5 ms·

"This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only mome

by jakhead 11y ago

"This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices."

burkaman 11y ago
What does this quote mean? And what does it have to do with someone's package manager configuration?
- sevensor 11y ago
  It's from Atlas Shrugged, and I think it's trying to draw some kind of parallel between using Arch and struggling against oppressive forces of mental tyranny. As represented by Apricity perhaps? Arch is for heroic individualists? Arch is great and all. I love using it, but I get pretty impatient with people who think they're smarter than everyone else because they can follow the detailed instructions in a well-written and lovingly maintained wiki. I get similarly impatient with B.S. Arch derivatives. If you want Ubuntu, just use Ubuntu. It's based on a perfectly legit distribution.
  - burkaman 11y ago
    I don't think it's Atlas Shrugged, googling it brings up some kind of spiritual philosopher guru guy. It makes sense in that context, like he's justifying why most people don't understand his enlightened teachings. But I don't get why it's posted here.
    - sevensor 11y ago
      Fascinating! You're right. I was misremembering the quote. Furthermore, it's from 1929, well before Atlas was written. Still, it sounds quite a lot like something John Galt would say. Who knew Ayn Rand was so eclectic?
      - pessimizer 11y ago
        I have no idea where you detected anything having to do with Ayn Rand or any of her ideas. It's a pretty way that saying that the rewards of experience can't be granted and must be earned; not that no one eats for free, unless people eat mountaintops. What is a mountaintop without a mountain anyway?
        neptune6932 11y ago
        fwiw, I read Atlas not long ago and there is a very similar paragraph about John Galt climbing a mountain to discover the fountain of youth. > "Only he never came back" Why didn't he? she asked. "Because he found that it couldn't be brought down." Good memory sevensor.
        sevensor 11y ago
        One of the characters is talking about John Galt in that roundabout way they have of talking about John Galt, and says that he's the man who climbed to the top of the mountain and discovered the fountain of youth, but when he tried to bring it back down, he found that it couldn't be brought back down, only climbed up to. Or something like that. That's why this quote reminded me of Atlas. Probably, they both cribbed it from Nietzsche.
  - swasheck 11y ago
    I only wish that you'd posted each sentence as separate comments so that I can upvote each one individually. Back when I had freedom of choice for my OS at my place of employment, I wanted to learn about Linux so I chose it. Then I wanted to learn more about Linux so I moved from Ubuntu to Arch. At first, the documentation is a lifesaver. However, a bit of time invested in reading it carefully will also really educate someone in so many aspects of an OS. Not only that, but so many of the things that someone would really want to use are so well documented. I learned more about PostgreSQL administration and X from the Arch Wiki than the documentation from the actual projects themselves.
    - dhagz 11y ago
      Thanks to Arch Linux, my first instinct when using a new command-line tool is to add the `--help` flag, then run `man <command>`. It helped me stop googling crap all the time.
  - PuercoPop 11y ago
    Same with Gentoo. Some people pretended like doing a stage 1 install taught you more about the system. Besides chroot I don't remember anything I learned from it. Loved Gentoo though. Especially how configurable it was.
    - bobwaycott 11y ago
      On the other hand, I learned quite a lot through many stage 1 installs. Don't think I ever would have grown so comfortable with a command line and Linux if it hadn't been for stage 1s (and screwing them up).
- pessimizer 11y ago
  My guess is it's about looking for the perfect setup through trusting some random server with the keys to the castle (by disabling signature checks) instead of learning how to configure your own system.

by jakhead 11y ago

burkaman 11y ago

What does this quote mean? And what does it have to do with someone's package manager configuration?

sevensor 11y ago
It's from Atlas Shrugged, and I think it's trying to draw some kind of parallel between using Arch and struggling against oppressive forces of mental tyranny. As represented by Apricity perhaps? Arch is for heroic individualists? Arch is great and all. I love using it, but I get pretty impatient with people who think they're smarter than everyone else because they can follow the detailed instructions in a well-written and lovingly maintained wiki. I get similarly impatient with B.S. Arch derivatives. If you want Ubuntu, just use Ubuntu. It's based on a perfectly legit distribution.
- burkaman 11y ago
  I don't think it's Atlas Shrugged, googling it brings up some kind of spiritual philosopher guru guy. It makes sense in that context, like he's justifying why most people don't understand his enlightened teachings. But I don't get why it's posted here.
  - sevensor 11y ago
    Fascinating! You're right. I was misremembering the quote. Furthermore, it's from 1929, well before Atlas was written. Still, it sounds quite a lot like something John Galt would say. Who knew Ayn Rand was so eclectic?
    - pessimizer 11y ago
      I have no idea where you detected anything having to do with Ayn Rand or any of her ideas. It's a pretty way that saying that the rewards of experience can't be granted and must be earned; not that no one eats for free, unless people eat mountaintops. What is a mountaintop without a mountain anyway?
      - neptune6932 11y ago
        fwiw, I read Atlas not long ago and there is a very similar paragraph about John Galt climbing a mountain to discover the fountain of youth. > "Only he never came back" Why didn't he? she asked. "Because he found that it couldn't be brought down." Good memory sevensor.
      - sevensor 11y ago
        One of the characters is talking about John Galt in that roundabout way they have of talking about John Galt, and says that he's the man who climbed to the top of the mountain and discovered the fountain of youth, but when he tried to bring it back down, he found that it couldn't be brought back down, only climbed up to. Or something like that. That's why this quote reminded me of Atlas. Probably, they both cribbed it from Nietzsche.
- swasheck 11y ago
  I only wish that you'd posted each sentence as separate comments so that I can upvote each one individually. Back when I had freedom of choice for my OS at my place of employment, I wanted to learn about Linux so I chose it. Then I wanted to learn more about Linux so I moved from Ubuntu to Arch. At first, the documentation is a lifesaver. However, a bit of time invested in reading it carefully will also really educate someone in so many aspects of an OS. Not only that, but so many of the things that someone would really want to use are so well documented. I learned more about PostgreSQL administration and X from the Arch Wiki than the documentation from the actual projects themselves.
  - dhagz 11y ago
    Thanks to Arch Linux, my first instinct when using a new command-line tool is to add the `--help` flag, then run `man <command>`. It helped me stop googling crap all the time.
- PuercoPop 11y ago
  Same with Gentoo. Some people pretended like doing a stage 1 install taught you more about the system. Besides chroot I don't remember anything I learned from it. Loved Gentoo though. Especially how configurable it was.
  - bobwaycott 11y ago
    On the other hand, I learned quite a lot through many stage 1 installs. Don't think I ever would have grown so comfortable with a command line and Linux if it hadn't been for stage 1s (and screwing them up).
pessimizer 11y ago
My guess is it's about looking for the perfect setup through trusting some random server with the keys to the castle (by disabling signature checks) instead of learning how to configure your own system.