☃️karolherbst☃️FOSS is the worst of all communities, seriously
I think the only reasonable conclusion is to give up on the idea of a "FOSS community" that doesn't exist anyway.
Gnome is a community, KDE is one and so is Freedesktop.
But FOSS obviously isn't.
Vile Lasagna@karolherbst I guess that reading makes sense.
If nothing else there's a ton of reactionary infiltration in a space that's built on anarchist principles.
Between that, regular infighting, capture by capital, usual dudes being assholes, petty infighting and flaming... it's all over the place
@VileLasagna the more we detach from the people, the easier it becomes to focus on ideals only.
But communities are about the people and support. And my main motivation is to work with others together on something great, because that's fun.
I'd give up FOSS any moment if that would allow me to keep the community, because I don't think FOSS is more important than the people of the communities I'm part of.
And sure, heated debates are sometimes part of it, but never forget about the people.
@karolherbst We're suffering the effects of nerds and stem people being taught for years and years that caring about people is weak and stupid. That "social skills" are a demonstration of ineptitude and that being a caustic asshole is justified if you're a genius (and they all are geniuses, of course)
It's death by a million Ricks
Sriram "sri" Ramkrishna - 😼@VileLasagna @karolherbst Really? Interesting. I guess I was never exposed to that.
@sri @VileLasagna I think it's a bit on the subtle side. Like this entire "stay professional" twist and where getting emotional is considered a weakness or "offensive" and gets turned against one.
Like it shows through in many ways, but it's kinda the "you gotta be a strong man" narrative that's kinda vibing around the entire time.
And in many tech related communities (privacy specifically) there are many "heroes" who are also massive assholes at the same time.
@VileLasagna @karolherbst we should not discount that some of this is because the last ten years has been excessively shitty especially if you're under the age 21. The pandemic has taken a toll on the mental health of many.
@sri @VileLasagna oh yeah.. I was listening to some sociologists the other day and one of the statements made were "if you are below the age of 18, all you know is constant crisis"
Not sure how much that applies to other countries, but definitely to Germany and most other European countries.
@karolherbst @VileLasagna It's been a never ending set of chaos. Now you have AI and LLMs that seem to be adding more bad things eg surveillance, job security, and driving the prices of water and electricity. Rising prices, changing climate - it's no wonder they are all on edge. No doubt some anger towards boomer and GenXers.
justsoup 
@karolherbst To be honest, there has never been a FOSS community, there has just been mini-communities under the FOSS umbrella that sometimes exchange. And, like all exchanges, some of these are done out of interest in other communities, and some are done out of fear. The exchanges out of fear get the most press because anger sells, but there are quite a few good exchanges. Like, KDE and GNOME disagree on a lot, but are not usually toxic to one another and commonly joke around with one another.
Jordan Petridis@karolherbst Imagine being worse than gamers
@alatiera people in the MAGA/Linux crowd being super supportive towards each other and make coordinated "actions" against the ones they think are "bad", because they can put differences aside vs whatever this is *waves violently* and then people wonder why MAGA/Linux gains traction.
Danielle Foré@karolherbst conservative movements will always appear more accepting because they are built on cognitive dissonance, misinformation, and are fundamentally reactionary and exist to prevent things from getting done. They have no need to build consensus because they’re not trying to achieve anything. We’re fighting with the unfortunate constraints of having to be logically consistent, have principles, and actually have goals and do things that take effort and require team work
@danirabbit I question that it's actually what matters tho. Those often feel like artificial constraints we put upon ourselves. Like not disagreeing that fundamentally we should be able to prove why it's the better direction, but good arguments won't let you win a debate if the other side has a good story to tell.
@karolherbst that’s why you never debate Nazis. You can’t win a game of chess against a pigeon. They’re not playing a winnable game, they’re just in it for chaos and destruction
@danirabbit for sure, but what I meant is that people saying "IBM/Red Hat is behind all of this" is a good story that sticks and there is no way to confront it via plausible/logical arguments. But rather we need to build up counter narratives that feel much better than a conspiracy theory.
Of course we shouldn't make stuff up, but it is possible to also create good stories ourselves and those are more effective than arguments.
@karolherbst it’s like we’re trying to build a house and we have to create consensus and make decisions about the materials and floor plan and do things to code and raise funds.
They don’t have to agree on anything except “don’t build a house”. So their tent can include people who think houses are too expensive and people who think houses are the work of satan or give you cancer or turn you gay. It doesn’t matter. They don’t need to agree because they’re not trying to achieve anything
@karolherbst they’ve gotten really good lately at singling out the people that care about building to code and turning to the budget folks and going “building to code is expensive! You should hate those guys!” for example.
It would be a lot easier if we could at least get everyone on our side to say, “Hey maybe we shouldn’t listen to the guys on team don’t-build-a-house” but it’s constantly instead “well I want to build a house but they sure have a good point about plumbing being woke and gay”
@danirabbit abusing everybody's fear is sure an effective way to rally up people against something.
And I wished I had a good answer what to do about this, because you can't really do much about emotional behavior like this.
It's just part of the entire "turn everything shit, so people act more impulsively and stop thinking" thing everybody can fall victim to.
And I'd gladly do everything possible to address those fears, sadly... there isn't really much we can do individually anyway.
@danirabbit well except thinking about how to turn this around and have our own positive messaging and why we do this and why everybody else should as well.
@karolherbst right now we’re cunt deep in “Well the code requires us to now use electrical outlets with GFCI in the living room? Which is dumb but we have to do it” and the don’t-build-a-house people screaming “oh my god they want to control how you use electrical outlets and you’re just building the trains to the gas chambers” and FOR SOME REASON a bunch of people being like “oh my god you’re right if they’ll put GFCI in the living room next they’ll put cameras in the bathrooms!”
@danirabbit @karolherbst everything is one step away on the road to fascism and totalitarianism. People's reactions to digital health this past release was enlightening.
bluca@danirabbit @karolherbst @alatiera this a 1000 times. The only correct answer when the MAGA/Linux crowd shows up: lock -> report -> block -> delete
J. "Henry" Waugh@karolherbst there's an old saying in US politics:
"Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line"
Putting aside my own theories, I do think it reflects a fact: communities around diff ideologies are built differently and mean something different to participants
I'm not quite ready to call one more or less "resilient" than the other. But I do think that the "bad actor"/"infiltrator" threat (from each community's own perspective) is very similar
@karolherbst because that is really how I see this age verification thing, as well as other things like LLMs etc
All it takes is one "infiltrator" of the opposition to point at a "failure" -- whereas "success" requires perfect solidarity. After all, "FOSS going woke" feels the same to RW projects, by their own (loud) admission: one "woke" contributor and it's "ruined" etc
I just think it's the dynamics of a subject run by Anarchy
FULL-FIFO DEVELOPER 🇺🇦🇨🇿@karolherbst sorry, doing our best