Author: Db0

The Politics of Science

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Can science ever be a political tool? Those who know of it’s impartialism would find it difficult to believe it, but this does not prevent its political force.

Louis XIV visiting the Académie des sciences ...
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The scientific method is unarguably one of the most objective and rational methods that humans have found to discover the world around them. It is also value-free, in the sense that it simply explains reality and has no normative propositions to make and thus it cannot be considered to put forth any bias.

But this does not mean that science cannot be used politically. In fact, the findings of it are the primary method by which secular people can promote their agenda as Reality, when supporting one’s position can be handily be used as a stronghold for one’s political ideas. And this actually makes the best kind of politics, ie ones based on reality. This is in fact why religion is hostile to Science as a whole, as it gives too much power to secular arguments in the area of moderating human behaviour and as such promotes a liberal ((In the sense of personal liberty and choice, not in the sense of Liberalism as a classic political movement)) agenda.

However there is one nasty aspect when science and politics interact, and that is all too insidious confirmation bias. It is the propensity of people, including scientists, to see only the facts that support their already held political opinion. The easiest way is when science is not absolute on one particular issue which allows partisans on the minority to pick the arguments which fit their predisposition, expand them using exaggerations and political hacks and thus cloud and prevent a reality-based decision. Such is the case in the Anthropogenic Global Warming debate and such was the case a few decades ago on the harmful effects of smoking.

Further than this though, science can be used as a political tool by simply avoiding or ignoring the actual facts. This became clear to me through my discussions with secular statists and/or liberals who base their ideas on what they think scientific facts support. In this particular case, that humans have evolved to be primarily competitive against each other and everyone else.  This argument can then be handily be used both for “proving” the naturalness of Capitalism and/or the necessity of the State.

But this creates a problem when one looks at scientific findings and discovers that they do not support this position of “war against all” in the least. How can this be the dominant worldview?

My personal theory is that people put far more weight to their political perspective than they do in science. To the tune of ignoring or subconsciously avoiding learning about scientific facts that would put cracks in their position. We know how much possible this is from the religious example, where people will outright deny evolution or geology when it threatens to challenge their currently held worldview. I do not believe that this is so much because religion is so much of a stronger belief, as much as it is their current politics and lifestyle which would be threatened by changing their mind.

To put it more plainly, I see people having some particular ideas, such as hate of teh gay, patriarchy or authoritarian tendencies. These are easily maintained by considering the Bible as a literal history and thus accepting its homosexual-hating, god-fearing ideas. When science enters the picture and points out that homosexuality is genetic, humans are genetically equal and there’s probably no higher authority to bow down to, it is the lifestyle and worldview that is threatened, not the religion itself which is simply the excuse to preserve said lifestyle. Thus science will be denied, in order for the comfortable excuse (religion) to be preserved. As such, those whose worldview is not threatened, such as say people growing up in more liberal areas are far more likely to accept science which is less threatening, while also keeping their religion (in its non-fundamentalist form).

In a similar way, this applies to irreligious people as well. While some particular worldviews (usually the most intolerant) require a religion in order to defend them, others can function with some other alternative such as nationalism. Still other require none at all and in fact do beg legitimacy by wearing the cover of “science”.

This generally occurs in worldviews that are so popular and internalized that their dismissal seems unrealistic. I’m talking of course about Statism and Capitalism which are being taught as inescepable from the youngest possible age. And what seems to happen then when these are challenged and there is no relevant religion or one espouses no appropriate ideology to defend them? (say: as Objectivism) One can only then turn to scientific facts to support their worldview, and if the facts do not fit the picture, they may just as well be ignored.

This then explains the curious fact that while Mutual Aid is a very (if not the most) important factor of evolution ((Known for at least a 100 years and Proven by many researches in different scientific sectors, from Zoology to Anthropology)), it is competition and “war against all” that is still being promoted as the generally accepted primary characteristic of life. How else can one explain this. other by assuming that scientists and secularists who’s worldview embraces Statism and/or Capitalism have subconsciously avoided learning about it? I can’t in good conscience attribute this to any kind of malice or conspiracy.

And this is the unfortunate aspect of scientific facts. They tend to raise uncomfortable questions for the status quo since they challenge the validity of the various defences such as religion and racism. This by itself makes science a political tool, but one which always seems to support a libertarian socialism worldview. And when all chips are on the table and one’s worldview is on the line, it seems to be preferable – even for self-labelled supporters of rationalism and scientific method – to bury the truth in order to avoid an uncomfortable political realignment.

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The defenses of State and Religious law are surprisingly similar

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Statists love to argue that without the government humans would descend into chaos. Much like theists claim that without God we’d all be beasts. Here’s why they’re wrong.

A detail from Benjamin West's The Death of Gen...
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While discussing with people who are pro-state and even wish to increase its scale there are a few arguments that are most often used to base this position, the most notorious of which is the Argument from Human Nature. The perspective from the statist is basically that humans needs to be controlled from themselves lest they return to a beast-like existence as well as considering the state the most important institution for the advancement of civilization.

It is no wonder that those most supportive of the most authoritarian of states, the absolute monarchy, were also those who initiated the concept of Hard Primitivism to counter the Romanticism of the “Noble Savage” which made libertarian concepts such as self-management and direct action seem natural and possible. In fact the “Noble Savage” is all to often raised as a handy strawman when the idea that humans are not naturally bastards is put forth.

In this, the statists have a lot in common with monotheists who consider that a higher power is necessary to decide the hard rules all of us should follow. It is all too often for atheists to hear that without a god deciding the absolute rules for all of us (as interpreted by the official clergy of course), humans would immediately turn to barbarism. Without absolute objective morals, humans -is argued- would never be able to have a civilization, and thus religion (and the church) is necessary.

The basic idea from these two perspectives is surprisingly similar so lets look at them each in turn.

Is humanity inherently flawed?

Whereas theists consider than humans are  inherently evil, coming from an original sin and can be made “civilized” only through strict religious authority and trust in a god’s rules, Statists consider that humans are inherently greedy, vicious and destructive and can be made “civilized” only through strict state authority and trust in the common law. The difference is that the former’s excuse lies in the supernatural, while the later in perceived scientific authority.

In short, the idea that fear of God or fear of the State is the only thing keeping society together and chaos & destruction at bay.

The counter to the former is fairly simple: We’ve observed that in fact humans do not turn to barbarism when religious moral are taken away, in fact many Atheists can be perceived to be “better” morally, even from the perspective of the theists and secular societies have a generally good correlation with civility.

The counter to the later is similar: Much like we don’t expect a Theist to become a rampaging beast when they discard their religion, so will a human not turn into a beast when the state authority drops away. In fact, we would consider anyone who does not become a murderer, rapists or thief only because of the fear of getting caught as having a very stumped moral system. We normally consider such a person a sociopath.

But this is in fact the argument that the statist brings forward. That we are a society of sociopaths, barely being held together by the heroic actions of those at the top, who somehow have managed to escape their personal sociopathy while also convincing all the other sociopaths to elect them.

I hope the absurdity of this proposition becomes obvious.

The truth is fortunately somehow different. While humans do have a capacity for both good and evil acts, they also have a tendency towards cooperation and mutual aid as well as having their moral code internalized rather than enforced externally. This is why when the state authority drops away, such as in national disasters like Katrina, we see humans managing to act civilized (even if they can get away not doing so) and helping each other, while those who assume the worst in humans, end up becoming what they fear.

Examples such as these are all too often in human societies, where those at the top, who consider themselves enlightened and surpassing their own “human nature” act the most brutally, while those whom they condemn end up proving them wrong in reality. One only needs to look at the communes in the Spanish Revolution, the Soviets of the Russian Revolution (before Lenin’s consolidation of power that is), the libertarian projects such as Christania or the Kibbutz. All practical, working examples that humans without the state can function just as well if not better.

Thus, much like a new atheist retaining most of their moral system once they lose their religion, so do people retain their moral system once they lose their rulers.

Is central leadership necessary for civilization?

This is another favourite argument from both camps and we’ll see, it is related to the previous one. Theists will argue that without their god’s code of laws, humans would never have been able to organize and achieve a civilization. Without religious scripture and leadership of the clergy/founding fathers/scribes/etc humans would have forever remained in a state of primitivism. In a similar vein, statists claim that without a state promoting science and reason, humans would have remained ignorant, superstitious and crude.

The religious argument is generally easy to counter by pointing out the existence of civilizations which existed along with religions other than their own. They may argue that no other civilization managed to reach the level we have no except Christianity of course, but one can point out that this happened <i>despite</i> Christianity and in fact we see the rise of secularism and atheism as the best correlation, not a particular religion.

The counter-argument from the statist claims is a bit more tricky. They will certainly point out that a state existed ever since we’ve had civilization but that is through a clever definitional trick: We define “civilization” generally from the point at which a state appeared.

Certainly, almost all cultures at some point achieved a state but that has obviously not been enough for the modern civilization and in fact, very often rolled any progress backwards. Rather, something else was necessary.

That was Rationalism. The Age of Enlightenment saw finally the time where humans started coming out of the dark ages and superstition and religious or arbitrary authority started being superseded by rationality and reasonable authority. And while the initial states and other assorted authority institutes were initially hostile to the concept, as it undermined their rule, rationality still increased as the environment of the time made it a competitive meme.

As this increased, we saw first the mellowing of authority and then the first steps towards reasonable authority as seen by the use of political democracy. Traditional customs were discarded and relationships of domination started getting criticized. As rationality increased feeding upon its achievements, so did human behaviour which was shaped by it, start becoming more civilized.

It is this that defines the rise of modern civilization, not the democratic state. That was a symptom of the need for reasonable authority. As such, the claim that the state was necessary is false. Humans would have progressed to a brighter future with or without a state, and in fact they were on the road of doing exactly that within their medieval cities which freed from the state authority, became bastions of progress. If anything, the state, initially feudal but later democratic as well, was the primary cause of the stalling of such progress, with it violently enforcing a system with a conflicting nature in regards to human progress: Capitalism

How? Well it’s a fact that Capitalism is not good at inventing new stuff. This is because of its necessity for short term profit, while research is a long-term goal. As such, the state is necessary to provide the funds for research and advancement, and it is exactly this fact that Statists will bring up as definite proof of the necessity of the state.

But this argument is flawed. The state is only required as long as a system which is inherently irrational in regards to progress needs to be pushed in the right direction. And then it can only do a half-job. But this argument is defeated once one poses the question “Why is Capitalism required?”. Can we not have a system which does not provide a disincentive for research? We can. And once this fact becomes clear, the necessity for the state collapses. Which is naturally why a statist will also maintain that Capitalism is absolutely necessary while moaning about the inability of the system to do what is needed for humans.

In the end, for libertarian socialists, this defense ends up looking more like schizophrenia, with the Statist on one hand trying to praise Capitalism for its ability to promote progress, while one the other trying to defend the state’s existence by lamenting on how bad Capitalism is for progress.

The Truth? Humans Can do Without Authority.

Fortunately, there is ample evidence to prove that humans are not the flawed beasts that theists and statists suggest in order to maintain the rule of their chosen leaders. While humans are of course not Noble Savages, they do have a natural tendency towards Mutual Aid and Co-operation, something which is both historically and empirically proven. We’re not talking about romanticizing the tribal structures, nor are we suggesting we return to such a living (another favourite strawman of the statists).

What we are suggesting is that since humans have the capacity for both “Good” and “Evil” it is the system around them which naturally selects which behaviour will come to the front. Obviously, a system like Capitalism which promotes Greed, Material Self-interest, viciousness, win-culture etc will require a state in order (among other reasons) to prevent this behaviour from unraveling the whole social order. Of course that wouldn’t happen anyway as without a state or other organized submission, humans would most likely follow their natural tendencies and discard capitalism as well.

But a system which promotes a behaviour based around co-operation and mutual aid, such as any system which has discarded private property, will not risk devolving into chaos and therefore a state would not be required to maintain order.

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How to decode the US political terminology

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US politics terminology is so skewed to the right that it’s impossible to hold a discussion with them without running into definition arguments. This is the chart to easily avoid them.

Every time I have to argue politics with people coming from the US I have to internally cringe at the way most political concepts and movements have been distorted and twisted by their fear of Communism. It only becomes worse when people will ask me “but isn’t libertarian socialism an oxymoron?” or automatically conflate Anarchists with simple anti-statists. I end up having to mentally decode what an US American would say and what they really mean in the political language of everyone else. It’s as if their whole political spectrum has taken as a whole a turn to the right, to avoid mentioning (Oh Horror of horrors) “Socialism”.

And since I notice that there’s others encountering the same issues. I decided to make a handy table to make it easy for non-Americans to understand what the US are talking about.

Name of political theory or newspeak as used in the USA.

What everyone else calls it.
Liberal. Social Democrat.
Conservative. Imperialist.
Libertarian. Liberal.
Fiscal Conservative. Corporate Cronyist.
Anarchism. Anti-Statism.
Socialism when used by Liberals (see above). Social Democracy.
Socialism when used by Conservatives (see above). Totalitarian Dictatorship.
Democracy. US American proxy government.
Free Market. Mixed economy with hefty tax cuts and subsidies for the rich.
Fascism. Mixed economy with benefits for the poor.
Terrorist. Anyone who opposes US policy.
Nazi Communist Hippie Liberal Obama
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Reddit (sorta) censors Atheism

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The Atheism subreddit has been deliberately excluded from appearing on the front page and the default choices for Reddit. Unfortunately, the excuses given don’t convince.

How the Reddit bar looks like after the change in the algorithm
How the Reddit bar looks like after the change in the algorithm

Well, this is disappointing. It seems that Reddit has decided to practically hide the Atheism subreddit from public view. I may be posting late about this, since other have already started covering this controversy, but I might as well throw my two cents for all it’s worth.

Initially I noticed this yesterday night when rumors of this started popping up all over atheism. Initially it looked like a conspiracy theory but very soon the facts of the matter started coming up through investigation by redditors. Soon after, as the facts could not be denied anymore, an official explanation was posted. Needless to say, it failed to convince.

As other noticed as well, the argument is pretty weak. The reddit admins don’t think that Atheism is legitimately on the top and thus instead of fixing their algorithms, they decided to hide it instead. Now except from the fact that this looks very much like a quickly cooked up explanation, it does also raise the question of why this impression was had by the admins. The official take is that the Atheism reddit is not really so popular because of its controversy it rises to the top unfairly”. Which immediately raises the question “Why is this unfair? Why is the old algorithm deemed wrong just because it managed to reward controversial reddits with more popularity?”.

I don’t think an easy answer can be given to this, as it will be simply based on the developer’s perspective, which then as others pointed out as well, makes it a de-facto censorship. If the developers don’t believe that Atheism deserves to be on the top, then any way they modify the algorithm for choosing the top reddits will be deemed bad unless it can push Atheism down. That is, the measure of success depends on /r/Atheism not being on the top!

Nevertheless, although we can speculate on the developer’s motives, a charitable interpretation demands that we consider that it is, in fact, their site and their design, and as such they get to decide what makes a good algorithm. However there are still some unanswered questions.

First a modification is exactly what has happened. The algorithm was modified accordingly and Atheism was pushed down to the 16th position. However the deliberate exclusion of Atheism from the front page and from the top-bar selection of subreddits (visible to unsubscribed users) is still a concern as it points to the possibility that Atheism is still being deliberately excluded even when the algorithm puts it outside the front page. If the concern was simply about the trolling going on when an article from Atheism hit the front page, then why is this necessary?

Personally, even though I am not a big fan of /r/Atheism, mostly because my sentiments on it are similar to this guy, and even though I consider the whole ordeal a tad overblown, I have still removed reddit from my adblock whitelist as a minor sign of protest and I’ve messaged the admins with my disappointment of their handling of this situation.

I believe things would have been far better if the admins had posted in the subreddit with the problem they face, why this is, what they were thinking of doing and asking for feedback. They would then have immediately seen the feelings of the community, how popular or not it would be and most certain of all, they would have avoided all this controversy and negativity which is the explicit result of them changing things under the table without telling anyone.

Such an act starts to raise questions about motives and honesty on the part of the reddit admins, something which can be lethal to a site which is practically run by their community and thus based on the community’s explicit trust that they are not being manipulated for commercial or political purposes. Signs of underhanded tactics like this, done without informing anyone harm this and as such harm reddit itself. Which other reddits are being hidden under the table? Which other opinions are not considered “popular” enough to deserve the spotlight as already implemented? Will the algorithm be modified again if a marginal reddit like Anarchism suddenly rises in popularity and ideas the owners don’t espouse start being promoted to the front? Probably not, but the acts of the admins have put such uncomfortable questions on the table.

This is in fact a great sample to show how authoritarian decisions by those who are considered an enlightened minority (ie those who are assumed to know what is best for everyone) can diverge with a very considerable number of those they are deciding for. The backlash is only so large in reddit (as opposed to dictatorships or republics) because of its democratic nature and community participation but the same rules apply to all such authoritarian decisions. Most, if not all of this would have been avoided if the decision had been taken with the participation of the community they decide for. Not only that, but the solution implemented would have possibly been far better.

As it is now, I can only hope that the reddit admins have learned a lesson, even though their current actions don’t point to that direction. At best, next time they decide to modify their code with such an explicit purpose in mind they will inform and consult with the communities affected. At worst they will keep in mind that doing such acts in secret can backfire and possibly invoke the Streisand Effect.

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Let me blow your mind a bit

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An excellent TED talk on how disconnected management and business practices in general are from reality.

Lately it seems a day doesn’t pass where I don’t see something which confirms the Anarchist perspective of reality. Watch the following video from TED. It’s only 20 minutes long but if you haven’t heard about his before, I guarantee it will disrupt many of the things you think you know about business.

[youtube]rrkrvAUbU9Y[/youtube]

It’s funny really. Just the other day someone decided to challenge me on my article about the Uselessness of Management and now I even have the handy proof to show their absolute disconnection from reality. I especially like this video since it points ample light in how much contemporary economics is based on ideology and assumed “axioms of human existence” rather than science.

This is an especially nice video to show to all those proponents of Copyrights and Patents who think these are somehow required to promote creativity and the arts. In fact, it should now be obvious that were copyrights to become absolute and unavoidable, creativity would be severely sniffled.

Hopefully this video should also make those who claim that “if this method was superior to rewards, it would have been selected by the market” reconsider their position on the effectiveness of the markets. Because one has to wonder; If non-reward based motivation is productively inferior, why is it still the dominant form? Unfortunately I know that most probably won’t listen, for when reality and markets clash, ideology will win hands down. But you never know, perhaps it will serve as a push in the right direction, a seed of doubt about the Capitalist system.

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Once more, reality shows that "Human nature" is not what the liberals claim it is

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Katrina shows us another empirical example of what Human Nature truly is. Not the wild beast that liberals will always claim it is, but one based on co-operation.

New Orleans is Flooded
Image by Spiritwood Images via Flickr

“Human Nature” has become the eternal cliche, the final argument that all those “civilized” and “liberal” will utter when a system that is not based on domination of human over human is proposed. An argument that has been refuted and debunked too many times to count and yet is commonly trotted out as the ultimate trump card in support of the State when everything else has been demolished.

And yet, once more reality begs to differ. When the chips are down and humans have nothing else to rely on other than their “nature”, we see time and again that it is mutual aid that overwhelmingly comes to the fore, not greed or any vice.

I just read this article from the Guardian which shines some light on the disaster of Katrina and what the reaction was from the poor, the rich and those in power. Needless to say, those who are most blamed about their “Human Nature” were the ones that empirically refuted this nonsense, while the ones who are supposed to be more “civilized” or enlightened enough to maintain order by limiting the excesses of “human nature” where the true monsters.

Here’s some choice quotes from the article. All emphasis mine.

Louisiana’s governor at the time, Kathleen Blanco, announced as she dispatched National Guard troops: “I have one message for these hoodlums: these troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will.” She and the city’s mayor had called off the rescue efforts to focus on protecting private property – with lethal force if necessary.

Just in case you still believe that the state is for the benefit of the common people

One group of suburban white men who believed the rumours or just anticipated that in the absence of authority we all become monsters became monsters themselves, even as they fantasised they were preserving order. These men in Algiers Point across the river from the city of New Orleans gathered an arsenal and launched their own little murder spree, killing several black men and injuring and threatening others.

Just in case you think that believing in the nonsense about “human nature” is harmless.

Most people behave beautifully in disasters (and most Americans, incidentally, believe Obama was born in this country). The majority in Katrina took care of each other, went to great lengths to rescue each other – including the “cajun navy” of white guys with boats who entered the flooded city the day after the levees broke – and were generally humane and resourceful. A minority that included the most powerful believed they were preventing barbarism while they embodied it.

“Human Nature” my arse!

This is why every time I see this fucking argument made by any of those civilized people which prefer to support the true monsters, those “scientifically-minded” who ignore all empirical evidence, those bleeding-hearts who won’t let people help themselves, I get annoyed.

And then I get angry when in the face of all evidence, human nature will be brought up as an argument, when all that is really being shown is how ignorant and biased they are. And do you know why I get angry? Because it’s this argument that actually causes such horrible situation. When people are convinced that humans are basically evil when left uncontrolled, then one’s reaction when in such a situation will be to expect others to act like monsters and therefore they start acting like this themselves, making their false beliefs self-fulfilling and things worse than they already are.

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Anarchism is Hope

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If one wants to have hope that the world can become better, that humans can have a fair society, Anarchism is the only thing that will retain and fulfill it.

A red and black flag used as anarchy symbol. T...
Image via Wikipedia

We’re spiraling down a profound systematic crisis of a magnitude rivaling, if not exceeding, the Great Depression of 30’s. In the last century we’ve also seen the utter failure of the two most popular populist political ideologies – Revolutionary State Socialism and Reformist State Socialism – to achieve their goals and thus the utopianism of expecting either of them to bring us out of a capitalist crisis and into an egalitarian future becomes obvious. We’ve also seen (and see currently) how xenophobic, hateful ideologies of the likes of Fascism can feed on human desperation caused by such a crisis and rise to power with disastrous consequences for the world.

It’s thus not difficult for an a socialist, a radical leftist or any egalitarianist in general to despair about the future as their “representatives” fail to act or betray them outright while the “revolutionaries” sit and wait for the “coming revolution” which they can then attempt to “lead” as the vanguard.

Fortunately, there is a way to avoid such a despair, to manage to keep up the hope in a world which seems to be going in the opposite direction of what you’d like. It’s the way of walking your path as much as possible, of making part of the future society come true even within one’s lifetime by living and acting as close to the ideal as structurally possible. In short, it is the path of Direct Action.

Why is this the key to hope? Because through it we can both  make our lives easier and know that this also undermines the Capitalist system, and thus bring a social revolution closer. It is the good feeling of not only improving one’s life but also that any success in such an endeavor will inspire others to do the same, while any failure can serve as a learning experience.

And this is where the hope that Anarchists will always feel, comes from.

It is the hope we get by not relying on anyone to act for us. Unlike reformists waiting for the state to act for them, or begging the politicians to do their job for once, Anarchists take matters into their own hand and do what needs to be done. And if or when the capitalists and/or their personal gendarme (ie the state) trip us, block us, jail us or kill us, it only serves to show their true nature to those not yet convinced of it. It only serves to boost our ranks.

It is the hope we get by not being Utopian. Because we know that every libertarian action brings the world a bit closer to anarchy whatever form that might take. We do not then have to despair that we may never live in a “perfect society”, for we know that’s impossible. Nevertheless our actions, as long as they stay within the spirit of libertarian socialism, will always leave the world a bit better, a bit more tolerable for those who come after us to step on and push further.

It is the hope we get from knowing that our actions push the world towards the direction we wish, with a visible and practical result. Unlike academic “revolutionaries” or vanguardists we build the society of the future in the decaying corpse of the old. Co-operatives, Mutual Banks, Syndicates, Community unions, Councils and all other forms of Mutual Aid are what can turn people socialist en mass, not dry rhetoric. Anyone who acts like this, is a friend to Anarchists, regardless of their political affiliation. While anyone who denigrates, disrupts or attacks such initiatives is no ally, regardless of what radical name they choose for themselves.

I wrote before about “the hope that Anarchists will always feel” and you might wonder how true that might be. In fact, I’d argue that you can’t be an Anarchist without having any hope left, as then it’s much easier to simply submit to the system we’re in as something unbeatable, and embrace one of the many palliatives. From trying to polish the rough edges (reformism) to simply passively joining the system and praying for deliverance by God or Glorious Leader, to outright nihilism.

But for those of us who still retain it, Anarchism is its expression and it is self-fulfilling by every libertarian act one makes.

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Preparing for a long-time-coming upgrade

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After squashing a showstopping bug, I’m finally ready to upgrade my theme to the newest version and hopefully jump start its development, on my own if necessary.

The Keyboard Parade
Image by theopie via Flickr

I’m finally preparing to upgrade my theme to the latest version (ie the next part in my ongoing attempts to upgrade) as I really should finally start using wordpress widgets. Unfortunately the theme seems to be unmaintained at the moment and the author MIA since April this year. Also the theme still hasn’t been moved to the shiny new official WordPress repository which tells me that Nalin must have lost all interest in it.

Hopefully I’m wrong. I’ve sent him an email and left a forum post asking to add to the repository and allow me to pickup the maintenance if he’s not interested anymore. If he doesn’t come back to me, I’ll unfortunately have to fork it in order to make it compatible with newer version of WordPress and to merge the changes I’ve made into it for others to use. We’ll see.

Some of the things I’m planning to add/modify are

  • Support for the new way of styling so that it works properly with Zemanta and builtin alignments.
  • Option to enable drop-down menus for the header (as you see above) through suckerfish and possibly superfish in the future.
  • More options to tweak.
  • Widgetize the single-post sidebar to allow some content in the generally empty area on the left.
  • Hardcoded support for the various plugins I’m currently using. So for example, if you install emo-vote, there code will already be in your theme to activate it but nothing will be visible if the plugin is missing. I will probably add support for tweaking these plugins in the options page as well.

And that’s for starters. Fortunately I see that the community around this theme is still alive so I’m guessing I’ll be getting more ideas for addition from there as well.

I’m still running my old theme since I managed to debug the suckerfish issue a few minutes before I left for work today, but now that my biggest hurdle is resolved, I’ll soon my changing into “fresh clothes” so to speak.

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Interoperability my arse!

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Microsoft once again shows that their anti-competitive colours are still flying. Only now we have to deal with appeasers from the GNU/Linux side trying to apologize for them as well.

Windows XP Running On Linux
Image by paradoxperfect via Flickr

Roy says it best about the new Windows 7 installation. Once more, for all their rhetoric, Microsoft’s actions show yet again that they don’t care about interoperability or playing nice with anyone else. All they care is maintaining their desktop monopoly and part of that tactic is not making it easy at all to setup a dual boot setup.

While in 2001, when XP came out the excuse “Only hardcore geeks use GNU/Linux so why should MS even consider them” might have had some basis, 8 years later, when desktop GNU/Linux is more than viable through distros like Ubuntu and where it is quite likely that people might consider trying this other OS while wanting to keep the Windows option open, it fails to convince.

This is nothing other than the same ol’ spiteful, monopolistic tactics on behalf of MS. This capability, to install multiple OS’ without screwing up each other has existed for ages so it’s obviously not rocket science. As such, MS’ refusal to implement it can be nothing but deliberate.

And if that’s not enough, we now have GNU/Linux users defending such actions! So now, among the atheist appeasers, Women “feminist” appeasers we have to add GNU/Linux appeasers as well. If Microsoft apologists were not enough. Of course, that there are those who would sell-out to MS in order to get ahead in the marketplace is nothing new, but plain users? Those who are the ones getting the most annoyance out of such tactics? Why do they feel the need to apologise  for MS?!

Here’s some of the classic excuses (and my counter) you’ll see on why this isn’t really a problem, move along, nothing to see here:

GNU/Linux users are a small minority. Most desktops will be Windows only so why should MS even implement a dual-boot consideration?

Because even though GNU/Linux is small, it is also showing accelerating growth and even a small percentage of desktop users, when seen on a global scale means quite a few million people. People who will all be inconvenienced when they need to upgrade their installation or repair/reinstall it when it will (eventually) break down.

Because MS has been blabbing about “interoperability” for the last few years and they need to be called on their bullshit at some point. Their rhetoric has never been honest and their actions prove it again and again.

They didn’t really make it hard to install Windows 7. It could have been far worse.

Gee thanks…

Should  we be thankful that Microsoft doesn’t go out of their way to prevent GNU/Linux installations now? Should we praise MS for not making our task more difficult than it already is? What kind of fucking stupid slave-mentality is this? “Golly thanks for using lube while screwing me in the ass, sir!”

And you know what? They did make it harder than Windows XP. Slightly so but nevertheless true.

You don’t stop criticizing someone when they act less evil than they could have been. You stop criticizing people and corporations when they stop being evil.

Pfah!

All you need to do is hack , #2 and #3.

Which is obviously something all people who’d like to try out the system can do right? No, of course not. And MS knows this and they know it will further reinforce the perception that GNU/Linux is only for hardcore geeks. You know what the regular user will say when you mention hacking the goddamn boot loader? “Huh wut? No thanks”. Which will mean that it will always require a power user (and perhaps more than that) to simply set it up (and then again and again when Windows invariably breaks down and requires reinstallation).

Compared to the possible scenario where Windows acted like an OS of its generation and recognised that “hey, there are other OS’ out there, perhaps we should be considerate to those of our users who might be dual-booting”, and have Windows autorecognise the MBR is taken, and provide sensible options on how to work with it that a simple user can follow, you know, like GNU/Linux has been doing for what, 8 years now?

Of course it is better to make it seem as if only IT nerds can setup and maintain a GNU/Linux installation alongside Windows 7, even when they difficulty has nothing to do with GNU/Linux and everything to do with MS’ refusal to play fair. Thus they can keep their ignorant audience locked in and happily continue spreading their FUD, only they have some appeasers from the GNU/Linux camp on their side as well who will make their point for them by saying stuff like “Oh it’s easy. Just reinstall Grub and then hack the bootloader“.

Other OS’ and even some particular GNU/Linux distros are worse than that.

A Tu Quoque is a logical fallacy. If other OS’ are doing even worse, then they are worthy of even heavier condemnation. And about those GNU/Linux distros that do it (see Moblin, IPCop etc), you do know they are meant for a single OS installation right? You do know that Moblin is for netbooks which are unlikely to have a dual-boot while IpCop is a firewall right? Don’t you think it’s just a tad intellectually dishonest to bring those up as examples of such faults?

You wouldn’t would you?

So while there can be other who can be just as bad, if not worse than MS, this does not constitute an excuse of any kind, especially since they hold most of the desktop market and their actions are clearly deliberate. And if Free Software OS’ are doing this without having a reason to do so, then you can always change it by contributing or even convincing the developers of the errors of their ways.

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Summer Reading meme

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I’ve been tagged with the holiday reading meme. So here’s what I’ve been reading these holidays.

Reading list
Image by jakebouma via Flickr

I’ve been tagged by Anderson Warm-Fork with the “watcha readin’ this summer” meme (btw my alias is Db0, not DBZ. I’m not a Dragonball Z fan 😛 ). So why not bore you a bit today?

This summer, along with most of the Spring, I’ve been going through the substansial volumes of An Anarchist FAQ. Yes, it has taken me a while to read it all but it’s generally condensed stuff that takes a while, not to mention that the whole thing clocks easily at around 1000 A4 pages.Fortunately, my trusty e-reader has helped me go through it without lumbering boxes of  printed A4 around.

So how good is the AFAQ? Very very good. Aside from clarifying a lot of common misconceptions about the movement, it is also an invaluable resource on common criticisms from more authoritative sources, such as economists or Marxist-Leninists. Section C which counters capitalist economics is particularly informative and a great resource against the annoyingly frequent right-“libertarians”. It’s for such reasons that I’ve created a handy firefox keyword that quickly searches through the AFAQ for a topic I’m discussing and need somewhere to link to.

Even though I’m still not through with it, I’m nevertheless, finally, quite close. Once I’m done, my next target will probably be Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid for which I’ve heard the best things about. This will probably fall outside of the scope of this meme but hey, who cares.

And in closing, let me tag some people to let us know of some interesting stuff to read:

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