11 ms·

The perpetual problem of this ideology is that so many people have "wrong" thoughts and speech. I'm surprised only that the list doesn't include a narrower rede

by sverige 10y ago

The perpetual problem of this ideology is that so many people have "wrong" thoughts and speech. I'm surprised only that the list doesn't include a narrower redefinition of "freedom" to mean "free to agree with our definitions."

anigbrowl 10y ago
All legal and political discourse is a struggle for control of linguistic territory.
belorn 10y ago
You comment would be a bit more relevant if the article actually include a definition for "freedom". You can't create a narrower definition when there is no definition. If you don't like the word, just do a word-replace for "freedom" with "liberty". Liberty has a extremely long history of people trying to define it, and John Locke (1632–1704) once wrote on that subject: freedom is not as Sir Robert Filmer defines it: 'A liberty for everyone to do what he likes, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws.' ". And if we talk about liberty, we must acknowledge the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as the absence of coercion. FSF focus heavily on the absence of coercion part, like not having patents, proprietary licenses and DRM coercing user and developers of software.
mhink 10y ago
I don't really see it as that much of a problem, to tell the truth. Every company with a marketing department worth their salt makes sure to figure out the "correct" terminology to market their product or service in order to present a unified message to the outside world. This is very similar, except the FSF, true to form, is making their terminology (and justification for that terminology) open to the public. The other major difference is that they're not marketing a product or a service, but rather an _idea_, which makes them come off a lot more pretentious than I think they actually are. Okay, scratch that- a _little_ more pretentious than they actually are. ;) But I mean, let's also consider that in the market of ideas, the idea of free software IS, and always has been, under siege by companies who _really don't_ want it to be a Thing. Or at least, companies who have ideas which are only profitable if free software isn't a thing. If you're going to establish an organization whose entire purpose is to keep an idea relevant and un-subverted for a long period of time, it's crucial to come up with practices for "memetic sanitation". I mean, look at U.S. political discourse over the last, say, 30 years. Politicians are experts at this sort of subtle semantic manipulation- repackaging old ideas under new names, giving disparaging/complimentary nicknames to existing ideas they want to reject/promote, or recombining names so that one idea gets mushed up with another in the minds of the public. It's memetic warfare. And so, for the most part, I sympathize with the FSF for doing a hard job. They're playing the game with their cards face-up, and trying to keep their side of the Overton window from getting dragged to a place which they, and I myself, believe will cause the world to become a worse place. tl;dr- if you're not worried about the Green Party's political ideology, you probably don't need to worry about the FSF's political ideology.

by sverige 10y ago

anigbrowl 10y ago

All legal and political discourse is a struggle for control of linguistic territory.

belorn 10y ago

You comment would be a bit more relevant if the article actually include a definition for "freedom". You can't create a narrower definition when there is no definition. If you don't like the word, just do a word-replace for "freedom" with "liberty". Liberty has a extremely long history of people trying to define it, and John Locke (1632–1704) once wrote on that subject: freedom is not as Sir Robert Filmer defines it: 'A liberty for everyone to do what he likes, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws.' ". And if we talk about liberty, we must acknowledge the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as the absence of coercion. FSF focus heavily on the absence of coercion part, like not having patents, proprietary licenses and DRM coercing user and developers of software.

mhink 10y ago

I don't really see it as that much of a problem, to tell the truth. Every company with a marketing department worth their salt makes sure to figure out the "correct" terminology to market their product or service in order to present a unified message to the outside world. This is very similar, except the FSF, true to form, is making their terminology (and justification for that terminology) open to the public. The other major difference is that they're not marketing a product or a service, but rather an _idea_, which makes them come off a lot more pretentious than I think they actually are. Okay, scratch that- a _little_ more pretentious than they actually are. ;) But I mean, let's also consider that in the market of ideas, the idea of free software IS, and always has been, under siege by companies who _really don't_ want it to be a Thing. Or at least, companies who have ideas which are only profitable if free software isn't a thing. If you're going to establish an organization whose entire purpose is to keep an idea relevant and un-subverted for a long period of time, it's crucial to come up with practices for "memetic sanitation". I mean, look at U.S. political discourse over the last, say, 30 years. Politicians are experts at this sort of subtle semantic manipulation- repackaging old ideas under new names, giving disparaging/complimentary nicknames to existing ideas they want to reject/promote, or recombining names so that one idea gets mushed up with another in the minds of the public. It's memetic warfare. And so, for the most part, I sympathize with the FSF for doing a hard job. They're playing the game with their cards face-up, and trying to keep their side of the Overton window from getting dragged to a place which they, and I myself, believe will cause the world to become a worse place. tl;dr- if you're not worried about the Green Party's political ideology, you probably don't need to worry about the FSF's political ideology.