2y ago

I had a journey

Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

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Linus Torvalds is a "full-blown woke communist"? Citation needed.
I have been a FOSS enthusiast since my preteen or early teenage years (mid-to-late 2000s), yet I am not in any sense a communist.
- "full-blown woke communist" is US-speak for "Scandinavian socialist"
  
  The term you want is social democrat, which isn't socialism but hey, it tries to like, stop people starving to death on the street, if only because it looks ugly.
  
  Nah literally anyone who advocates for basic human rights is a "full blown woke communist".
  
  Scandinavian corporatist-social-democrat*
  
  Did you know the Scandanavian countries have more economic freedom than the USA! Its their saving grace. They also have many private roads. The early 20th c saw capitalist Nordic countries become very wealthy and store up sovereign funds. These funds were than blown dry in the later half of the century as they became more socialist. They have now abandoned many socialist policies and again adopted freedom. They do however still have high taxation.
- https://news.itsfoss.com/linus-torvalds-woke-communists/
  "I am one of those woke communists"
  
  unfortunately I think this is just him saying he's a "woke communist" if being a woke communist is atheism, women's rights, and gun control. I don't think he's a marxist of any stripe it seems. However, I am willing to be corrected here. I've only seen this post regarding to him.
  But Linux is
  
  Ugh I should probably try reading things
  
  if libs are comfortable calling themselves commie in any context that makes our job easier.
  
  I don't think it has a meaningful effect. Libs call themselves socialists all the time. For every case you're able to argue for socialism and not have people's brains shut down, you get 10 "those tankies aren't real socialists! Socialism is when you
  for food stamps and means-tested college subsidies"
  
  I think his point is that people who call things "woke communism", in a negative way, have no idea what communism actually is. To those people, everything from the center to the left of politics is woke communism.
- His dad was a straight up member of the Finnish Communist Party. He's still alive, and is even a member of the European Parliament, but seems more liberal/centrist these days.
  Linus himself seems to be pretty mum on politics.
- To me it always seemed like Linus Torvalds is mostly a pragmatist.
  Richard M Stallman on the other hand...
- I think the dates are more relevant than the software. COVID pandemic was probably more impactful here than Linux.
- He made a comment sarcastically and replied to an accusation labeling himself as such

553 comments