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Spending the Next Few Decades Tackling Technology's Threats (Without Being a Mindless Luddite)

Video download link | md5sum d4aa72bc21194759c3ec728e3db2739e Emergent Threats Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Techrights is hoping to take on more types of problems, possibly by focusing less on pertinent brands/companies and more on the shared threats they pose to society; more to follow later this week...

YESTERDAY I had a very negative experience with Royal Mail -- akin to the infamous Xerox incident of RMS. Not to compare myself to RMS, but when a courier puts a parcel in the bin along with cat's poo and then calls that "delivered" you have to wonder what sort of direction society has taken. They now advertise an "app" -- yes, a piece of malicious software for you to download just so that you can receive or at least track a parcel you're expecting. As I explain in the video above, which goes through this "work-in-press" strategy/plan document, we're dealing with sinister companies looking to increase their power (sometimes also profit) by passing a lot of burden to the powerless population. The "self-service" ploy is one example of that. It's not about automation but about outsourcing the labour to unpaid people (slaves, formerly known as "clients"). Mapping and factorising such threats is essential. It is, at the very least, a starting point.



"We need to develop collective resistance to abusive plots and ploys, such as corrosive, malicious cost-cutting moves that empower the rich (making them ever richer) at our expense while we struggle to keep up."The Web site Tux Machines turns 18 in less than 24 hours and later today I'll know if my decision (or for the time being suggestion) to reduce hours at work was well received and also accepted. If so, I shall have more to say about that. It's partly drafted already.

Either way, Techrights or tech rights are more important than ever. It's not limited to software freedom and, as I explain in the start of the video above, just promoting a brand (like "Linux") or obsessing over institutions won't be enough. In fact, brands seem to be missing the point -- they change over time (companies come and go; some rebrand themselves) -- and we must focus more on the concepts or the patterns. We need to develop collective resistance to abusive plots and ploys, such as corrosive, malicious cost-cutting moves that empower the rich (making them ever richer) at our expense while we constantly struggle to keep up.

Technology was supposed to make things easier and more reliable. But that's not happening.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
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we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
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Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
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Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
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su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
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What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
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Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
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Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
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Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
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Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
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Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
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users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
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