Article for context:https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/12/23870522/iphone-15-pro-max-thread-smartphones (Ik that I am talking about multiple companies when I refer to android companies but many singular companies make more innovations in the phone space compared to apple)
Microsoft is like the rich guy with the nice pool. Its looks nice. But then you learn they got rich by cutting corners and screwing over your friends. And are actively investing in making the public pool shit so they can grandstand their pool.
Noone is blaming you for going up to the rich guys pool to have a nice easy time. Or at least, I’m not defending the kind of linux zealots who might blame you for choosing that
But I equally believe it is right and fair for us to have the freedom to state the very valid reasons why we are choosing not to go up there.
Still though, this is conflating Windows and Microsoft. This conversation started about Linux users shitting on Windows, not Microsoft. I think Windows is decent at providing a relatively low effort experience while I also agree that Microsoft is guilty of all the typical practices of corporate greed.
I don’t buy Microsoft products anymore for that reason, but I still use them (if you catch my drift).
it’s hardly a conflation, this hostile modus operandi is baked into the windows product itself with malicious and intrusive features. i’m not sure if this is news to anyone, but those user-hostile features were added to windows by microsoft. and the best defense offered thus far for that is basically “most or all tech giants do it too” - yes, thankyou that’s exactly our point. the fact that shipping this kind of abusive software has been normalised is part of the problem too.
i agree in as much as not everything about windows is bad. and it can be useful sometimes out of necessity. though its worth remembering that necessity may often be the result of hostility on microsoft’s part, either past or present. so it’s not really possible to have an honest conversation about what windows is, without an awareness of how microsoft has maliciously managed our perception of desktop operating systems in general. happy to explain what i mean by this in more detail if anyone’s interested.
and also agreed, i’d never pay for it.
The logic just doesn’t follow. If we can’t distinguish between the evil of a corporation and the use of its products/services then everyone here is going to burn for using electronics made by children in another country.
This wasn’t my point at all. I’m simply stating that not everyone has the time and/or patience for Linux. I’m not a programmer. Most of the time that I do use Linux, it’s a struggle with a worthwhile outcome.
Damn, it’s almost like you either have to find a morally unassailable position or accept that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism and all that sentiment carries with it.
lol That’s a more succinct way to put it than what I could come up with, I like it
Be ye here warned: break that sucker out on libs and they recoil like demons from a cross, but it’s not a fetish in that regard and eventually you’ll find one who needs more exorcism than that meager phrase can provide.
😂 Duly noted
As I mentioned, I’m not here to criticise you for making the choice you have, or defend those who do criticise you for it.
What I am here to defend is our freedom to state the very valid reasons why we are choosing to avoid it as much as possible.
Therefore, it’s unclear to me exactly which stance you are taking in reference to what i said.
Our position is there are at least two core topics for why we choose not go there. They are 1. issues with the product and 2. issues with the company.
With the pool analogy the corner cutting and then further elucidation regarding the escalation of user-hostile features, are both specific criticisms with the windows software itself. Not the company.
Regarding issues with the company, as stated we are not listing reasons for condemning you for your choice but rather listing the reasons why we make our choice as we do.
Therefore, it is unclear exactly which position you are taking which is contrary to this? Everyone will have a different moral line for the myriad of issues when dealing with evil companies and their products/services. Do you wish to tell others where they choose to draw their own lines for their own lives are incorrect? I doubt that’s really the stance you intended to make, so what do you mean, then?
Finally, I’m not sure how much of the history you’re aware of, but microsoft’s open hostility to linux devs & users is extensive and bitter. We have the case of a billion dollar company, actively trying to spoil & ruin the harmless pleasure many people take in a wonderful piece of technology.
This is almost entirely unlike any other “us vs them” technology debate. In nearly every other case, its wealthy corporation vs wealthy corporation with the users caught in the middle. In this case it is literally freedom of the people vs corporate profits. That freedom being actually incredibly important: its not only about the harmless enjoyment of the community. But also, considering the tech trajectory our society is on, very likely serving a critical role for actual human rights today and tomorrow.
As stated many times, you are welcome to your choice, and your choice is understandable. But it would really be alot healthier if people take the time to appreciate the breadth of the problem, and perhaps better appreciate why we make our choices the way we do.
OR considering that may involve more effort than you have time for - fair enough - at least appreciate this is a topic some of the people who clearly have looked into it, might know some things about it you haven’t had time to learn yet.
No, and in fact it’s the other way around. This is exactly the underlying position used to attack Windows users. I don’t know how you can be so involved on the subject and not understand this.
It doesn’t matter if you’re personally guilty of this or not. Just look at the downvotes and verbal attack I received simply for stating that both operating systems have merit. This is the result of conflating Microsoft with Windows, that there’s an innate feeling of moral superiority in the denouncement of Windows users because of the harm done by its creator.
My point is that these two things are distinct and need to be distinguished. Criticize Windows all you want. Criticize Microsoft all you want. But if you start to criticize Windows for its association with Microsoft, then communication starts to break down and people start getting blamed for something they don’t even personally support because of a perceived moral high ground.
There is no moral high ground to be had over your every day user, because at the end of the day we’re all participants of capitalistic evil no matter where we choose to draw our personal lines. That’s what I meant.
In the first statement i made to you directly was the following:
From which I cannot fathom how you think I lack an appreciation that some people do blame others for such choices, or that I’m somehow having a conversation about those kinds of people…at all? Let alone their perceived moral high ground or lack thereof?
My entire thread has been about us having the freedom to express our reasons for avoiding it. If you’re not contesting the legitimacy of that freedom, them why are you continually attempting to invalidate my position, at all?
Tbh I’m entirely unconvinced by your claim that any participation in “capitalistic evil” immediately invalidates all subsequent discernment of shades of evil or the complex interactions thereof.
But frankly its entirely irrelevant to this thread, unless you believe it supports a position that we do not have the freedom to voice our own reasons for our own choices?
But you’re still grouping two distinct things together and feeding this monster that is ‘guilty by association’. At this point you’re either willfully ignoring my part about conflation or arguing just to argue. 🤷
Do you see how these statements are different? Because let me remind you:
You’re dangerously close to implying that where others choose to draw their own lines is incorrect.
Either we are failing to communicate (because i too have a strong sense you just “want to be right” regardless of the facts), or you’re actually engaging in bad faith discussion.
Since you mentioned you have the same feeling I’ll try to lay it out a bit more.
Its unfortunate you’ve had people ego flex on you over supposed morality. But that doesn’t mean everyone who mentions linux is like that.
Example, I’ve seen people who go up to smokers and evangalise about how smoking is “bad”, and how they’re “hurting society BY hurting themselves with smoking”. Well arguments about second hand smoke aside, I don’t really think that approach is especially helpful. It’s a moral position based on this abstract idea - even if statistically smokers increase our insurance or some shit like that, i doubt many people have the personal experience to say it actually effects them, so it defs comes off as a supposed moral high ground thing, right?
Because some people are going around making that kind of fuss, does mean that EVERYONE who chooses not to smoke is acting out some moral high ground fantasy? Are ALL those who quit smoking “for their health” just morality faking fuckwits? Or are some of them legit worried about their lung health?
For another example, your claim of conflation very much appears to be centred around your misunderstanding of the facts: You’ve had some people flex on your ego, and thats unfortunate. But I don’t think its useful to allow that experience to taint everything else you hear on the topic, and therefore presume you know what someone is saying just because someone else took the same side on the same topic.
The entire premise of traditional digital computing is centred on some key concepts, one of which is defined behaviour. Very clear and strict logical boundaries need to be established for what is defined behaviour. In simple, an operation (eg. adding two numbers), must be deterministic, that is the same two numbers when added must always produce the same resulting number.
Central to another aspect of this is trust. If you cannot trust the outcome of defined behaviour, then the precepts of computing fall apart for a variety of important applications, the behaviour is no longer strictly defined.
I’d hard to overstate how important this is, how much it empowers you as a member of the public, who do not have the resources to hire a team of number crunchers (as companies used to have to do in the old days).
Microsoft have repeatedly shown, they cannot be trusted. They will manipulate and deceive, by design in your computer, with actual code they insert into windows and then knowingly ship.
For these people, this problem matters ALOT, and this isn’t some abstract thing, its not some idealist philosophy to smugly throw around at parties, its a cold electronic fact - something they have to deal with, overcome, often at their own expense. The problem being, that when they ask their computer to perform an operation, their computer might intentionally lie to them about the operation itself, the outcome of the operation, or the integrity of the information going in or out of that operation.
The trust problem between microsoft and the code they insert into windows (running at the highest privilege level on YOUR computer hardware), is absolutely intertwined in the real world, in practice, in a variety of ways. Yes, all threat models involving linux deal with trust problems as well. But when you have a known compromised product from a known bad actor it is simply incorrect to suggest the product and the creator can only be considered in isolation from eachother.
And as you can appreciate you don’t even need to do anything wrong, for these kind of user-hostile features to be used against you, even in ways not intended by those who put them there - which is a whole other issue.
I could go on & on as this is really just touching the surface, but I hope you can begin to appreciate it’s not even remotely close to a conflation, this is not some guilt by association abstract nonsense, this is deeply and painfully practical. i really hope you can at least get a glimpse of it for yourself now.
I’ll defend them. Like pushing for vegan diets, solar energy, and the end of single use plastics. It’s annoying, it’s not fun but in the long run it’s to make the world better for average people.
The ship has sailed there. Microsoft aren’t going anywhere soon and in the long run they will continue to win.
There are plenty of good causes which I hypocritically agree with and don’t put into practise, eating meat is bad for me and the planet but I’ll still enjoy a steak without feeling like a villain believe it or not.
Blaming someone for choosing Microsoft is a dick move, Linux doesn’t work for everyone (I.e. non tech people) so what should they (myself included) be doing instead in your opinion?
The whole system needs to fail before a company like Microsoft loses, if that happens great. But until then me want play new games, me not know Linux tech, me use bad guy company to enjoy me time. Most importantly, me don’t feel bad for doing it.
Seriously though, I pick my battles and try to not be evil while doing so. Microsoft selling an extra copy of windows once every 10 or 15 years won’t turn them into our all powerful overlords and it’s the easiest way for me to enjoy my free time, and on balance I’m fine with that.
Your idea of making the world a better place is bullying people into submission? Something doesn’t quite add up there. 🤔
Im mixed because on one hand, you dont want a “crazy lady in the attic”. (we feed her and don’t talk about her) to fix that you must be intolerant to the intolerant. (in this case, you want to be against intolerance for people who are running windows) Its uncomfortable because it feels like your attacking yourself.