First of all, thanks, your summary is literally better than the article itself :-)
P.1 is not correct (it correctly reflects the article contents, but not factually correct). Research mentioned states vit. D supplements doesn't seem to reduce risks of cancers, and cardiovascular diseases - which doesn't mean they aren't useful.
Strictly speaking, almost nothing in the article is about Linux. It's about tools which work perfectly on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or Illumos. Some of them work on OSX too, btw.
The piece is interesting, but author's conclusions left very strange aftertaste. So there was a king with psychiatric problems, and his doctor who, abusing influence over his patient, usurped powers, and made a kid with the queen. And when aforementioned doctor decreed freedom of press, people of Denmark immediately started to express their dissatisfaction with the weird political situation. And the author calls it depressing, not constructive, and them proto-internet-trolls. Seriously?
It changed conditions for media business as much as for many other industries, making things economically worse for some and better for others. It didn't make journalism worse, for sure.
Media has been always flourishing on sensationalism, propaganda, pushing somebody's interests, and manipulating social strivings. And I mean it - it happened to me to talk to a historian who worked with first European newspapers which appeared soon after press (as a mechanism) became a common thing - most of them were exactly like modern clickbaity news, it's just that it was easier to amuse a reader back then, so their sensations look a bit naïve by modern standards. You can re-read Mark Twain for very recognizable patterns of political reporting of later times, then came mafia influence, revolutionary preachers, liars, and useful idiots. Bribery, business interests, gov't intrusions, political biases. And then internet appeared, and broke the beauty of journalism :-) The phenomenon of US press as being generally useful as whole (compared to USSR, or eve Europe) is because of its diversity - ensured by freedom of speech - call it a really big choice of distortions. And the internet made this choice even wider, actually. "Good journalism" which is impartial, and correct, and truth-loving is a romantic myth, and always been.
Blaming the internet is absolutely unfair. Before, it was really hard to expose bad journalism, that's the foundation of the myth about times of good journalism.
Duranty was awarded with Pulitzer for blatant lies in the first half of XX century, and it took more than 60 years for this to be widely revealed. It wouldn't be that easy for him nowadays.
Authoritarian, or totalitarian tendencies are often naturally produced by absolute conviction in "us being good, them being evil". Even when one's ideology in theory insists on democracy, and compromise, it's very easy to tell "ok, we just need to save democracy/planet/nature/humanity by crushing the evil people, and then there will be bright future". This is compatible with practically any ideology, because it calls just for one exception, sort of war to end all wars. Besides, it's always possible to re-define the very meaning of democracy, and compromise to suit an urge to get rid of opponents.
Btw, your use of left-wing term is the classical No true Scotsman fallacy.
It's not a programming advice. Similar counsel is dispensed in various tech, and non-tech fields, because it's about relations with other people which sometimes could be more important than efficiency for one's career, or comfort. However, to discourage from thinking about improving other programmers code, and call it "the best programming advice"? No way.
There was more economical freedom in Eastern European countries compared to those incorporated in Soviet empire. At least small private initiative was somewhat tolerated. Also, in countries like Poland communists weren't able to completely suppress religious attachments of populace. They had to accept the existence of alternative, competing moral, and cultural values, and it had the general effect of less-controlled cultural, and private space. Very unlike the strict USSR model where everything had to be in line with central-planned norms.
For an "average user" Linux, and FreeBSD are absolutely identical. If it's supplied with pre-installed GUI (say Ubuntu as Linux, and TrueOS on BSD side) it's more or less the same point-and-click experience. If it's bare console - well, it would be the same OMG-what's-that experience. Differences will start to appear for a user who wants to dive deeper, but that would make him/her non-average apparently.
Soviet Union was trying very hard to keep up with the US military advances - I know it for sure, because as an engineer my father was involved in such efforts. And, by the way, "just" producing more missiles wasn't easy thing to do also. So, Reagan's policy probably added a lot to Soviet troubles. I suppose Sagan simply needed to be publicly skeptical, because he was in different ideological trenches.
Israel is pretty much constantly shelled by rockets. And there are capable state, and quasi-state actors behind that who officially claim they want it to be eliminated.
The fact, that majority of its population can enjoy relatively peaceful life is thanks to organizational, and technological superiority of Israeli military. Which depends on work of Israeli engineers whose motivation is therefore exactly the same: do military tech to stop anti-Israeli "Axis".
Could you clarify your position please: do you think that "Significant part of FF's userbase decided in its favor exactly because of choice of third-party addons" is incorrect?
In general, you are right (excluding the usage of word "Nazi"): private entity can deny services to other entity. However, in legal practice there are exceptions to to the rule, e.g. when the entity which denies is a monopoly (even locally defined), or services are too essential. I'm not in position to decide if it applies to the situation described, but worth keeping in mind that there are limits.
Yes, Quantum changed API => it made a bunch of addons dead => lots if worried, and upset users appeared discussing it. I have nothing against Quantum, I accept it was necessary to go for a new model, but it clearly shows addons are important for a significant share of users.
I can't offer you a number, but it's significant enough for Google to offer me to autocomplete "firefox quantum addons" with "stopped working", and relevant discussions left a visible footprint on the net. I'm not sure how is the second sentence related to the question. If you're implying that addons dragged it down -
it for sure is incorrect.
I'm not sure the "big problem" of Windows stemmed exactly from possibility to install third-party apps, and not from poor security defaults which let those apps to mangle everything around without asking for permission, and poor architectural decisions which let some programs to install themselves (aka viruses). Nowadays Windows is much better with this staff than it's used to be, in spite of the fact that (contrary to your statement) installing unsigned software is still as easy as pushing buttons.
I really don't know what part of opposing GDPR is disproved by this example. Actually, the one of the points was that it is blurred, and can be applied too arbitrary. The story clearly proves it, even if this time rulers were so merciful.
>it does reduce the possibility of being manipulated through fake news
I'm sorry to say, but there's no evidence it's true. Formally more educated, and formally less educated belong to different social tribes, and react to different information stimulants, and that's all. Advertising industry successfully pushes peoples choices of all sorts of education.
Also, I believe your idea of authoritarianism is not wholly correct. I was born, and raised in a real dictatorship which provided free tuition (probably, at least partially because it makes a great influence, and control apparatus once nationalized) as well as cheap health, and communal services. In fact, all left dictatorships did/do it to some extent to have an ideological selling point. Also, dictatorships often care less about one's voting pattern, because they can count it properly. What do they always care about? Information. They all restrict freedom of speech.
While it's probable that formal education levels correlate with political choices, it doesn't necessary imply that higher degree leads to better ones, or even reduces possibility of being manipulated.
Also, every major player of every political fight knows, and has tools to "play to their advantage", it's not like some bad vs good fairytale.
And if you are against all major players then you may want to consider that it is exactly yours opinion which eventually will be censored if the idea about mandatory purging of "bad information" wins.
Words "Russian", and "bots" are absolutely irrelevant for the discussion. "Lies" is relevant, but who is the authority to decide what belongs to the category? The whole Free Speech thing is invented exactly because history of humanity many times proved that mandatory filtering of information inevitably leads to abuse, and to lies which you want to counter.