throwaway1723

True that, but did anyone count how many tools created by hackers for hackers had enabled the furious growth of monstrosities like Google, Amazon, Facebook etc, which I guess can't be more opposite to ideals of hackers?

And on the other hand, did those tools empower hackers themselves? Other than quick and dirty prototypes, did those result in any products to empower common people? Last open source GSM phone project I was subscribed to lingered for years, postponed release for lack of funding and finally, I guess, was abandoned. But at the same time I see shop shelves crammed with dirt-cheap locked-down surveillance contraptions from big known corporations who shamelessly use FOSS tools in their development.

Or is it just an inevitable vicious cycle of all opposition becoming exactly the entity it opposed?

by collecting parts they either come by

- Those were not produced for free

get gifted from others

- Others paid for those

build themselves

- Out of free materials or without any need to buy food and pay bills?

things cost money is a dangerous view

It's dangerous only to idealistic outlook where money is evil and not a mere heat carrier.

Now, banksters' interest-driven monetary system based on debt is evil, but that's another topic.

What's the use in free knowledge how to build a turbine (or God forbid, a nuclear reactor) when all labor, materials, energy and machinery involved in its construction cost money?

That's right, the only use is that investors can save a hefty bit on the knowledge part. That's nowhere near the external looks of ideals of FOSS (but pretty much in line with its internal gist).

Your assumption is correct!

Reading their website:

Presented Challenges:

Comparison - Select all images that match query

Bounding Box - Define bounding area for objects

Categorization - Identify the corresponding labels

..and other simple tasks.

No, hCaptcha, no way am I going to train your neural networks for free, so please join Google on your journey to hell.

By the time everyone can tell conspiracy theories from conspiracy practices it's already too late.

It's all based on three words: 'already', 'will', and 'we'. 'We are already being tracked by our smartphones - So we will be wearing implanted radio chips soon".

Reject 'we' by not using one and you're not being 'aready' tracked, and hence 'will' not accept whatever coming after this.

But it requires some bravery, which is known to be eradicated in people these days.

Everything's to the point except it wasn't Orwell who taught elites proper sheepherding. They've been doing it throughout all the known history.

https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

Enjoy the world of corporate-owned remote work platforms.

"Spotted the monolith while counting sheep".

I bet they are still counting.

A bit less commonplace-looking font: https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans

Fortunately yet sadly there are many more remaining silent or ignoring HN altogether... Thank you for commenting against the grain too!

Well my friend, the soil where you're trying to plant your sensible words is just totally barren. Here on HN you'll most probably face feedback only from those who work exactly for somebody who's coming after some group as you say, or zealous dupes who follow the former for free. And that feedback will never be positive!

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure

We all are yet to see what this current youtube-raised generation of iChildren will turn out to be.

And I already don't like what I see, even though they are still only 5-10 years old: zero attention span, inability to be still and contemplative, useless hyperactivity, zero respect to parents yet enormous fear of police and other powers that be, lack of personal responsibility, whole life documented and filed in the cloud, total dependency on internet and electricity, so much that they are at the fringe of going insane or commiting a suicide when there's an outage...

And oh if it were only their parents who'll reap what they sow.

IMF and World Bank buys them some cheap human capital to spread it.. Effortlessly.

Everyone's detectors of this delta seem to have different thresholds of sensitivity... Simply put, some frogs feel small increments of water's temperature and try to warn others, so that they work out the means of escape instead of keeping their pool party going, but for those partying the increments pass as not alarming.

That of course does not mean that less sensitive ones don't feel some uneasiness in the environment. They do, but the cook keeps dressing the heating broth with promises of better future, and lulls the frogs into attributing this uneasiness to depression. Because you see, psychiatry is just another cook's tool among forks, spoons and knives.

Erich Fromm did not use the term 'punitive psychiatry' for no reason.

It's not depression, it's the society tumbling down the hill straight to hell, my friend, and your subconscious understanding of that fact.

There is always an excuse that "this time is not the same as before", and this is exactly why the history keeps repeating itself.

There's always a deception that makes the most part of population believe THEY'RE right, be it a virus that kills elderly, a foe nation weaving plots against the fatherland, whatever, it's literally anything that makes people act with pride as if they were fighting the greatest evil. But the Hell is paved with best intentions. Failing to understand that will keep you feeling pity for those who predicted what comes next, and then feeling pity for yourself for you did not listen when it was not too late.

Look, we are all a death threat to each other, but there's one thing called immunity that keeps us from dying out. Elderly always were less immune; are you 100% sure that none of your droplets ever killed someone less immune back in the reckless unmasked days? Someone with a rare condition? Did you track fates of all people you ever contacted?

You people seem to have some panic button in your minds that has been activated by some great NLP masters, which now prevents you from accepting simple facts of life and death. Especially of death. You are willing to wrap life in masks and barbwire, to make it immobile and constrained, to eat and inject all kinds of poisons, to accept any kind of atrocious attitude and orders just in order to keep this undead state for indefinitely long. But that's not going to happen, and you all know that. The clock is ticking for everyone. The only way out of this mess is to live a good fearless life and enjoy every second of it.

And I highly recommend watching these 2 videos in succession to all the good intended people who believe there's nothing ominous going on right now.

Berlin in 1936: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es6f7K4c-y8

Berlin in 1945: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5i9k7s9X_A

Be well and do try to join the dots...

And today it's absolutely the same situation like the one described in the article.

History taught no one. Once again, no one seems to be willing to resist the beginnings and consider the end.

The beginnings go by the name COVID-19 and include lockdowns, closure of national borders, obligatory mask-or-starve-to-death, social distancing, temp checks, QR codes assigned to people in order to leave home, and other totalitarian bullcrap that would be considered absolutely insane and unacceptable as little as a year ago. Everyone is trembling with terror at dying from the single virus and the single disease as if no millions of other viruses and diseases existed. Everyone is so scared for their dear asses that all critical thinking is blocked, because, to cite the original text of the article, 'there is so much going on around', and so they turn a blind eye to all the manipulation and brainwash backed by absurd amounts of money. All they want is that the great wise men in power come and save them. And the end is clearly a one-world medicine-mediated techno-fascism even Hitler and his creators couldn't dream about.

But instead of thinking, what will my bright contemporaries do now? They'll engage their downvote machineguns and flag me the hell out of existence. And HN will help them by counting their pro-covid downvotes as 3 to 5 regular ones. Start your timers, gentlemen, if any still remain here, and watch this post disappear in no time.

But always mind the end, dear downvoters and especially, flaggers.