[prepend]

I think authoritarianism is dangerous because of force.

The first time I used IRC I thought the mod system was unjust. In one channel the mods decided to allow democratic selection of mods, new mods were elected and the vote was “rigged” by extra accounts. The channel devolved into chaos and the mods took back over.

At a project level, authoritarianism is based on subject matter expertise and who started the project. And with open source this is strengthened by the ability to fork the project. If I don’t like a project, use something else. If I, and others, really don’t like the project, we can fork it and start our own copy.

Trying to “vote” a project you don’t like seems like a bankrupt idea to me. Either participate in the community, gain authority and credibility through contributions, or walk away and start a fork.

I think software works well with “benevolent dictatorships” as long as there’s no lock-in or requirement to use it.

[zajio1am]

> I think software works well with “benevolent dictatorships” as long as there’s no lock-in or requirement to use it.

Communication systems have implicit lock-in due to network efffects. That is why it is important to support federated systems only.

[prepend]

Yes, definitely. But signal is an optional person to person program. I think it’s pretty easy to switch, or even take the source and make something new.

Even with closed source stuff like Facebook, it seems dumb to claim they are authoritarian and try to change them. It’s their product, just leave.

Lego isn’t authoritarian because they don’t make sets and changes that I want. It’s their company and they make what they make.