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stpdnerdism

4 karma · joined August 19, 2026

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stpdnerdism··on Civic Hygiene – avoid building technologies that could be used by a police state (2013)
There is some sort of "nerd naivete" that they are the ones with power to control those things.

If you're a nerd developing open source (not an insult; I'm in that category), our job is to develop effective technology.

If you want to do politics, go into law and/or politics (or into business, so you can fund/control politics).

>"But software which OpenBSD uses and redistributes must be free to all (be they people or companies), for any purpose they wish to use it, including modification, use, peeing on, or even integration into baby mulching machines or atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia. " -- Theo De Raadt

stpdnerdism··on Civic Hygiene – avoid building technologies that could be used by a police state (2013)
I doubt this is enforceable. Are you going to sue a government secret program because they used some open source code in a way that violates some weird clause?
stpdnerdism··on Civic Hygiene – avoid building technologies that could be used by a police state (2013)
The article is not completely wrong in its premises, but phrased incorrectly.

This is not about technologies (after all, an authoritarian government will use many existing technologies, from the car to the computer), but about powers granted to a government, that could be used differently by the next party/majority in power.

The answer to that is to not grant government too much power in the first place.

Of course, this is often a contentious point for leftists, since they do want to grant government a lot of power in the first place; they're just concerned that the exact same powers will then be used by a different political side in a way that bothers a different category of people.