@zaire A lot of anti-systemd stuff is like that unfortunately, simply because being a contrarian and feeling superior to "the normies" attracts these kinds of people. To be honest, niche software projects always tend to have this problem. Even some of Fedi (diaspora for example).

It's people – usually neurodivergent and from bad circumstances – who have tons of trauma and nothing in life to be proud of, so they build their identity around some kind of hyper-specific special-interest elitism in order to gain some agency over their lives and feel powerful over "normie society" who hurt them. You see the same kind of dynamic among conspiracy theorists like Flat Earth folks.

I think ethically there's a difference between actually solidly ideological fascists (e. g. Milo, Thiel etc.), and some online autists who the world really hurt, who are good people at their core, and who turn to "ironically" repeating niche fascist talking points in order to feel some semblance of agency in their lives.

If you look into special needs housing for example, you'll find that a lot of people with intellectual disabilities and developmental disorders repeat nazi nonsense, shit on the floor on purpose, or refuse to eat, because they know it gets a rise out of people. Not because they genuinely believe in these things.

If staff treated those people like real, steadfast nazis instead of essentially traumatised kids using some kind of empathy, the whole system would collapse even harder than it does right now.

It's pitiful, it's problematic, and they're being massive assholes. Of course. I don't wanna hang around with these people at all. But I can't turn off my empathy for them either.

My first girlfriend was like that, kinda, which is why this is a bit personal to me. She was autistic, schizophrenic, incredibly insecure and scared of the world, and turned to edginess as a coping mechanism. She became an "anti-vax leftist" during Covid only because she was incredibly afraid of needles and couldn't handle a situation in which she could be forced to get an injection. She sometimes said wild transphobic conspiracy nonsense if she was doing badly, partly out of self-harm and partly because she was incredibly afraid of vulnerability. She got into niche ideologies because it made her appear interesting and powerful to the outside. But when she was doing well, she recognised that it was just self-harm and that she didn't actually believe in any of it. She was just incredibly afraid of vulnerability and powerlessness. But online, she was a total edgelord. It's the 4chan niche doomerism cult. They're victims, really, of the grifters targeting them specifically. They need help.

It's an incredibly complex topic and nobody wins in the end. She took her life on New Year's.

Most of the time, they're not bad people at heart, and they don't really believe in all that shit. They know it's bad and evil, which is why they're doing it. They're on dozens of layers of "irony" because at their core, they're incredibly insecure and full of self-hatred. It's a death cult. They just use these edgy 4chan opinions as a tool because they know it gives them some kind of power back over their lives by people being outraged. It's very similar to punk culture, interestingly enough.

I'm not trying to excuse people who are genuinely fascist and who genuinely believe in that ideology whatsoever. I also don't think that it's okay for these people to be like that, because it genuinely has a tangible impact on others. It's not an excuse, just an explanation.

I just think there needs to be a difference between how to treat the monsters (Thiel, Musk, DHH) and the ND edgelords (e. g. RMS). And I think the Devuan folks are closer to the latter. The anti-systemd stuff is the only stable identity they have, the only thing that gives them a feeling of value. It's genuinely depressing.

As long as the software is solid and they're not actually doing anything more tangible than sometimes being basement dwellers with shitty opinions borne out of a frustration with society, I don't really mind. I wish it wasn't like that, but it's unavoidable in some places. I'd rather they heal than be isolated even more, because the latter just pushes them further into extremism.