Comment by yupyupyups
20 days ago
He was unable to suggest any pragmatic alternatives. He just said "I don't own a smartphone", ignoring the fact that many people become very disadvantaged without one.
The real heroes are the people that facilitate alternatives, not those who talk.
Stallman is probably in the top 10 of all time in terms of people who facilitated alternatives to this. He invented the GPL and wrote and maintained a ton of tools for people running alternative software stacks to use. What more would you ask for?
No, you're right. He deserves more credits than that. But still, the idea that you can just expect people to not use a smartphone is wrong.
I've edited my post to not claim that all Stallman did was talk, which would've been wrong.
> The real heroes are the people that facilitate alternatives, not those who talk, and Stallman was of the talking variety.
Like GNU?
> He just said "I don't own a smartphone", ignoring the fact that many people become very disadvantaged without one.
I know quite some people who live this way, and are very willing to overcome inconvenient hurdles to avoid having to use such a spying device.
>I know quite some people who live this way, and are very willing to overcome inconvenient hurdles to avoid having to use such a spying device.
This is kind of a lazy approach, and it's a good thing Stallman did not have that attitude towards personal computers.
But it's a bummer that there's no real equivalent for mobile devices. I use an Android device and I already consider it to be more locked down than Windows. Generally more irritating than Windows as well (maybe not Windows 11)
I also use it as little as possible (unfortunately more and more things require it) and try to get the smallest functional (for me) Android devices.
There are alternatives, using them involves sacrifices though, and there the modem baseband isn't replaceable yet. Take a look at GrapheneOS, F-Droid, Replicant, Purism Librem, PinePhone, PostmarketOS, PureOS, Mobian etc.
https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile
Okay, let's say you just became an enlightened person who understands that the current state of things need to be fixed.
To actually free yourself requires both commitment on your end and work on other people's end, those people who help facilitate alternatives and guide others to having more freedom and privacy. We need more of that work.
The speakers of the world have their place, of course, but that's not the most important part of the solution.
> To actually free yourself requires both commitment on your end and work on other people's end, those people who help facilitate alternatives and guide others to having more freedom and privacy. We need more of that work.
Such people both lead by example, and try to inspire others towards following their example/lifestyle. The problem rather is that most people want a different lifestyle (in the particular example of privacy and freedom "one with less radical consequences", which I consider to be rather contradictory, but this discussion shall be off topic).
To give an analogue: many vegetarians both lead by example, and inspire others to become vegetarians. But many people nevertheless don't want to become vegetarians.