One huge impact mass FOSS adoption would have is that there would be a lot less software and hardware churn. Commercial nature of proprietary technology is the main driver for constant upgrade cycles we see. Companies need to constantly sell products to stay in business, and this means you have to deprecate old software and hardware in order to sell new versions of the product.

Windows 11 roll out is a perfect example. Vast majority of Windows 10 users are perfectly happy with the way their computer works currently, they’re not demanding any new features, they just want their computer to continue to work the way it does currently. However, Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 and now they’re forced to buy a new computer to keep doing what they’ve been doing.

This problem goes away entirely with open source because there is no commercial incentive at play. If a piece of software works, and there is a community of users using it, then it can keep working the way it does indefinitely. Furthermore, in cases where a software project goes in a directions some users don’t like, such as the case with Gnome, then software can be forked by users who want to go in a different direction or preserve original functionality. This is how Cinnamon and Mate projects came about.

Another aspect of the open source dynamic is that there’s an incentive to optimize software. So, you can get continuous performance improvements without having to constantly upgrade your hardware. For most commercial software, there’s little incentive to do that since that costs company money. It’s easier to just expect users to upgrade their hardware if they want better performance.

I would argue that non technical software users would be far better off if they had the option to fund open source software instead of buying commercial versions. Even having to pay equal amounts, the availability of the source puts more power in the hands of the users. For example, building on the example of Gnome, users of an existing software project could also pull funds together to pay developers to add features to the software or change functionality in a particular way.

This is precisely what makes licenses like GPL so valuable in my opinion. It’s a license that ensure the source stays open, and in this way inherently gives more power to the users.

Oh yeah, once you start seeing it, you realize that we’re swimming in propaganda and people are simply regurgitating it uncritically like chatbots.

Reading Marx is like unearthing the Necronomicon in a university library, a forbidden text that lays bare capitalism’s inner workings. But the true horror lies in realizing you’re surrounded by people who treat exploitation as ‘just how things work.’ Suddenly the world reveals itself as a self-sustaining asylum, where the so-called ‘rational’ diligently reproduce the madness of the system.

There are plenty of videos from Ukraine and Israel that you can watch online. These missiles can hit specific buildings.

Also notable how the Soviets were already doing the Virgin vs Chad Meme a hundred years ago

Pretty sure all the plans to mine the border with Europe aren’t to prevent Russian invasion, but a flood of refugees from western Ukraine once the war ends.

I think a lot of it comes down to the historical advantages the US enjoyed since the end of WW2. A deep dive into the whole thing https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-stress-test-liberalism-never

I really don’t. The purpose of the US military industrial complex is to soak up as much tax money as possible and put it back in the hands of the oligarchs. Stockpiling arms goes directly against this principle because it requires maintaining factories, and weapons stores, curating supply chains, hiring many workers, and so on. All of that translates into costs. A much better approach is to create projects like F35 which are built in artisanal batches over many years, and require expensive maintenance contracts for function. You can suck up billions for each toy you deliver, and you don’t have to ramp up large scale production.

Other statistic indirectly show just how pitiful the industrial base in the US really is. For example, only 192,474 of American students pursue engineering degrees our of 3 million total degrees, a mere 6.4%. Not only that, but only 37% of students begin an engineering career after completing an engineering degree. The number of engineers acts as a proxy for technicians, skilled workers, and a general industrial capacity.

The lack of engineering talent is the reason Raytheon had to get retirees back to restart missile production.

Yup, it’s frustrating that there’s still no process that’s easy enough for a non techie to go through easily.

Raytheon stock goes brrr, Raytheon output not so much.

Yeah basically, a turn key solution where your machine gets wiped and imaged with a Linux distro that does all the basic stuff most people need would be an ideal solution. A good way to look at it would be making sort of a Linux based console for non technical users as opposed to a general purpose computer. Tech people want the latter, but non technical users just want a reliable tool that can reliably handle a few tasks.

Indeed, it kills me how much perfectly hardware is constantly thrown out because Windows refuses to run on it.

I think the trick has to be that somebody who has a bit of technical skill sets the laptop up initially. I did this for my mom a while back, and once I set it up once, it just worked from there on. Non technical users tend to have a fairly small set of things they need to do like check email, browser the web, and play media. Once that’s working, they never need to change anything. In fact, they don’t want to change anything because they get used to the workflow, and they’re comfortable.

It would be great if people set up community centres where people can bring their old laptops, and somebody switches them over to Linux for them.

I think if the proletarians were able to read it back at the start of the 20th century when literacy was far worse and information was much harder to access, there’s little excuse for people not to read it today. It’s the one proven way to improve conditions for the working majority. We are in a privileged position where all the theory and practice is available to us having been won by prior generations, and we’re too lazy too bother learning it.

touche

incredibly, hence why Blackrock is already dumping Ukraine https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-05/blackrock-halted-ukraine-fund-talks-after-trump-s-election-win

lol yeah it’s in the name

that’s a very similar scenario now that you mention it

That’s by far the most frustrating aspect of the whole thing. It’s not like they were hiding this. You can literally read articles like this, published in mainstream press explaining in detail why the US wanted to have a proxy war with Russia. It’s all in the open, and yet we’re still having these struggle sessions with people adamantly denying that this is a proxy war.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/strategy-avoiding-two-front-war-192137