The speed of technological progress tends toward an exponential curve, and Frank Herbert understood and knew this, but wanted to write a serious medieval saga set in the distant future. The Butlerian Jihad was always a plot contrivance to explain why in the thousands of years of intergalactic civilization, human life is still recognizable to us, and still recognizable from their in-story ancestors.

But just because AI was treated as an enemy by fictional fascists, doesn’t mean it was good. Fascists are enemies to other fascists. It’s an ideology that is always seeking enemies, and will either invade outwards or purge inwards - but their enemies don’t need to be ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ they only need to be ‘other.’

It can both be true that a technocratic class using thinking machines would have dominated the human race, and the force that prevented their rule is a theofascist eugenic autocracy. The theme Herbert I think would have appreciated his readers noticing is that there is no real difference between a crushing totalitarian dictatorship under an inhuman technocratic class, and a crushing totalitarian dictatorship under a charismatic leader and a religious cult.

https://ibbit.at/post/33040

danb.me’s criticisms and tone are valid, but it looks FUTO has taken down their ill-advised license page and are using an unmodified AGPL.

I’m struggling to assign malice here; Louis is a hardware guy, and not every software person is really up on what distinguishes free software from freeware. FUTO seems like a pretty small shop; I’d give them a pass on this one.

Is this what you’re talking about? Is AGPL controversial now?

When did Louis “Right to Repair” Rossmann become the bad guy?

Yeah, most laws have nothing to do with justice and are merely threats made by social elites to working people. I don’t need that explained to me. I think you misunderstood my politics from my initial comment.

I find it unclear what the relationship is between free speech and the UK using flawed but licensed proprietary software to wrongly convict innocent people of fraud.

Cracking, unlicensed MAME, jailbreaking - these should be free-speech fundamentals that are instead prosecuted as crimes.

Some required reading whenever journalists uncritically report retailer’s narratives:

• The Great Shoplifting Freak-Out
• What the Shoplifting Panic Reveals About U.S. Crime Policy

That’s correct. @[email protected] discovered and boosted the post, and it snowballed across the Tootiverse. They’re all pinging @Five because that’s how Mastodon does post replies.

Except for Twitter, which burns through the last of its lifeline to bolt-on ActivityPub to the code only to not find anyone to federate with.