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by akkartik 1113 days ago
I think the crux of our disagreement is: is popular software mature enough and regulated enough yet to be worth distributing to 100 million users? I think the answer is overwhelmingly "no". In Carlota Perez's terms, I think we've moved too quickly to the installation phase.
1 comments

> is popular software mature enough and regulated enough yet to be worth distributing to 100 million users? I think the answer is overwhelmingly "no".

Well it depends on the alternative. If you had to choose between Linux and TempleOS you'd probably get fewer bugs and the ability to do more actual work with Linux. If you had to choose between Windows and TempleOS, you'd probably be able to get more work done with Windows. If you had to choose between MacOS and TempleOS, MacOS would probably let you do more of whatever you were trying to accomplish than TempleOS. Yet TempleOS is only used by a small number of people and only has the resources that you'd expect from something that very few people use.

Now if you are saying that the alternative is to just not use software until it is "mature" you can definitely go back to writing your drafts with pencil and then typing it in a typewriter, but you probably don't actually believe that since you seem to find greater value in using the Internet and software for communication instead of the postal service.

> Now if you are saying that the alternative is to just not use software until it is "mature"..

I'm definitely not saying that, right? Hopefully OP conveys what I'm saying.

> If you had to choose between Windows and TempleOS, you'd probably be able to get more work done with Windows.

If you bought a stock and the price climbed up 20% for 19 years before falling 100% in the 20th, do you care that the stock was doing very well for a long time? If you can do more with Windows and get hit by a virus that steals all your bitcoin, TemplateOS probably starts looking quite good at that moment. So it's not a quantitative argument for me of "which side lets me do more work." There are qualitative, almost spiritual questions of "what is this work _for_?" and "what sort of lifestyle can I live with?"