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It’s called “being a decent human”. It doesn’t take much but the right just can’t comprehend that
Hear me out, people who belong to this stupid label “the right” can also hold those values. Shocking, isn’t it? I’ll even out myself as one of those morally apprehensive people of this homogeneous group, which is the exact opposite to the homogeneous group “the left” (because you’re either or, of course), "“the* right”. But I still hold the same values as Linus mentions.
When you boil it down, being right wing means you value property rights over human rights, and left wing is vice versa. Right wing is maintaining wealth and power, and don’t let anyone else get in the way of it.
It’s deontological ethics vs keynesian ethics I think. That’s why the left and right accuse each other for being based more in emotion than reason. Because from each’s perspective, the other is doing something objectively wrong, when they have different moral systems in the first place.
Having said that, I prefer to value the well-being of people, over some archaic devotion to a piece of land, or letting humanity go extinct so that we can respect the rules of some weird game I didn’t sign up for called “who grabs land first”.
When you boil it down, being right wing means you value freedom and being left wing means you value making others work for you.
You can boil it down to whatever punchline you wish.
Trump is a leftist then?
Wait the right doesn’t have people working for them?
Haha you’re an idiot trying to sound smart
Freedom is a big word that without clarification doesn’t tell us much of what you believe in. I think you boiled it for too long.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
You should get a check up. You sound absolutely fucked. Probably brain worms or some shit. Do you sometimes notice foam in the corners of your mouth when you speak?
No, right auth is when you prefer hierarchy. Left auth is bureaucracy. Left and right is how much you think capital is a commodity.
Personally, I’m market socialist so I believe that workers should directly own their labor thru worker cooperatives. Right winger believe that owning capital indefinitely is their right which only leads to capital accural and oligarchy.
Freedom until it’s taken from you by those who are wealthier and more powerful.
If you think you’re on “the right” and are not advocating actively and persistently for Trump’s removal from office, you’re a fucking useless moron.
Thanks! I’m actually European, but it seems that a lot of people here on Lemmy forget that there exists other places than the USA and US politics. Being not-American I don’t actively focus on the US, but actually what happens on my continent, my country, my county and my municipality.
(No, I do not endorse Trump. I hope he’s replaced soon.)
Then you are either uninformed or somewhere the right is significantly less corrupt
Lift your focus away from the US. it’s good for you.
Of course there’s a spectrum. In the US, the spectrum only applies to the populace, though, as the politicians themselves are behaving so polarized that there only exists “the right” (far-right culture warriors) and “the left” (center-right with lip service to the left).
Bro, idk how you are still Right-Wing then. What are these Right-Wing values that you hold?
If you’re seriously honest when asking that then you should really look up some political ideologies. I’d also recommend not hyper focusing on the US and US politics.
You either dont believe in these things or you’re not as right as you think you are.
Maybe I’m not understanding. You’re a right wing person that recommends we dont look at right wingers in the US for reference? I guess I just start at Nazi then?
I’m recommending everyone to not look at the US as a reference for a sane and nuanced political system. In Europe we’re generally not A or B, although you can definitely say you’re left or right you don’t have to be either the left or the right.
I hold values which are generally right leaning, as well as left. But overall I vote blue, not red (which would be the other way around in the US, for whatever reason).
If you look at the strong right party Kristdemokraterna in Sweden you’ll find that they support Swedens current abortion laws, which allows for it. Even though they’re strongly for traditional family values and overall a strong right political ideology.
In contrast, the Swedish Vänsterpartiet (literally the left party) with roots in communism, have voted the same way as the far right party Sverigedemokraterna with its roots in nazism and white supremacy. (Just to clarify, Sweden does not only have these two “extremes”. The Riksdag has a total of 8 parties as of today.)
Things are more nuanced outside of US politics. I know what beliefs I hold and live by. I don’t necessarily think those should be put into law (I support the liberty for women to chose whether to abort or not. If I were put in the situation that my wife got unexpectedly pregnant, I would never support aborting.)
Ah, not a piece of confusion here, the US is a good example of when people with right leaning views actually have control the government, there is no left to compare to.
Also, am I reading that you wouldn’t support your wife’s right to choose an abortion? But do you support her decision to choose, which is what I read the current laws states?
I support women’s liberty to choose. My personal belief is that abortions are immoral and should be avoided.
Brazil has a decent political diversity on paper, but the right here is pretty much a copy of the USA right, who mainly defend the interest of the rich (basically they’re all in favor of destroying the environment for profit, privatizing health and other public services, “defending” family values, anti abortion, pro “free speech”, voting en masse to increase their own salaries and being USA’s obedient little bitch). The “center” parties are pure mercenaries and, when not bought by any one side, will ally with the right.
Glances are rightwingers in Germany, Japan, India, UK…
*corporate wants you to find the difference meme
TIL people still use twitter.
Just how fucking dense do you have to be in order to be surprised that a man who created one of the most popular operating systems on Earth, and then gave it away for free, might be a leftist?
Right wingers are extremely stupid and don’t really understand what the left stands for, they fall for all fox news strawman arguments and rage bait.
This is unfortunately true of both sides.
For example, conservatives think pro- choicers are callous baby-killers who only care about abortion because it allows them to “whore around” without consequences. Liberals on the other hand, think pro-lifers are misogynists who want to ban abortion because banning it will hurt women and because they want to make the country more like The Handmaid’s Tale.
…and leftists know that the “abortion debate” is culture warfare injected into the less-educated by billionaires to distract from class warfare.
I was just using that as an example.
Another great one is immigration. Liberals thinks conservatives want to restrict immigration because they hate foreigners. Conservatives want to stop immigration because the job market sucks and has sucked since 2008.
To consolidate posts:
Liberals on the other hand, think pro-lifers are misogynists who want to ban abortion because banning it will hurt women and because they want to make the country more like The Handmaid’s Tale.
None of their stated reasons against abortion hold any water. There are clear ways to reduce abortion, such as comprehensive sex education and widespread availability of birth control. Since conservatives obviously are against those things, we can only conclude their reasons are bullshit. Cruelty fits the data perfectly.
Conservatives want to stop immigration because the job market sucks and has sucked since 2008.
Except there is no real link between those two, and even economics framed in conservative terms disproves it. Labor generates profit, which should mean every new worker adds to the economy, not takes away. That is, the resources they use (food, housing, etc.) are offset by the extra resources they produce in their work. There is not some fixed amount of labor the economy can have, and anything beyond that is parasitic overflow.
So again, if the stated reasons are clearly bullshit, then we are left with a question of why they’re doing it, anyway. Cruelty fits the data perfectly.
we can only conclude their reasons are bullshit
Tbf this isn’t entirely true. Hanlon’s Razor states “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” their reasons could be bullshit (as in intentionally, maliciously deceptive), or they could just be dumb enough not to connect the dots. In fact it could be (and likely is) both. The leaders at the top are maliciously lying about their reasoning, and the base is dumb enough to believe the lies, never underestimate the dumb shit people will earnestly believe due to cult brainwashing since birth, you ever talk to a born-in scientologist or Jehova’s Witness? Fucking wild. People telling me dinosaurs absolutely are planted by the devil to test faith and that OT levels are in any way real and shit, fucking crazy out here dude, there’s even a murderous vegan cult called the Zizians now.
In short: Dumb people be dumbing.
I am a former born-in JW; over a decade out at this point.
You’re not entirely wrong, but the leaders at the top are lying, and that’s all that really matters. They know these policies don’t work, but pursue them anyway.
Conservatives wanted to stop immigration long before 2008…
Democrats too.
The reason why the job market sucks is that unions got defanged and international capital movement freed from the 80s onwards.
That’s why life for working people took 3 steps backwards compared to our parents and grandparents who could buy a house, go on holidays and have a boat on a factory wage. While we are going to have trillionaires soon and the only thing that’s cheaper is the fuel of capitalism: telecoms and wages.
The problem has never been another wage earner - the problem is pitting us against each other and us taking the bait.
I agree with you on the unions, but the other issue is that a lot of jobs have been outsourced over the years. Unfortunately, those jobs probably aren’t coming back.
Well yes, but how did we get here? The same forces that brought us are still working to keep wage slavey alive and well.
Free movement of capital, weakened unions and ceaseless propaganda pitting people against each other (welfare queens, immigrants are taking your jobs, eating the cats and dogs, work harder and you’ll be rich too, these other people are lazy, stupid, bad genes, wrong religion, the rich are better/smarter than you etc) - that’s how that happened.
There’s only one enemy and it’s not other wage earners.
There’s some libertarians in the FOSS community as well, so it’s not a guarantee, but yeah, generally you’ll find that correlation.
In my experience the Foss community tends towards the “legal weed and less cops” style of libertarianism and less the “police exist to protect my right to 3 12 year old wives from the tyranny of criticism” style.
I can generally get along with the “coercion bad” libertarians better than with the “abolish the government because rules shouldn’t exist” crowd.
created one of the most popular operating systems on Earth, and then gave it away for free
He didn’t created it alone and “then” gave it away for free. Since it’s begging Linux was free and that created a community who made it the most popular OS.
Yes. It’s called summarizing. Obviously it’s a bit more complicated. I’m not writing an essay on the history of Linux here.
We would all settle for you not making idiotic comments that mislead anyone who isn’t already informed about this, you might know them as “the vast majority of people”
That comment isn’t misleading, unless you interpret “creator” as “sole contributor”
Well it’s due tomorrow by the end of class, Mr. WoodScientist, so you better get cracking.
“…or as I like to call it gnu plus linux…”
Kernel. GNU is the operating system.
i cant believe this guy invented popcorn :o
Yes, yes, and it’s NT/Windows or as I’ve taken to calling it NT+Windows…
This point is pedantic and tired to the point that it has become an infamous copypasta.
It’s also, at least as stated here, not even technically correct. A kernel is an operating system all on it’s own. It just can’t do much.
GNU just provides the software that the user interacts with.
Additionally, there are a number of Linux distros that are entirely free of GNU software.
Just about everyone understands what you mean when you call Linux an OS. The pedantry is unneeded.
GNU is not even a requirement.
Look at Void Linux. Look at Alpine Linux. Look at Chimera Linux.
MUSL instead of Glibc. Clang instead of GCC. Alternative userlands. More and more Linux distros arrive with these traits everyday (many more than I listed).
TBF, linux is not a requirement either. You can run pretty much all the same software on BSD as you would on a typical linux system.
I think the only thing present in all *nix distributions is Xorg, so what you call linux is actually X11/Linux, or as I’ve taken to calling it, X11+Linux…
You can even go full GNU if you’re willing to live on the bleeding edge and run GNU hurd (now at version 0.9)
I’m sorry Richard, I’m not calling it GNU plus Linux no matter how accurate it is.
It’s actually a sandwich.
Good thing, too; I thought it was a song .
How so you differentiate with non-Linux GNU systems?
The kernel is the OS
I never know wether to upvote or downvote this comment
I do. It is incorrect.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
I use Chimera Linux. None of what you said applies.
It’s a famous copypasta
There it is. 🥲
To be fair what he’s described is at most Progressive. The left rejects the current economic model as a start. Workers owning the means of production instead of an owner class.
There’s a whole lot of river to swim between fair and equal treatment and full fledged socialism. Not everyone on “the left” sleeps with Karl Marx under their pillow.
Oh definitely. it’s a spectrum, but his post doesn’t go that far left. The idea that any of that is “left wing” is spread by conservatives to make those ideas look radical.
Unfortunately, that is left in Americas overton window
Only because we’ve allowed a bunch of Nazis to control it. This is not normal.
Many here will argue if you aren’t pure you aren’t left in any flavor.
Yes, but did you know they’re probably false?
They’re obviously false, doesn’t change the landscape though
Yes, but they don’t.
We should feed them to Linus
Aaaand we’ve arrived at UnixSurrealism
I don’t really know much about his personal politics, but his work seems to speak pretty loudly about rejecting the idea of software as private property to be bought and sold by capital, which, you know, that’s more than just progressive, even if it’s just in one area.
I’m just commenting on what’s there.
An ally is an ally
Yup, my point is not that he isn’t an ally, it’s that being an ally isn’t inherently leftist.
I have a hard time finding a right wing or centrist ideology that gives a shit about minorities. So, while correlation doesn’t always imply causation, it usually does.
I think the whole left vs right thing is stupid.
Individual views are much more complex than a single left/right axis, so you’re always going to find people on both sides who have views that differ greatly from the major political party on their ‘side’.A ‘progressive’ right winger would care more about preventing the government from deciding what you’re allowed to do, rather than explicitly protecting minorities.
So while they wouldn’t push laws that require businesses to serve everybody indiscriminately, they also wouldn’t push laws that explicitly ban things like gender therapy.Obviously the majority of right wingers in america aren’t progressive though.
There isn’t even a center political party of any consequences in the US. There’s right and far right.
Very loose definition of “leftist” there but we take a W where we can.
my first thought exactly, when did Linus became a lefist?
Linus is basically a “centrist dad” but that’s fine with me.
Why are leftists the absolute worse for gatekeeping what makes a true leftist?
One could argue Linux, GPL, and Open Source are all based on woke communist concepts.
I got all excited cause I saw that Linus had a mastodon account and I went to follow and saw that I already followed and he hasn’t posted since early last year… ah well, good on ya 2023 Torvalds
Exact same boat…
Despite him not posting, I visit his Mastodon profile from time to time. It has such a cute sea turtle banner. Glad to see that despite him being a kernel developer titan, he still spares a thought for the humble shell programmers too.
He is such a good role model for being wealthy.
He is, when it comes down to it, pretty wealthy. But we are talking about the guy who created the kernel that now runs nearly every Internet service, all Android phones, most streaming devices, and a lot of various embedded devices. Anyone else with that much impact would be a billionaire many times over.
But he’s got a comfortable amount and has not exercised unreasonable ambition. A man who did someone very valuable and was well rewarded and sees no point in being any better off than he is.
Oh please give me more Daddy Linux!
If you believe in equality, you’re woke. You’re also a socialist. Because since fascism is a sincere belief in inequality based on identity, while neoliberalism (democrats) is a sincere belief in inequality based on class / wealth.
So yeah, this belief in equality or basic human decency needs to be destroyed in order to maximize profit. Invest in this propaganda, great ROI guaranteed!
neoliberalism (democrats) is a sincere belief in inequality based on class / wealth
This is actually a misconception! Liberalism (or neoliberalism, as the pejorative goes) is about allowing individuals the ability to dictate their own life on their own terms. Liberals want most of the same things you do, probably: clean air, a reduction in carbon emissions, everybody has a roof over their heads. guaranteed access to healthcare, and dense, walkable cities. The difference is the means by which liberals want to achieve these things. Liberals believe that the government should play as small a roll as necessary to guarantee these things, usually through economic incentives and staying out of the way of the free flow of commerce.
Liberals are pro-capitalism, which is the ultimate mechanism for inequality.
“Neoliberalism” isn’t a pejorative, it’s a political philosophy that has dominated the Western world for about 50 years, though it has roots much further back. It is a philosophy embraced by both Republicans and Democrats. It’s about privatization of services, lowering taxes, and deregulating corporations. It’s why we have for profit healthcare in the US, for example.
I believe your argument is reductive, and ignores the complexities of the politics of people who call themselves liberals. Neoliberalism is not a coherent political or economic ideology, it’s an insult for moderates used by leftists. Most liberals are not ideological; they pick their policy preferences pragmatically, though nobody can truly claim to be perfectly unbiased and non-ideological.
And if you had argued to me in 2010 that democrats and republicans can both be described as “neoliberals”, I might agree with you, but since at LEAST 2015, republicans have completely turned their back on the most basic aspects of liberalism, becoming the anti-immigrant, anti-trade, isolationist party with no respect for the rule of law or the principles of equality or personal freedom. There was maybe a 10 year period in which republicans paid lip service to these ideals throughout the 1990s, but today Republicans can better be described by Hungarian President Victor Orban’s prescription for “illiberal democracy”, though lately they’re not too hot about democracy either.
Republicans, in contrast to liberals, believe in enforcing cultural conservatism through state power, state intervention in markets to benefit in-groups, majoritarian ruling with very slim electoral margins to the detriment of marginalized groups or opposition parties, and a general hostility to freedom of speech or the free press
Yes, liberals ARE pro-capitalism, but capitalism has been the ultimate mechanism for REDUCING inequality. Since the 1970s (the heyday of so-called neoliberalism), the number of people living in extreme poverty has gone from rougly 50% to about 10% today, accelerating in the 1990s with the downfall of communism across Europe.
To reiterate: thanks to free trade and capitalism, most of the world no longer lives in extreme poverty for the first time in human history. It is in very wealthy countries where we are able to take this for granted because we’ve been living very high standards of living since the end of the 2nd world war, which has coincided with a large gap in wealth equality. However, the living standard of the average American today is still MUCH higher than the living standards of the average American in the 1960s or 1950s.
Healthcare in the United States is not actually really a free market. The specifics of how our system works lives and dies by the letter of the law. What many blame on deregulation is in fact due to specific regulations which were written by the insurance companies. To be clear: this is called regulatory capture, which is NOT a principle of liberalism. Liberals believe in a fair and unbiased bureaucracy which serves the public and not special interest groups. The American healthcare system is a failure to live up to liberal principles. This can be said of most other policy failures in the US: housing has exploded in cost because of regulatory capture in zoning commissions, reducing supply.
Words have definitions often with histories.
Neoliberalism is a far right ideology. That’s just a fact you can look up yourself. It has almost nothing to do with classical or social liberalism which is about freeing people.
Neoliberalism is a far right ideology. That’s just a fact you can look up yourself
I’m sorry but you’re simply wrong. “Neoliberalism is a far right ideology” is inherently NOT a fact; it’s a normative statement. It’s an opinion. You can’t present your opinions (or those of people who think like you) as facts. If I said “Neoliberalism is a moderate or even left wing ideology”, I would also say that that is not a fact; it’s my opinion, and the opinion of people who think like me
Neoliberalism is very much a far right ideology.
You should probably read more. This is from Wikipedia. Neoliberalism is about freeing capital not people.
Neoliberalism has become an increasingly prevalent term in recent decades.[16][17][18][19] It has been a significant factor in the proliferation of conservative and right-libertarian organizations, political parties, and think tanks, and predominantly advocated by them.[20][21] Neoliberalism is often associated with a set of economic liberalization policies, including privatization, deregulation, depoliticisation, consumer choice, globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending. These policies are designed to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society.[22][23][24][25] Additionally, the neoliberal project is oriented towards the establishment of institutions and is inherently political in nature, extending beyond mere economic considerations.[26]
The term is rarely used by proponents of free-market policies.[27] When the term entered into common academic use during the 1980s in association with Augusto Pinochet’s economic reforms in Chile, it quickly acquired negative connotations and was employed principally by critics of market reform and laissez-faire capitalism. Scholars tended to associate it with the theories of economists working with the Mont Pelerin Society, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and James M. Buchanan, along with politicians and policy-makers such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Alan Greenspan.[7][28][29] Once the new meaning of neoliberalism became established as common usage among Spanish-speaking scholars, it diffused into the English-language study of political economy.[7] By 1994, the term entered global circulation and scholarship about it has grown over the last few decades
You should probably read more.
Grow up. Attack ideas, not people.
The article only says what I’m saying: it’s a term given to certain people as a pejorative, and not an actual ideological program endorsed by people who are labeled by it. You’re telling me that there is a fundamental similarity between Augusto Pinochet, who threw communists out of helicopters, and the US democratic party, which is categorically unwilling to inflict any kind of political violence against their opposition? Pinochet was not a neoliberal, he was a fascist, and if you can’t tell the difference, then I encourage you to not only read more, but to get outside more and talk to people who have actually grown up in fascist and communist countries and see if they think that living in the US is anything like growing up in a fascist state.
To try to label the policies of Pinochet and the policies of the US democrats with the same term is either an expression of ignorance or privilege. Again, neoliberalism is a term which was made up by liberal arts and philosophy departments, not economists
Liberals are pro-capitalism
That’s a completely US-centric view. All your liberals might be capitalists, elsewhere, various forms of social liberalism are very much alive and kicking. It’s one half of the ingredient in the EU’s compromise of “social market economy”: It’s a thing both social liberals and democratic socialists can lay claim to and, indeed, in policy terms there’s gigantic spaces of overlap. Parliament-wise it’s most directly represented mostly by Green/EFA but floats in various forms and shades in pretty much all parties, especially Renew though the neolibs are also part of that one.
It’s also ancient, dating back to the mid-1800s, bringing you things such as credit unions.
From a different angle: Marx was wrong, there’s indeed petite bourgeois who are capable of class consciousness. Also, understanding macroeconomics and how trickle down is bullshit. They may be millionaires but that’s still a billion away from a billion, they want people to have money in their pockets so you have money to visit their cinema or whatever.
Also once upon a time neoliberalism meant ordoliberalism but that’s a historical note. The current use refers to BS that indeed makes the word itself a pejorative, just as “shit” is a pejorative for shit.
I’d be curious what liberal party in what country you mean.
AFAIK the liberal parties in Europe like Germany, France and UK want exactly what the US neoliberals want, to dismantle the social equality state, deregulation, private schools, private healthcare etc. But they are usually smaller third parties after Social Democrats and Conservatives. But even the Christian Conservatives in e.g. Germany are more socialist than the third party liberals, and to the left of the Democrats in the US.
Of course, ever since the “Third Way” after the fall of the USSR and Clinton, the social democratic parties of Europe also have become far more neoliberal.
The question is really who’s liberty? The liberation of the masses from economic exploitation? Or the liberty of the capitalists to exploit the masses? There is absolutely no doubt what is meant today with liberalism.
And their virtue signalling you can mostly ignore. Why would they want to solve an issue they could run on next election?
I’d be curious what liberal party in what country you mean.
AFAIK the liberal parties in Europe like Germany, France and UK want exactly what the US neoliberals want
Taking Germany as an example: The FDP, once upon a time, had a large social-liberal wing and was in coalition with the SPD, but that’s long gone by now they’re firmly neoliberal. The Greens are social-liberal, the Pirates are, and so is Volt. A social-liberal party that’s part of Renew instead of Greens/EFA would be Radikale Venstre.
The question is really who’s liberty? The liberation of the masses from economic exploitation? Or the liberty of the capitalists to exploit the masses? There is absolutely no doubt what is meant today with liberalism.
Part of the stated goals of the feed-in tariff system the German Greens cooked up was, aside from saving the planet by boosting renewables, to de-monopolise the market, to distribute ownership of the means of electricity production wider, and they indeed were successful we now have plenty of wind mills here that are owned by municipal-level cooperatives. Couple of farmers, the local machine shop, couple of pensioners, that’s enough own capital to convince the local cooperative and public banks to chime in with a credit, build the thing. Left to pure environmentalism they might’ve passed laws requiring the big monopolists to build more renewables, a more traditional leftist approach would be to build state-owned renewables, the Greens instead created, through smart regulation, market conditions that made it possible for small fish to get into the fray, out-flanking the monopolists.
That is, you missed something in your dichotomy: The liberation of the small fish from the accumulation power of the big fish. That policy is 110% ordoliberali: Regulate the market such that market failures are corrected. Neoliberals generally do the opposite, remove regulation that prevents failures because that pleases their monopolist overlords, or even regulate to fail though at that point it probably should be called straight-up kleptocracy.
And their virtue signalling you can mostly ignore. Why would they want to solve an issue they could run on next election?
Now you’re being a doomer. Yes, that happens, generally in politics not limited to any spectrum, but it’s also self-destructive as voters will consider you unfit to rule. It’s not like we’re limited to two parties over here, things can and do shift.
I agree that things in Germany are, by and large, far saner and far better than the US or the UK. The conditions of the market, the news media and government institutions is better, which allows the liberal dogma to work better. But it’s far from good enough.
And yes I’m a doomer lol. It’s simply a question of numbers: billions vs millions.
I’m not an ideologue and think a mix of ideologies is important, but the fundamental problem is the vast accumulation of wealth (=economic power) that brings unstoppable degeneration and collapse. Especially with social media being completely corrupt, and mainstream news media even in Germany only spouting misinformation and imperialist war propaganda and a pro genocide stance, things will deteriorate to the state of the US.
…and Axel Springer blasting anti-Green propaganda because the neolibs understand perfectly well how dangerous soclibs are for their programme. Neolibs rely on the narrative of “small businesspeople getting shafted”, soclibs can solve the same issue for the same clientele, but by shafting the bourgeois instead of the proletariat.
Small private businesses are not a systemic problem. Sure there’s capital accumulation going on but the “vast” is missing. The accumulation curve is exponential, at the lower end where those small businesses are it basically looks flat.
Care still has to be taken when it comes to lobbying etc, there small business interests don’t necessarily align with soclib programmes. Ironically, currently SMEs are lobbying the EU to dilute the supply chain act requiring companies to monitor human rights in their supply chain, while Nestle and other big fish lobby for it to not be diluted. But so far from what I see the soclib parties here are firm on these issues.
I agree that many who vote for liberals believe those things, but those are not the goal of liberal parties. The historical meaning of liberalism was the same as what is called neoliberalism today. Calling it a derogatory term is just pretending to be a victim. There IS such an ideology as “belief in inequality based on wealth” and that includes the right to survive through access to healthcare. That is reality.
You argue as if good arguments win, and ideology matters - it doesn’t work that way. Ideology is merely a tool. There is only power, or money that you can exchange for power. And those who desire nothing except power have a competitive advantage to gain more power and shape the world over people who want other things. There is a selection process that has been going for decades that precludes normal people like us two.
Politicians in the US might write some other virtues on their flags, or they might even delude themselves to believe them - that is actually best. But when the chips are down, only those who pursue power gain more power. I believe this could be scientifically proven with game theory and a simulation.
What you are doing is kind of denying that economic power (or capital, or billionaires) have an overwhelming influence on politics and policies. If you say that the conservatives or democrats or whoever does this or that for ideological reasons, you deny political reality and obscure paths to improve things. We need transparency and better tools and countermeasures to these mechanisms.
Politicians are chosen by capitalists among thousands of candidates, and only the fringe that happen to fit into their plans are funded. Those who want power above anything else and who have neoliberal tendencies. The useful idiots to capitalists.
So no, neoliberalism is not a derogatory term that should be avoided. It’s reality. Or how else do you explain Elon Musk running DOGE?
The historical meaning of liberalism was the same as what is called neoliberalism today
This is not true; liberalism was created as a reaction to the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, as a way to prevent sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants, and later as a way to prevent violence between rival states. I am sure there are people who believe in inequality based on wealth, but that is not what liberalism is, and that is not what US Democrats, for example, believe in.
You argue as if good arguments win, and ideology matters - it doesn’t work that way. Ideology is merely a tool. There is only power, or money that you can exchange for power. And those who desire nothing except power have a competitive advantage to gain more power and shape the world over people who want other things. There is a selection process that has been going for decades that precludes normal people like us two.
I’m not so ignorant to as to miss that what you are describing is the Marxist idea of dialectical materialism, which I personally believe is overly reductive in explaining history. Ideas do matter. The ways in which people esteem themselves and their groups do matter. It’s not all just a cynical power grab by a bunch of godless lizard people pulling the strings on us.
What you are doing is kind of denying that economic power (or capital, or billionaires) have an overwhelming influence on politics and policies. If you say that the conservatives or democrats or whoever does this or that for ideological reasons, you deny political reality and obscure paths to improve things
That is absolutely not what I am saying, nor is it even relevant to what we are talking about.
So no, neoliberalism is not a derogatory term that should be avoided. It’s reality. Or how else do you explain Elon Musk running DOGE?
Your question is so bizarre as to be meaningless. You’re asking me “There exist people who believe that the government should be restrained in how it treats people. Otherwise, how do you explain a man who believes government should not be restrained in how it treats people?”
Neoliberalism is just a catch-all for any policy right of center that leftists conflate with actual honest-to-god jackbooted fascism.
Otherwise, how do you explain a man who believes government should not be restrained in how it treats people?
You’re saying you view Elon Musk and his DOGE department favorably? If so, we can save our breaths and don’t need to argue about anything any more haha.
Recommend reading the book The Quiet Coup by Mehrsa Baradaran. Neoliberalism isn’t benign, could be considered akin to modern centrism, and above all else works to protect capitalism and the status quo in predictable ways that allow for exploitation. Which is exactly why corporate monarchy is now taking over our country in place of capitalism.
Here in the Netherlands they accuse people of being a ‘deugmens’ which literally translates as being a ‘virtuehuman’, a human with virtues. Except for possible pretentiousness, having virtues is hardly a bad thing, quite the opposite. Being politically correct has negative connotations, but most of the time it’s very easy to explain why something is politically incorrect, because the incorrect route has often proven in the past to be disastrous. People used to talk about ‘political correctness gone mad’ but now very often any political correctness is deemed bad. Woke is considered by some to be one of the worst insults you can get, but waking up and seeing that there is terrible inequity in this world, seeing that we are very whatever-centric in our thoughts/actions and questioning all that, is hardly a bad thing. Now the question is, do we need to reappropriate these words, reclaim and reframe them, or should we ignore them and move beyond them because people have been so deeply conditioned with ‘woke=bad’ no questions asked.
In Germany the derogatory term used is “Gutmensch”, good human.
It’s the narrative the right has created, and you can see it in those terms. The narrative is of course that people on the left pretend to be full of virtue and good but in reality are dreamers full of idoologies that can’t survive in the real world. That and not beeing able to practice what one preaches (like still using airplanes while advocating for a more sustainable lifestyle) are part of what they have constructed “woke people” to mean for them, as far as I understand it at least.
Maybe I’m drawing a connection that isn’t there, but I equate this with the behaviour in some circles of being suspicious of people who don’t partake in drugs, drinking, corruption, debauchery, etc. It’s kind of like you can’t trust people unless they have some vice, or at least an “edge” to them.
But maybe this behaviour is not related to this “deugmens” or “gutmensch” labeling.
Gutmensch in German usually refers to people who try to appear good and make decisions they feel are good without questioning if the side effects are harmful. Also they expect others to do the same without regard for their ability to do so (e.g. I manage to avoid plastic bags, so you must too. Which is at least somewhat reasonable. But I manage to live without a car so you must too is difficult for some part of the rural population.)
I live in buttfuck nowhere - France.
We need cars because the railways were deemed not profitable. We need cars because investment in busses is often very limited (depending on where you live). We need cars because village markets are dying and we then have to go to the supermarket the town over.
We need cars because of the capitalist atomisation of society.
And even then, the vast majority of our trips are very short (< 40’ round trip’). The car we need the most is a very small, kinda lowtech electric one. But those don’t exist as much…
In our 750 people village, I think we’d need about 1 car for every 3 to 5 families and 3 trucks.
TL;DR: Rural people need cars. But we don’t need big ones for most of our usage. We need better public transportation. Personal car ownership is dumb and wasteful.
I also live in rural France, and agree. People with giant SUVs are becoming a huge problem where I live. Every day I see countless older people whose kids no longer live with them driving these gas-guzzling monstrosities to the supermarket. Often they have the same amount of seats as a sedan, yet they take up waaay more space in the parking lot. Just why? I don’t get it.
Because bigger car = bigger margins for the manufacturer. I guess it’s a status symbol too?
Also some environmental legislations have amendments for bigger vehicles. It seems that it was easier to make bigger cars than to make explosion motors more efficient (which is technically true).
I find all of that pretty dumb.
I took a trip through Europe in the early 00’s. We rented a large sedan. 5 Americans and luggage. Our intent was to drive through as many open countries as we reasonably could. After about a hour on the road, we had to get a second car. We were simply too fat to have 5 people in what was locally considered a full-sized car.
In the US we would have got an SUV and been able to sit without touching each other.
But our situation was A. Not Normal and B. Brought on by our own live decisions. There is a bit of a Why there though.
I’ve always had a suspicion that so many simple things that trigger the right, like wearing a mask during a pandemic, do so because they are simple nice things you can do and every time they see someone doing it, they inherently know they are bad - and so they want to force others to stop being nice so they don’t have to face that reality anymore.
Are they?
The pandemic is a lie/is exaggerated -> there is no reason to wear a mask -> why is the gouvernment trying to make people wear masks, they must be hiding something
Well said. The people that have been clamoring “wake up sheeple” are now mad that people are “woke”.
Unfortunately, it’s true: Linux is woke. And DEI. And gay.
We need to get Elon Musk and the DOGE team on this, stat!
i think this type of comment works better with a “/s”
/s is the worst thing to happen to Internet discussion, at least recently.
No, 'cause the /s cheapens the experience of good sarcasm.
And a ward against the evil eye
I’m sorry, and I don’t want to be disrespectful or rude, but as a person who has no clue about computers I am very surprised the creator of Linux is still alive. I somehow thought he is super old and probably dead by now or at least not using the internet. I’m so sorry for my ignorance.
Linux was “invented” in 1991, FYI, and Linus was a student at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#The_creation_of_Linux
Dude wrote the first Linux kernel in grad school in his early-mid 20s. He’s like 50 something now.
Unix predates Linux by a bit, but most of those old guys made it to at least the Obama era.
Vint Cerf is still around, and he got to see himself portrayed in one of the Matrix films.
Computer aren’t very old! Most of the pioneers are still alive and kicking
That’s the thing, my dad was one of the first informatics people (computer based algebra in Russia and Germany) and my mom did her thesis on how to design a cigar shaped body in 3D on a computer. But they are in their mid to late 60s now and my dad went from being a professor of IT to “how do I open the internet” so my confusion is based on bias from my family. All his former colleagues also didn’t stay up to date with technology and they worked for an elite university in Germany.
Anyway, good that they are alive and kicking! And glad their kicks are not so random as my folks’.
Ahhh, that’s Germany for you though
I’ve literally seen my dad trying to figure out how to fax some documents in like 2012
Faxes are still pretty normal in Germany in like 2025
He’s 55 years old
Heh, back in the early 2000s when I was busy reading up on computer history I was very surprised that a lot of Internet standard pioneers and computer science giants were still alive. Like, people from the stone age. This is such a young field.
I seriously thought John McCarthy (creator of Lisp programming language) had reached such a status of existence that he would probably never die. (sadly, he did.)
Don’t feel shameful, you’re one of the lucky ten thousand
Your ignorance is adorable, keep it up and don’t stop being inquisitive or apologetic of it.
Thanks man, I’ll try my best
The cognitive dissonance of just how fast technology has advanced is pretty crazy huh
Linux is not that old. There’s a reason why the “Actually it’s GNU+Linux…” meme exists, because Linux is built using tools that were already around, he didn’t start entirely from scratch.
spoiler
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
@RedSnt @volvoxvsmarla Well… not all of them. There is <strong>at least one</strong> <a href=“https://chimera-linux.org/”>Linux distribution</a> that’s decided to use a BSD userland instead of a GNU one, so I guess it could be called BSD/Linux…
(and no, I’m not associated with them. Right now I run Ubuntu, but project #3 on my list of personal projects is customizing either CachyOS or OpenMandriva to my taste, complete with custom repos, I haven’t decided yet.)
Oof for someone who isn’t tech savvy this was a hard read but I appreciate it!
My experience with Linux - and as I now know, probably GNU? - is limited to not pressing a button while my dad’s computer at work turned on so that I would end up in not in Windows. He had one amazing game on Linux where some troll had to roll stones (I wish I could find it again). I came to work with him every now and then and was allowed to play while he would half desperately half violently try to get rid of the chaos on his desk, which consisted of about 700 pounds of paper and occasional random paper clips.
I loved these days. And the canteen’s gravy with rice for some reason.
(Edit: this was in the mid to late 90s)
Oof for someone who isn’t tech savvy this was a hard read but I appreciate it!
I’m sorry, I should’ve clarified, that’s the socalled copypasta/meme I mentioned. But now you’re cursed with the knowledge of it existing.
I wish I had 90s memories of linux, but in my family it was all microsoft, from DOS to Windows. My uncle was an electrical engineer and was interested in computers, so our family got some hand-me-down PC’s over time, and I probably played Leisure Suit Larry way too young in the early 90s, but I still believe that typing in text commands is a great way of learning a language.
It wasn’t until 1999 I saw Linux for the first time at school, and later around 2003 I saw it again at a LAN where someone was showing off how fast it could run Unreal Tournament 2003, which was faster than Windows at the time.At least there’s still rice and gravy around :)
The people that invented the internet are still using it!
Al Gore is still alive!
Please stop with this. Al Gore said he took the initiative in creating the Internet. As in, he used his abilities as a lawmaker to make the internet possible.
AI Gore claims he invented the Internet is a right wing op.
It’s a joke. I don’t believe Al Gore invented the internet. I don’t believe Al Gore believes he invented the internet.
Right on, fair enough.
You might be thinking of Unix, which is what Linux is based on but not really. Unix was created in the 1960s and for sure the people who created it are passed
Brian kernighan is still writing code, at least as of 2022:
Actually, Ken Thompson and Douglas McIlroy are still alive
dang… in their 80s
guess I should have looked before I said anything
A good benchmark is Windows 95, and that was only 30 years ago.
It’s easy to remember because the 95 means 1995. And 19 means the before fore times our ancestors are from.
Ouch. Fucking ouch. We’re right here you know. Looking over your shoulder as you write on that magic tablet. No need to denigrate ghosts.
Some of us are barely even middle aged
