Re:Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source
by krapp on Thursday March 24, 2022 @02:08PM
(#30793451)
>The people who have certain knowledge of something wrong in the world, through firsthand experience or domain expertise, should certainly speak out.
To whom? If everyone followed the rule you're proposing, the only people they could speak out to are people who share their firsthand experience or domain expertise. Communicating further would necessitate secondhand information or some form of media which can't be trusted, as it could possibly contain some manipulating element. Who could Ukrainians ask for help from? The Russians? Would everyone else be required to fly to Ukraine to try to verify the existence of the war firsthand before having an opinion?
There are more important things than being made a fool of sometimes. The risk of being manipulated exists no matter what you do, or don't do, and you can never have perfect knowledge of any situation, even if you're an eyewitness, because human perception itself is fallible, limited to a single perspective and prone to self-deception.
To whom? If everyone followed the rule you're proposing, the only people they could speak out to are people who share their firsthand experience or domain expertise. Communicating further would necessitate secondhand information or some form of media which can't be trusted, as it could possibly contain some manipulating element. Who could Ukrainians ask for help from? The Russians? Would everyone else be required to fly to Ukraine to try to verify the existence of the war firsthand before having an opinion?
There are more important things than being made a fool of sometimes. The risk of being manipulated exists no matter what you do, or don't do, and you can never have perfect knowledge of any situation, even if you're an eyewitness, because human perception itself is fallible, limited to a single perspective and prone to self-deception.