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Comment by 5trokerac3 | Hacker News Reader

Only Stallman would begin a "reasons to not use Google" post with a rant about modern webpages requiring JavaScript, as if there aren't a million higher priority reasons TO DUMP GOOGLE.

I can't help but feel that having such an extremist as the face of the FSF has greatly hindered it in its mission.

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Stallman is the diametric opposite of Google. As such he is ground zero of the opposition. He raises awareness and has concrete if impractical solutions. The truth we seek is, IMO, somewhere close to the Google/ad network and Stallman/privacy concerns nexus.

That's like saying Fascists and Communists are polar opposites. They may disagree completely on economic policy, but they're both authoritarian assholes. Stallman is only for "freedom" as long as it's his complete and unwavering vision for his personal freedom, damn everyone else.

Last I heard Stallman isn't forcing anything on anyone, even in the loosest sense of the word. Criticism isn't authoritarian.

Uh, fascists and communist are polar opposites, but authoritarianism has nothing to do with communism by definition. If Stalin implemented an authoritarian regime while using the term "communism", that does not make communism a regime based on authoritarianism. It's nice to remember North Korea consider themselves a "People's Republic" but I'm sure you do not believe it is a democracy just because of a name or official designation; likewise, late stage western capitalism consider themselves "Representative Democracies", but a solid argument could be made comparing those nations with nazifascist states of the 1930s. Things are not so simple and simplifying such complex topics is what leads to populist governments rising. I believe we should not dumb things down. Instead, we should believe people are capable of critical thinking and we must help them see the whole picture for themselves instead of spreading McCarthist stories about the communist boogeyman.

I don't know if I see how your analogy extends to this situation. Are you saying you like neither Stallman or Google?

Yes, they're two sides of the same, "my way or the highway" coin. Stallman has made it clear that he would destroy the right of private digital property, if he had the power.

I don't know how you draw that conclusion. The goal of the FSF, since the beginning, has been to make a computing platform that the user has full control over. They aren't the ones trying to push everyone's data into the cloud.

Nobody said the list would be ordered ...

Knowing Stallman, it is ordered.

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