That OSS has become too entangled with political activism and ideological gatekeeping, when it should be about making great software, giving people control over their computers, and rediscovering the joy of computing.
I don't think Omarchy is anti-political so much as an attempt to revive the enthusiast/hacker ethos of the OSS community.
"Freedom to compute" cannot be separated from "Freedom to exist" as it explicitly depends on it. The authors of Omarchy pay lip service to the former while taking a stance against the latter.
Fully agreed. I have yet to encounter someone who is claiming something elss and is not privileged enough to just not need to worry about this. Ignorance doesn't reduce the political tech entanglement, it just... ignores it. Which is fine, do whatever. But don't claim it's not related.
No, it is definitely possible to make great software without inserting messaging on irrelevant issues into it. Whatever the quality of Omarchy, DHH is right about parts of the free software world becoming entangled worth various irrelevant causes.
This equivocation on the word "exist" doesn't work anymore. It's not 2018 anymore. Normal people with common sense understand that keeping politics separate from technology isn't the same thing as existential violence. Nobody, to "exist", needs to make software political.
I'm becoming really upset at people whom I otherwise align with for taking absolute statements that don't make sense.
DHH said some stuff you disagree with, incidentally while I have always identified with strong social systems, welfare, high taxes and things like free healthcare, I can't say I disagree with the core of what he tried to say, because there has been seizemic ethnic change within a single generation - and people not talking about it is actually fuelling the extreme position.
So when you say "has a right to exist", what do you mean exactly? Because if I was to stand in the lobby of a parliamentary building and was forcibly removed, would that mean I don't have the right to exist?
You have a right to exist, just not here, just like how White English people have no right to exist in India, and White Dutch people don't have a right to live in Zimbabwe.
Saying "Hey, this demographic and major cultural change in the last 20 years makes the environment different" is considered racism- which has the obvious consenquence of making the word "racist" have less power.. It's not racism to notice this, it's racist to think anyone else is lesser than natives or to group "them" and treat an ethnic group as a homogenous bloc.
I'm reminded of the phrase "if you don't respect me, I won't respect you" whereby respect can mean as an authority or as a person, and they mean "if you don't respect me as an authority, then I won't respect you as a person".
You're saying "if you don't let me do everything I want then you're denying that I have the right to exist at all" which is a type of hysteric language which permits any atrocity in response it can be framed as an act of self defence.
>Saying "Hey, this demographic and major cultural change in the last 20 years makes the environment different" is considered racism
perhaps if he said it like this, rather than comparing Roma to wolves that should be shot and comparing immigration as something to be survived like a bombing blitz, people wouldnt care as much
>it's racist to think anyone else is lesser than natives or to group "them" and treat an ethnic group as a homogenous bloc.
>there has been seizemic ethnic change within a single generation
There hasn't. Look at actual numbers, and what you see is the same hysteria that was directed against the Jews during the first half of the XXth century: foreign agents, traitors, parasites, nuisance... All for a tiny fraction of the population. All blown up by the same people who are the ones responsible for the misery of the majority of the population - yes, the "whites" are being screwed up by other "whites", not by the "brown" people.
>White English people have no right to exist in India, and White Dutch people don't have a right to live in Zimbabwe.
One: it was English people in Zimbabwe too, and two: they have the right to live there; the problem with them is that they took everything by force and decided the native people where subhuman. Pretending the situation is the same with brown-skinned low-wage immigrants coming in western countries is completely cuckoo crazy.
>it's racist to think anyone else is lesser than natives or to group "them" and treat an ethnic group as a homogenous bloc.
Which is exactly what DHH does. Thank you for agreeing that DHH is a racist.
I'm not seeing anywhere that he actually claims someone doesn't have a right to exist. I see lots of people using colorful, subjective interpretations of other things he said to try and push a narrative, but that's all.
He did. He claimed that the demographic has changed and he advocates for reverting this change. And it turns out that forcibly altering the demographic of an era is the literal definition of ethnic cleansing (and by the way the phrass has historicallt been coined with the specific meaning of removing Muslim people from Serbia, by the people who intended to perform that “cleansing”, so it's particularly apt here).
>> He did not call for forcibly altering the demographic.
> When wolves get out of control, you shoot them. When gypsies take over public spaces, you deport them.
And while I'm quoting:
MerriamWebster: Xenophobe
> one unduly fearful of what is foreign and especially of people of foreign origin
DHH:
> You can rest assured that I'd be in the streets waving a Danish flag if these were my conditions in my native country. I think that's a pretty universal sentiment. There's absolutely nothing racist or xenophobic in saying that Denmark is primarily a country for the Danes, Britain primarily a united kingdom for the Brits, and Japan primarily a set of islands for the Japanese.
I would say saying that is pretty much the definition of xenophobic.
Worse, in the context of DHHs rants, it comes off as racist - I don't get the sense he wants to throw out Norwegians from Denmark, for example.
Although shurly there are Norwegian migrants and foreign workers in Denmark.
> Supporting indigenous people and their rights to their native homelands is not xenophobic.
Xenophobia leads to the belief that white Danes need support for their rights to their native homeland.
It's not like this is some great battle to rise restitution for Native Americans, Maori or Aborigines.
It's about not having to see so many non-white faces in Copenhagen or London.
> Enforcing immigration laws is not ethnic cleansing.
That certainly depends on the law, and the enforcement.
More to the point: trampling nomadic sub- cultures, forcefully denying them access where they have lived for centuries, denying them their way of life - can certainly result in genocide ("the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group").
DHH has the capacity to assess that going full on white supremacist is still relatively frowned upon, so he does only as much as he thinks he can get away with.
Sponsoring his badly made OSS and giving him any type of a limelight will only embolden him and the likes of him. I personally want nothing to do with him and anything he touches.
Take one glance at history, and you'll see that having a sovereign ethnic homeland is crucial to that "freedom to exist". So you're wrong on both counts - they are also taking a stance for the latter, and the two freedoms can be separated. Distributing FOSS does not require one takes a stance on every ethnic and political conflict on Earth. The GNU manifesto never once talks about the occupation of Tibet. This "cannot be separated" is nothing but a cheap attempt to attach your own cause to some other, more widely accepted cause.
FOSS never was about the right of the distributor. It’s been always about protecting the user. The way to do it is to give the users a set of rights that cannot be revoked.
> That OSS has become too entangled with political activism
Wait is that really the spin that DHH is pushing? That'd be insane given he's among the most politically active open sources developers put there by a wiiide margin.
Maybe DHH should live by his own ethos and "shut up and program" rather than continually making divisive political statements that alienate people who might otherwise use and contribute to his distro.
I don’t think he’ll refrain from using the political power he amassed by building a very popular web framework. We gave him a megaphone and a soapbox, and he’ll use it.
The fact that this is up for debate already says all. For anyone passing through, read the blog posts and his social media feeds, make up your own mind.
I don't think Omarchy is anti-political so much as an attempt to revive the enthusiast/hacker ethos of the OSS community.