Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 17, 2023 15:01 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support) by dskoll
Parent article: Debian adds LoongArch support

And this is the crux of our disagreement - I believe that you should explain the ethical reasoning that leads you to promote Software Freedom, but not push for "Freedom" in general at the same time.

When you push a country to be "Free" by your lights as part of pushing software freedom, you open up the rejection of software freedom because your "Freedom" is often hypocritical as a whole; you're happy for your state to imprison people for very long periods of time because they have a different political opinion to you (e.g. that individuals taking certain drugs for recreational purposes is fine), but not for another state to imprison people for their political opinions.

When you explain Software Freedom as one aspect of a deeper ethical thought process (e.g. "I believe that you should be permitted to examine anything that affects you to determine how it works and why, hence I believe that you should have the source code for software"), you're pushing for a specific case of a more general principle, and hoping that people pick up on the general principle ("if you use it, you should be able to examine it to learn how it works") from which you've derived the special case. They can then apply that principle elsewhere, and hopefully come to further freedoms from the same principle - but they're not able to point at the specific freedoms you've advocated for and say "because you don't actually let people have this freedom, your claims about freedom are just hypocrisy, and anti-us sentiment".

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 17, 2023 18:23 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (9 responses)

And this is the crux of our disagreement - I believe that you should explain the ethical reasoning that leads you to promote Software Freedom, but not push for "Freedom" in general at the same time.

Eh? I am pushing for Freedom in general at the same time! That's the point.

I'm not sure why you assume I am happy for my state to imprison recreational drug users, because I'm not. I am against that also. (Canada's rate of imprisonment on drug use offenses is tiny... roundoff error compared to the USA, especially since cannabis was legalized.)

I posted earlier, but your argument is nothing but Whataboutism.

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 18, 2023 9:05 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (7 responses)

It's not necessarily "whataboutism" - I don't think farnz is trying to deflect away from issues with the Chinese state. Rather, trying to find some sensible philosophy as to how and where to draw the lines.

E.g., if you are saying that any company (or employees thereof) with any contracting ties to (the military of)? any state that has ongoing human rights issues should be excluded from Free Software communities, then wouldn't this exclude many companies from western (or western aligned) countries, such as the USA, UK, Israel, etc.?

What is the general principle you are applying?

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 18, 2023 12:25 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (6 responses)

The general principle I'm applying is that Free Software developers shouldn't assist a government that actively oppresses its citizens, is committing genocide, acts as a loan shark to effectively take control over poor developing countries, and aggressively threatens its neighbors.

No country is perfect, but we have to draw the line somewhere. I think drawing it using data from Freedom House's index and from resolutions passed by many democratically-elected legislatures is more defensible than saying "because no country is perfect, we'll simply close our eyes and sing 'la-la-la' as we help out a dictatorship."

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 18, 2023 13:24 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (5 responses)

> The general principle I'm applying is that Free Software developers shouldn't assist a government that actively oppresses its citizens, is committing genocide, acts as a loan shark to effectively take control over poor developing countries, and aggressively threatens its neighbors.

Those words have applied to the USA (ie my own nation) many, many shameful times over the course of its existence; even as recently as a few years ago -- and arguably still do to this day.

> No country is perfect, but we have to draw the line somewhere. I think drawing it using data from Freedom House's index and from resolutions passed by many democratically-elected legislatures is more defensible

This is at least a consistent position to take, and I think that's all that was asked for.

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 18, 2023 23:26 UTC (Fri) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link] (4 responses)

It's off topic for this forum so I apologise, but like dskoll I find this implied moral equivalence between the USA and China to be repugnant. It is offensive to the Chinese people suffering under the CCP regime --- the Uyghurs, the organ harvestees, the persecuted churches, the Falun Gong, and the everyday citizens who have no say in their government and whose every communications medium is subject to strict and petty government censorship. (And like dskoll, I'm not American; I lived and worked in the USA for a time, a long time ago.)

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 19, 2023 0:24 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (3 responses)

> It's off topic for this forum so I apologise, but like dskoll I find this implied moral equivalence between the USA and China to be repugnant.

It is only a moral equivalence insofar as the criteria that dskoll (originally) espoused would apply equally to most major nations, when in fact he was actually advocating for a more nuanced (and IMO morally defensible) stance.

That said, "nuanced" in this context is an acknowledgement that you believe freedoms should not be absolute. I find this ironic given the heaps of disdain being heaped upon Red Hat for placing some restrictions/consequences upon exercising freedoms.

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 22, 2023 14:52 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (2 responses)

“My liberty ends where yours begins”

Even enlightment authors recognized that absolute freedoms are not workable in the real world. You can at best achieve some form of balancing act.

Arguing for absolutes is dangerous because it is real easy to get disilusionned and switch to a destructive since this can not be achieved nothing matters stance. Decent people compromise every day in life.

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 22, 2023 15:27 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> Arguing for absolutes is dangerous because it is real easy to get disilusionned and switch to a destructive since this can not be achieved nothing matters stance. Decent people compromise every day in life.

"Pick two of three. Any two"

And that includes freedoms. I'm well known I suspect for railing against freedom of speech. Not because I don't believe freedom of speech isn't a good thing (it is), but because freedom of speech destroys other things.

The American Constitution guarantees the freedom to seek happiness. But free speech and the pursuit of wealth means that America figures very low in the Western World's happiness index. From pizza's remarks it sounds like the Han Chinese quite possibly are higher up the happiness index than your typical American ...

Cheers,
Wol

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 22, 2023 15:55 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> The American Constitution guarantees the freedom to seek happiness.

Not quite -- "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" is in the US declaration of independence.

The actual constitution doesn't state anything about rights, at least not until the bill of rights that comprised the first ten adopted amendments.

But even the bill of rights just says "No person shall [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;"

Happiness (or the pursuit thereof) is conspicuously absent.

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 24, 2023 8:23 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

I assume that you are happy for your state to imprison recreational drug users, because your state does so, and you've already said that if your state did things you were seriously unhappy with, you'd accept the penalties for refusing to pay taxes.

I would also note that the list we're discussing here is not a list of ethically bad entities - it's a list of entities that the United States of America deems opposed to its goals. As a result, there are entities in China whose behaviour is far worse than Loongson (actively manufacturing things used only for oppression) who are not on the list because the cost to American businesses of losing Chinese suppliers is deemed too high, while entities not of use to American firms go on the list because there is no cost to the USA from people choosing AMD, Qualcomm or other vendors instead of Loongson.

And this is why I find the claims about ethics grating - the list has nothing to do with ethics, just with whether the USA considers you a worthy compromise, or someone it can afford to not do business with. There are entities that are far worse ethically that are not on the list (ones who supply equipment for use against the Uyghurs, for example), and the ethical breach that Loongson is accused of is "permitting its local government to purchase its products".

Maybe this is getting too philosophical (was: Debian adds LoongArch support)

Posted Aug 17, 2023 19:00 UTC (Thu) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]

> you're happy for your state to imprison people for very long periods of time because they have a different political opinion to you (e.g. that individuals taking certain drugs for recreational purposes is fine),

This is sleight-of-hand. Those people are imprisoned because people voted (indirectly) to make drug-taking a crime. They're not imprisoned for the opinion that "taking certain drugs for recreational purposes is fine"; that is not a crime, in the USA at least, and very large numbers of people hold that opinion and none of them are ever charged on that basis.