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1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jul-2023 21:23:36 JST Aral Balkan

   Basically, what we’re saying to people today is:

   You’re interested in tech and you want a nice home (or just any home) and stability? Go work at Google, Facebook, or some other surveillance capitalist.

   What’s that? You want to work on free and open source? Sure, go work at IBM or Oracle… Oh… you don’t mean enterprise software? Tech to protect human rights/democracy? Not for profit hippie-dippie crap for the common good?

   Oh, then suffer.

   I mean, is it any surprise things are as they are?

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jul-2023 21:32:39 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Kevin Karhan :verified:

     @kkarhan I hear you.

     PS. Has anyone taken the name Modbook, yet? ;)

   • Kevin Karhan :verified: (kkarhan@mstdn.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jul-2023 21:32:40 JST Kevin Karhan :verified:

     in reply to

     @aral at this point basically all my projects are stalling due to lack of funding...

     And since #NUCbook and other projects go against #SurveillanceCapitalism, #PlannedObsolescence and/or other #Rentseeking they won't get funded.
     
     https://github.com/KBtechnologies/nucbook

   • Kevin Karhan :verified: (kkarhan@mstdn.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jul-2023 21:32:41 JST Kevin Karhan :verified:

     in reply to

     @aral Eeyupp...

     Either one has to sell their soul to some corporation or suffer...

     No matter if it's #GigWork [#UberEats] , #GrindWork [Any fast food job] or whatever...

   • Ben Werdmuller (ben@werd.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jul-2023 21:42:11 JST Ben Werdmuller

     in reply to

     @aral I was just joking with someone about this the other day. My software was used by movements all over the world to rally and organize for justice. I only was able to get out of debt and find some retirement savings when I took a left turn into VC-funded startups for a while.

     And now here I am in non profit open source, and, well, those savings were fun to have while they lasted.

     Not that I did it for the money. But still.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jul-2023 21:43:08 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Ben Werdmuller

     @ben Similar.

     Initially sold a couple of flats we had in Turkey to fund our work but, when that money ran out, Laura started contracting for Stately (which is VC-funded) and that’s what’s keeping us off the streets currently.

     We’ve been turned down for every EU fund we’ve applied for and I’m done wasting time with it.

     So, yeah, we’re not directly funded by VC (nor would we be) but we’re still more funded by Silicon Valley than by the commons though everything we do is for the common good.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jul-2023 21:45:04 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • whereisk

     @whereisk I feel the more important question is: can things be made better?

     (And yes, yes they can. Whether there’s any political will for it… that‘s a whole other question entirely.)

   • whereisk (whereisk@mstdn.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jul-2023 21:45:05 JST whereisk

     in reply to

     @aral I mean, were things ever different?

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 03:37:01 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • AudraTran :debian:

     @AudraTran Hmm… if only we could crowdfund it somehow… you know, if we all agreed to pay a portion of our earnings so that they could be used for things that benefited us all. We could call it… I don’t know… faxes? No. Taken. Paxes? Nope, doesn’t sound right. Wait, I got it… how about taxes?

   • AudraTran :debian: (audratran@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 03:37:02 JST AudraTran :debian:

     in reply to

     @aral How exactly would you propose to solve this problem? You want to have money, but you also want to work on software "for the common good", who is going to pay for that?

   • Edward L Platt (elplatt@greatjustice.net)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 03:48:03 JST Edward L Platt

     in reply to

     @aral part of the problem is that work outside large firms or vc-funded startups isn't valued by donors or the media. The director of a tech for "social good' program once told me I didn't have "experience working on real projects" because I hadn't worked for Google (despite their recruiters' best efforts).

   • Chris Gioran 💔 (chrisg@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 03:50:28 JST Chris Gioran 💔

     in reply to

     @aral This hits incredibly close to home for me.

     That's exactly why i quit my job. I want to build _something_ that gives people the opportunity to be creative without being beholden to an exploitative system rotten to the core.

     I think it's possible. Perhaps i want to believe it's possible. But if its not, then it's still worth doing.

     I am so fucking pumped to be in these conversations. ✊

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 03:50:28 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Chris Gioran 💔

     @chrisg 💕

   • Kevin Karhan :verified: (kkarhan@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 14:56:07 JST Kevin Karhan :verified:

     in reply to

     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

     @miklo @aral

     Because it's not financially viable to #SelfHost it!

     Also #GPLv3 is a sufficient deterrent...
     https://github.com/KBtechnologies/nucbook/blob/master/LICENSE.md

   • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛 (miklo@soc.citizen4.eu)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 14:56:10 JST MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

     in reply to

     • Kevin Karhan :verified:
     @kkarhan @aral
     And just out of curiosity - why is a project that is supposed to be against #SurveillanceCapitalism being hosted on a site that undoubtedly belongs to #SurveillanceCapitalism ? Well, unless we exclude (for convenience? Because not for lack of other options) #microsoft from it....
   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 15:10:25 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • me

     @me It’s sad. Because we need those alternatives. But I also cannot blame you. Nor would I urge you to do what I do given the first-hand knowledge I have of exactly what it entails. So, yeah, you’re right to do so.

   • me (me@social.jlamothe.net)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 15:10:29 JST me

     in reply to
     @aral This is why I'm looking at jobs outside the tech field.
   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 20:13:52 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Alecs Ștefănescu

     @catileptic That would be great. It would, however, likely require colleges/universities to stop thinking of themselves as Silicon Valley’s human resources department.

   • Alecs Ștefănescu (catileptic@chaos.social)'s status on Thursday, 20-Jul-2023 20:13:53 JST Alecs Ștefănescu

     in reply to

     @aral my dream is to have Computer Science courses in colleges talk about a career as a tech activist, or a programmer in the civic society as a very reputable and viable career option.

     I work as a programmer supporting journalists and activists exclusively. I've worked for the IT industry in the first part of my career. In my mind and, really, in my body, these two environments feel drastically different.

     The humanity in tech keeps us sane.