Pusher Of Pixels (old account)
• •
govt contracting was a happy medium for me. 10+ years bldg the software to process Refugees into the US
in reply to Aral Balkan

Max Pearl
Max Pearl
• •
What do you mean by suffer? Not make six figures? I did plenty of "hippie-dippie crap for the common good" as do lots of colleagues I know, and made a living. Google/Meta/Oracle living - no, but a decent one.
in reply to Aral Balkan

PadreWil
PadreWil
• •
Right now America is running on two things …… GREED and STUPIDITY !!!
in reply to Aral Balkan

Filipe
Filipe
• •
I gave up on software and computer engineering because of this. I tried to find something but couldn't, and didn't have the financials to go into open source and start a company or product, although I'd love to work in a co-op, for example 😊
in reply to Aral Balkan

T. Redmond Johnson
T. Redmond Johnson
• •
For a while I’ve been working on funding mechanisms consistent with four-freedom licenses … but the knee jerk reaction to any sort of monetization scheme has been disheartening.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Coralie Renée
Coralie Renée
• •
Even when you look at open source or even free software (as in freedom), you see that google is funding them or that they are on github or that AWS is used... 😑
in reply to Aral Balkan

Essem :skeeter:
Essem :skeeter:
• •
gee i sure do love living in a cyberpunk capitalist dystopia
in reply to Aral Balkan

M8_d
M8_d
• •
here my thoughts at concept level: it's not surveillance, it's spying, or worse to say as stealing or robbery, surveillance is authorized as ownership for their property security, or democracy process approved safety devices at public places (not any private things, and should with strict storage/access/release policy)
in reply to Aral Balkan

M8_d
M8_d
• •
and from my point-of-view, that's "capitalist bought politics", hh
in reply to Aral Balkan

Migsar Navarro
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 Aral Balkan

scottehzxor
scottehzxor
• •
The market decides what's valuable. It's unfortunate, but so is nature. The fundamental unit of measurement in life is pain and suffering. Capitalism has managed to change that a great deal through innovation.

Life, nature, the world, the universe has never been fair. That's why we need cybersecurity professionals in ever vector.
in reply to scottehzxor

Aral Balkan
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

Aral Balkan reshared this.

in reply to Aral Balkan

Aral Balkan
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

Aral Balkan reshared this.

in reply to Aral Balkan

Loukas Christodoulou
Loukas Christodoulou
• •
@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 Christodoulou

Jonathan D. Cope, Esq.
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 Christodoulou @scottehzxor
This entry was edited (10 months ago)
in reply to Aral Balkan

Iqbal Abdullah 🇯🇵🇲🇾
Iqbal Abdullah 🇯🇵🇲🇾
• •
@scottehzxor Paraphrasing Pearl Buck, a civilization is measured by how they treat their weakest.
Darwin was watching animals, but it is a fact that animals also show compassion to their fellow animals.
@scottehzxor
in reply to Aral Balkan

VulcanTourist
VulcanTourist
• •
@scottehzxor

Down with de-scriptive black markets and laws of the jungle.
Pre-scriptive altruism FTW.
@scottehzxor
in reply to Aral Balkan

Océane ⏚
Océane ⏚
• •
I heard Kropotkin wrote a great book against Darwin's findings, showing that cooperation, and not competition, was at the core of the evolution of species.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Cogito ergo mecagoendios
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
in reply to Aral Balkan

Jaddy
Jaddy
• •
Unfortunatley, Dawkins ignores his own principles when it comes to trans and nonbinary people. He joined the TERFs and insists that "biology knows only male and female" - which is not even scientifically true anymore and furthermore has nothing to do with gender issues.

@scottehzxor
@scottehzxor
in reply to Aral Balkan

EdenDestroyer (He/Him)
EdenDestroyer (He/Him)
• •
isnt this the same guy that joined the intellectual dark web? the fascist group of pretense-academics?
in reply to EdenDestroyer (He/Him)

Aral Balkan
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 (10 months ago)
in reply to Aral Balkan

Jonathan Lamothe
Jonathan Lamothe
• •
@Aral Balkan This is why I'm looking at jobs outside the tech field.
@Aral Balkan
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@me It’s sad. Because we need those alternatives. But I also cannot blame you. Nor would I urge you to do what I do given the first-hand knowledge I have of exactly what it entails. So, yeah, you’re right to do so.
@Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Aral Balkan

Alecs Ștefănescu
Alecs Ștefănescu
• •
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 Alecs Ștefănescu

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
That would be great. It would, however, likely require colleges/universities to stop thinking of themselves as Big Tech’s human resources department.
This entry was edited (10 months ago)
in reply to Aral Balkan

johnbessa
johnbessa
• •
No love for #Dawkins here!

My #Darwin is the phrase from his second paper "human morality evolved from the affection animals have for their young"

(Highly paraphrased)

From there: Kropotkin's Mutual Aid written to oppose so-called social darwinism. And shows a LOT of animal affection.
#darwin #Dawkins
in reply to Aral Balkan

M8_d
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

Stanley
Stanley
• •
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).
in reply to Aral Balkan

Rotfarm
Rotfarm
• •
I agree and it feels like this in absolutely evety sector, and not just tech.
⇧