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Boycotting FOSS projects in the wake of the "buy canadian/european" movement makes no sense
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
664 points (97.4% liked)
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Totally agree. The majority of Americans are great people. Not everyone is MAGA. We need to support the good ones. Sanctions and boycotts tend to unite.
One exception would be if the project imposse a security risk because key people and servers, within the US, may be blackmailed or pushed by the new administration. We're not there yet though. And I hope these projects and people migrate if this becomes the case.
Also, FOSS projects run by big tech are probably also wise to avoid for strategic reasons.
Not choosing to vote or speak is endorsing the establishment. We are not great people. We are dumbfucks.
Where is the logic in that? By voting you're actively acknowledging the legitimacy of the State. How would not voting be an endorsement of anything, as you see it?
Voting is endorsing the establishment
if its run by a big company then it's just open source and not free, or do you mean something like a company contributing to the code?
They're not the majority if they can't win an election — just sayin'.
77mio out of 340mio voted for trump which is roughly 22.6%
a minority of the population voted for trump though, it's not like 50+% of the total population voted for him, it's 50+% of the voters, a lot of people just didn't vote.
Yeah, a minority of people voted for Hitler, too.
Voter ID, gerrymandering, not allowing absentee voting, no day off.
Not everyone was able to vote, and that disproportionately affected Democratic voters.
All true. But the world also watched a huge amount of voters rejects dems over gaza. While trump had no better plans on gaxa.
Much like Ukraine his only argument is "i am better and every one else was stupid"
The argument often heard. "Voting the lesser of 2 evils is still voting evil".
So yes these folks very much voted the greater of 2 evils by refusing to vote the lesser option. And much of the rest of the world is rightfully sorta pissed at the evil they allowed in.
Maybe a system that regularly gives us "evil vs lesser evil but still evil" as our only options isn't worth saving
Sorta like the trolly problem.
You can flip the lever to kill 5 or 1. But if you choose not to and also don't fucking bother to hit the breaks. Your still responsible for killing 5 instead of 1.
If you are not willing to actually stop the evil fai.ing to selects make you the bigger evil.
I actually hate how the trolley problem is misinterpreted. It's not a question of "will you kill one person or kill 5?". If you pull the lever, you are murdering somebody. If you do nothing, you killed no one, whoever put them on the tracks killed them. Whether it's morally acceptable to murder one person in order to save 5 is an interesting thought experiment but that's all it is.
Amd its not misinterpreted. The whole point of using the trolly problem is as an example as it was designed. Thought experiments are there to help you interpret real actions by simplifying them. Not to be ignored as pointless.
You are still the one making the choice.
Hence why the trolly problem is equivalent to a political vote. Not voting has the same effect as not making a choice between one or 5.
If you are there before they get tied to the track you do more. But that is not the situation you are in on election day.
On election day its to late to change candidates. Just as its to late to try and untie the victims. If you do not have correct of the breaks or the ability to stop the trolly on time.
Your only option is to choose or not to choose the lesser of 2 evils.
Failing to choose is no less evil then choosing the worst.
There is no "not making a choice" in the trolley problem. You either don't murder someone, or you murder someone and rationalize it. Those are the only two possible options. Creating a third option out of thin air is exactly what I was describing when I said people often misinterpret it.
Bollocks.
It is a thought experiment. Where you do not get to dobt murder someone.
That is the whole fucking point.
Just like not voting dosent stop evil running the nation.
You are the one misinterpreting. By some how inventing the dont murder somone option.
Just because you dont like it. Dos not mean you get to invent your own interpretations.
I've read this like 6 times and I can't figure out what you're trying to to say so I can't respond to it.
If you don't pull the lever you haven't murdered anyone. The person who tied them to the tracks murdered them. You were just standing there.
I'm interpreting it the way it's written. There's only 2 possibilities, murder one person or let 4 die by not murdering that person. "I choose not to decide" is the latter. It's not a third option. There is no third option.
You really seem to be failing to understand. And simple typos are easy to read around. I'm visually impaired so have little patience for that excuse.
As you said its a thought experiment. As you say you only have two options. Rejecting responsibility is the same as leaving the lever in the kill 5 position.
Pull or don't pull. If you pull 1 person dies. If you don't 5 die. There is no don't kill.
Yes the person tieing them to the track murdered them. But just like not voting you don't get to rewind time amd select better candidates. As the guy in the signal box. Your duty iss to direct the train. Just as your duty is to vote. Not wanting people to have been tied to the track is obviose but not an answer. Unless you are the one willing to invent a time machine. Your duty is still to direct the train.
Not voting leaves you with trump. Because you live in a fptp nation where 3rd parties just reduce the opposing vote.
Just like not pulling the lever means 5 folks died. You still had the task to direct the train. Refusing to pull the lever still leave you responsible for 5 rather then one dying.
Refusing to take responsibility dose not forgive you for failing to select the lesser evil. You are still directly responsible for choosing the greater evil by failing to pull the lever.
Rejecting responsibility and blaming others is not an option provided. Because the thought experiment recognises you live in a system where you have to make choices based on facts not your hopes and wishes. You live in a world where if you don't have the option to stop the train. Or prevent the arsehole tying people to the tracks. You still have responsibilities. I refuse to play still has an effect on the world you live in. Like it or not.
It would probably help if the statement made sense to being with.
"5 people die" is not the same as "I killed 5 people". There is no option to kill the 5 people. They're already dead unless you murder someone to save them.
There's no signal box nor is there verbiage in the trolley problem that implies you work for the railroad. You're just a guy in a position to pull the lever. There's no outside obligation to do anything at all.
I understand you want to crowbar the trolley problem into your metaphor about voting but I'm trying to stay on topic and discuss the problem itself.
No is not. It's based on personal morality, whether an individual is willing to murder someone to save 4 others. The whole thing could be boiled down to "do the ends justify the means?"
All amounts to the same thing.
Your just a guy eh is in a position to choose 1 or 5. And did not. So from that point. Yes you chose to allow 4 people to die. The death of those people is on your hands when you chose to do nothing.
You seem desperate not to make the choice but the responsibility for that lack of choice still lies with you.
Just as you were in a position to choose trump or Harris. So trump is as much your fault for failing to vote a viable alternative. As if you had chosen to vote him. Just because do not like either option dose not forgive you the effect of not choosing.
That's what I've been saying while you've been insisting that not choosing is somehow a third option. It's not. It ends up being effectively "didn't pull the lever".
I haven't chosen or refused to choose anything. I'm here to talk about your flawed interpretation of the trolley problem, nothing more.
It seems you're incapable of staying on topic so I am no longer interested in having a discussion with you.
I do imagine the thought experiment is more meaningful to those on the dying end, I'll give you that.
"Great people on both sides," as a very stable genius put it 🙄
Either way, this is probably OT for an open source thread...
Fair enough. I'm still smarting from that election result, all the way across the pond.
On the other side, I don't count people as "great" who can't be bothered voting against bigoted authoritarianism. But different strokes, I'm sure.
the us electoral system is designed around preventing BIPOCs from voting especially in the southern states. You have to do a lot of paperwork to get into the system and sometimes you get kicked out of the system by arbitrary rules without being notified. You also have to vote at the place assigned to your part of town, or in some cases miles away, The place often is systematically understaffed in poor neighborhoods which means huge lines, also the vote is held during work hours and many more things.