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A HN comment from 2 years ago I bookmarked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15235151

The war on general computing implies disempowering users, rather than empowering them. But that it's "not surprising" doesn't mean it's good, or that it can't be reversed.

I wonder what associations for craftsmanship in software, respect for users, and similar things there are? If there was a web ring about that, I would browse it.

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Heh, that's a possibility, actually. Govs like how software and personal phones enable global surveillance, but they don't like the power that general computing devices give (all these encryption protocols, bitcoins and so on). So obviously some people in the govs are trying to convince the rest to keep the first and take back the general computing part. We may even see in our lifetimes how common people will only be allowed access to dumb software (the Apple model), and general unrestricted software and hardware will be threated like weapons, with licenses and prison time for software engineers. The alternative path for society is cheap and powerful general use phones with quantum coprocessors and a constitutional amendments that defend these rights. I'm pretty sure that the two alternatives are now being considered somewhere in DoD offices.

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