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Most interesting comment (on web browsers): > [...] starting around two decades ago, there was an explosion in the complexity of browsers as companies wanted t

by sshine 4y ago

Most interesting comment (on web browsers): > [...] starting around two decades ago, there was an explosion in the complexity of browsers as companies wanted to have more and more control over exactly what would appear on a user's screen. So they invented lots of features to control that, features where the user couldn't really customize how something would actually appear because the whole point was that the company could control that. And JavaScript was sort of the ultimate level of "the company controls everything." Because of this, going beyond the simple level of web page formatting features in Emacs is basically heading down a path that leads to subjugation. It's a path that we need to stay away from. It's a path to an unjust world of computing that you can easily see around you. Web browsers nowadays are designed to display ads that you may not want to see. They're designed for DRM. They're designed for companies to snoop on you in unobvious ways. And all of that we should protect ourselves from, protect our users from.

least 4y ago
Users already have a lot of control over what sort of content they view on the web. They can choose not to navigate to websites they don't trust. They can choose not to run javascript. They can disable css. They can set the font size they want. They can modify the contents of the webpage in a multitude of ways. Perhaps web browsers should have more granular controls and easier ways for users to override the browser's default behavior of rendering things like they're asked to, but then wouldn't that be an argument for Emacs having its own web browser? Stallman's argument simply doesn't make sense. If I make my own website, I should be able to control what's on it. It's a user's prerogative to ignore all those things or modify it on their end to make it more usable for them. Is it user-hostile for me to, say, require javascript for my site to function? Maybe, but that's still entirely my prerogative as the person making the website. There's no obligation for me to make a website for everyone and there's no obligation from anyone to use my website. A person should be able to navigate to websites safely and navigate away safely since there's no way of knowing what the contents of a webpage are before navigating to it, but that's about it.
- xcambar 4y ago
  > They can choose not to navigate to websites they don't trust. They can choose not to run javascript. They can disable css. How do you settle on (dis)trust about a website? Just as you do with a person, there are 4 ways: * reputation (meaning someone else already visited it and had to pay with bad experience) * your own experience (meaning you already visited and were victim of the website) * intuition (very poor driver, full of biases) * homogeneity: a checklist of norms and conventions (can easily be gamed) So in any case, it's either very uncertain or relies on others to throw themselves over the cliff so you can benefit from their experience. So no, you cannot simply choose to not navigate websites you don't trust. It's just blind navigation and that's what most people, uninformed as they are, do.
  - least 4y ago
    > So in any case, it's either very uncertain or relies on others to throw themselves over the cliff so you can benefit from their experience. Every human advancement has basically been a result of benefiting from other's experiences or insight. Sometimes you make your own individual contributions to human knowledge but you mostly don't. > So no, you cannot simply choose to not navigate websites you don't trust. It's just blind navigation and that's what most people, uninformed as they are, do. Sure you can. All the reasons you mentioned above are totally legitimate ways of establishing trust with a website. You absolutely can only visit websites that others have vetted, if you're someone so paranoid about webpages. Some people are pioneers and some are not. You cannot avoid blind trust. Society as a whole hinges on the notion that people's behavior en masse is predictable and generally not destructive. How do you know, for example, that the groceries you just bought are not poisoned? You can't. You can regulate things but regulations cannot be perfectly enforced. So yes, you absolutely can just choose not to navigate to websites you don't trust.
    - xcambar 4y ago
      All very good points. Trust is also a leap of faith, when that's all you have. I had put that in the "intuition" category of my first comment.
eatonphil 4y ago
Since it's from RMS, I'm curious why you find it interesting. Isn't this what he's always said?
- sshine 4y ago
  I find it interesting because I think a lot about computing on your own terms. This is the norm: Vendor-locked hardware, operating systems that manipulate you into making choices that benefit others than you, software updates that remove functionality or render devices useless, access to multimedia that is revoked, services shutting down to make devices bound to them useless unless hacked. And I think I seek problems when I insist on running Linux on known hardware. But I avoid. so. much. by doing do.

by sshine 4y ago

least 4y ago

Users already have a lot of control over what sort of content they view on the web. They can choose not to navigate to websites they don't trust. They can choose not to run javascript. They can disable css. They can set the font size they want. They can modify the contents of the webpage in a multitude of ways. Perhaps web browsers should have more granular controls and easier ways for users to override the browser's default behavior of rendering things like they're asked to, but then wouldn't that be an argument for Emacs having its own web browser? Stallman's argument simply doesn't make sense. If I make my own website, I should be able to control what's on it. It's a user's prerogative to ignore all those things or modify it on their end to make it more usable for them. Is it user-hostile for me to, say, require javascript for my site to function? Maybe, but that's still entirely my prerogative as the person making the website. There's no obligation for me to make a website for everyone and there's no obligation from anyone to use my website. A person should be able to navigate to websites safely and navigate away safely since there's no way of knowing what the contents of a webpage are before navigating to it, but that's about it.

xcambar 4y ago
> They can choose not to navigate to websites they don't trust. They can choose not to run javascript. They can disable css. How do you settle on (dis)trust about a website? Just as you do with a person, there are 4 ways: * reputation (meaning someone else already visited it and had to pay with bad experience) * your own experience (meaning you already visited and were victim of the website) * intuition (very poor driver, full of biases) * homogeneity: a checklist of norms and conventions (can easily be gamed) So in any case, it's either very uncertain or relies on others to throw themselves over the cliff so you can benefit from their experience. So no, you cannot simply choose to not navigate websites you don't trust. It's just blind navigation and that's what most people, uninformed as they are, do.
- least 4y ago
  > So in any case, it's either very uncertain or relies on others to throw themselves over the cliff so you can benefit from their experience. Every human advancement has basically been a result of benefiting from other's experiences or insight. Sometimes you make your own individual contributions to human knowledge but you mostly don't. > So no, you cannot simply choose to not navigate websites you don't trust. It's just blind navigation and that's what most people, uninformed as they are, do. Sure you can. All the reasons you mentioned above are totally legitimate ways of establishing trust with a website. You absolutely can only visit websites that others have vetted, if you're someone so paranoid about webpages. Some people are pioneers and some are not. You cannot avoid blind trust. Society as a whole hinges on the notion that people's behavior en masse is predictable and generally not destructive. How do you know, for example, that the groceries you just bought are not poisoned? You can't. You can regulate things but regulations cannot be perfectly enforced. So yes, you absolutely can just choose not to navigate to websites you don't trust.
  - xcambar 4y ago
    All very good points. Trust is also a leap of faith, when that's all you have. I had put that in the "intuition" category of my first comment.

eatonphil 4y ago

Since it's from RMS, I'm curious why you find it interesting. Isn't this what he's always said?

sshine 4y ago
I find it interesting because I think a lot about computing on your own terms. This is the norm: Vendor-locked hardware, operating systems that manipulate you into making choices that benefit others than you, software updates that remove functionality or render devices useless, access to multimedia that is revoked, services shutting down to make devices bound to them useless unless hacked. And I think I seek problems when I insist on running Linux on known hardware. But I avoid. so. much. by doing do.