No Skinnerboxes, No Slop, No False Idols or Corporate Prophets
#StallmanWasRight (about Linus Torvalds)
2 weeks ago: Skinnerboxes as Health Problems and Impediments (Against Happiness)
"Skinnerboxes" as a term is highly instructive. It's also helpful when it comes to conveying particular concepts. B.F. Skinner's set of experiments shows that corporations nowadays treat human beings like birds and mice. They presume no profound emotion or thought, only basic instincts. They try to get us addicted, dependent, irrational.
Today I had a lengthy discussion about how businesses try to cheapen everything for themselves... at the customers' expense. "Self-checkout" is a classic example of this. They turn customers into unpaid staff. Those same corporations, herded by even larger corporations, tell us to "pay digitally" and then pay commissions to some foreign companies like GAFAM (or Visa/Mastercard). We stand to gain nothing from it, but cash handling is considered "expensive" or "risky"... and besides... the customers bears the hidden charges (commissions). Why are people doing this to themselves? It's not convenience, it is like a fashion.
It has gotten yet worse with "apps" in place of real services. For people like us who still get bank statements by post every month (no skinnerboxes, no "apps", no "webapps" with proprietary JavaScript which changes all the time) it sometimes means a form of discrimination or peer pressure to use (or purchase) a "smart" "phone". Similarly, there's growing social and commercial (sometimes an employer) pressure to adopt slop and use chatbots. People have resorted to using their religion to apply for exemptions.
Don't compromise or it'll get worse.
"OK, so I'll buy a skinnerbox..."
"OK, I suppose I can have an account in social control media..."
"OK, I suppose I could try slop..."
Little by little the freedoms are surrendered, given away to oligarchs [1, 2] who are also (typically) sociopaths.
Apropos surrender of one's freedom, RMS was right all along about Linus Torvalds. Years ago Torvalds said slop is (or was) 90% marketing hype. Slop companies then began passing a very large bribe to Torvalds' employer (Linux Foundation). Money changed hands. No secrets about it. Within months Torvalds started tolerating slop, now he says that no more criticism of slop is allowed. It is the same with the media. Why the change in attitude? Follow the money. The pyramid scheme is compromising critics and offering them financial rewards to participate in the scheme.
Torvalds does not understand the everyday struggles of tech workers and tech users because he is a millionaire and to keep receiving 2 million dollars each year he knows what he can and cannot say. █