[extropy-chat] In defense of slashdotters (was transhumanism == militant fascism)

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jul 4, 2005, at 7:55 PM, Jacob wrote:

> Dan Clemmensen wrote:
>
> Many posts on Slashdot refer to Stallman as a nut-case. Slashdot does
> does not
> support Stallman. It supports Nerds. Many (Most?) Slashdot readers
> prefer the more
> pragmatic "Open Source" approach to Stalmans's "free software"  
> concept, and
> Stallman's insistence on the "GNU/Linux" nomenclature is clearly very
> irritating to a large portion of the Slashdot community.
>
> As a slashdotter myself, I concur.  Men like Mr. Stallman and Mr.  
> Perens
> seem to be under the impression that all software should be open,  
> going
> as far as proposing legislation.  I personally believe it should be up
> to the individual.

I do not concur.  RS and Perens both believe strongly in the right of  
creators to decide how to offer their creation.  They believe that  
non-open software is more or less immoral but not that everyone  
should be forced to offer their software creations under licenses of  
their liking.  Besides, the issue from an extropian viewpoint is one  
of what forms of licensing of what kinds of software under what  
circumstances expand extropy.   That this or that original light or  
exponent of Free/Open Software has opinions distasteful to some of us  
is not terribly important.

>
> Slashdot itself tends to be a very diverse group.  It is geared more
> towards the open source/Linux crowd, but it is far more diverse than
> simply that.  I take everything I read on there with a grain of salt
> anyways.  The posts range from the good and useful all the way to the
> utterly useless.

I am often surprised by the gibbering monkey chatter level and the  
seeming serious level of ignorance.  I am also surprised to encounter  
a lot of young geeks who seem to have not a clue of how fast  
technology is changing the world and  possess no positive vision (to  
say the least).    It seems to be uncool to dream and seek to make  
the dream real.

- samantha

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