[cowtools]

Even as a moderate-libertarian myself, it is not really surprising that a lot of free-software users and contributors are communists. RMS himself seems to be pretty left-leaning.

It is encouraging that most free-software users/contributors can see past political squabbles and work on tech that improves society more objectively.

[ParetoOptimal]

> most free-software users/contributors can see past political squabbles and work on tech that improves society more objectively.

The problem is apolitical can easily be or become amoral, so I can't agree this is a virtue without further clarification. Some differents can and should be tolerated, but in the spirit of the paradox of tolerance others should not.

How would you feel if you released software under an MIT license that helped a neo-Nazi resurgence for instance?

[cowtools]

I don't think free software is apolitical, but it is often non-partisan. It is not about inter-institutional power struggles. It is about giving individuals the technology to defeat and replace tyrannical institutions in the first place.

>How would you feel if you released software under an MIT license that helped a neo-Nazi resurgence for instance?

Firstly, I disapprove of permissively-licensed software.

Secondly, if you're making technology whose goal is to empower individuals, and the majority of individuals want to overthrow their free government and replace it with some fascist dictatorship, then there will be some edge cases like that in which that technology has a net-negative effect on global freedom. I have no problem with that, that's the price of individual freedom and the right to self-determination.

I think what you're trying to say here is some variation of popper's paradox, wherein freedom-enabling technology gives people the freedom to take away their own freedom. While it's true to some extent, trying to make direct use of that principle like you're doing here can lead to some pretty disastrous results, because you can basically use it to justify any authoritarian action in the name of freedom. For example, what would you do in this instance? put backdoors in the software that these neo-nazis are using? Any attempt at limiting the anti-institutional power of the technology will certainly have a net-negative impact on global freedom, because the same modes of technology will used be used more crucially against tyrannical institutions than non-tyrannical ones.

Let me say this: I don't fear any of these fascist or communist dictatorships taking over the world. I think those are merely meta-stable ideologies that are eventually toppled if you put power and knowledge in the hands of individuals. What I am worried about is when the western world develops and exports surveillance technology which enables these dictatorships to continue their miserable existence in the first place.

Communism, Fascism, Corporatism, Cronyism: these systems will always come about in one form or another because they are the emergence of mankind's worst characteristics. The only way to eliminate them completely is to remove from man that which makes him human. That is why the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time.