The core issue is software freedom. Software, when it’s commercial, is something you basically give control of your hardware to and you have to trust that it won’t abuse that power. Or, you dont even use your own hardware, and you just send your data in an even more opaque way to the cloud. Will it be misused?
Typically, yes, egregiously. We need either computing platforms that sandbox things fully, or else full control over our software. And an end to these Eula’s Eula’s that, let’s be honest, could ask for anything and we couldn’t say no. Even governments get stuck here and can’t refuse
If you say the problem is social class and poverty, and not having available role models to show how adult life actually works, you’ll get flamed and trolled. If you say the problem is racial issues, you’ll get upvotes. I’ll just sit here and await my downvotes now
Role models are kind of a non-answer to the question. It's like saying the problem is "bad luck." Role-model-based policy solutions are, if not impossible, at least deeply impractical. Childcare subsidies and other forms of welfare, including simple direct cash transfers, have been shown to be strongly beneficial and are much simpler to implement. What people dislike about those is that they involve starting fights with lobbyists. Hence non-actionable perspectives like "the problem is role models" or "the problem is personal responsibility," which are not solutions so much as excuses for collective inaction.
Is it possible that the issue is both and that the two are interrelated?
It seems to me that there can be both a problem with lack of role models and problems with racial issues and that both should be improved.
It seems to me that lack of role models could be exasperated by structural issues (mass incarceration, parents having to work too many hours) and in turn the lack of role models could exasperate the structural issues (unattended kids getting into crimes, kids struggling to get into college since their parents don't have time to tutor them).
The pattern I've noticed is that the poor and the poorly educated have no career expectations from their kids. If the kids with wealthy and/or highly educated parents showed up at home with just one poor grade all hell broke lose. Grounded for 6 months, allowance cuts, no more TV or video games etc One kept his kid at home during the holidays to tutor him himself, screaming 90% of the time. The other parents would look at the grades for < 1 minute and compliment the single thing they did well. Later on, when the other kids ended up in their first factory job the mantra was if only my parents gave me a good kick in the but I wouldn't be here right now
I would send all 13 year olds to the factory for a good few months. Earnings to be paid when 21. I would also introduce Sunday school if your grades are crappy, 8 hours every week until you are no longer behind. And finally, call in the parents regularly just to annoy the fuck out of them. You don't seem very involved mr Jones. Could you be so kind to explain these grades?
A few months in the factory is nothing compared to your entire life. Stories are no substitutes for experience. Those who go on to get degrees and nice jobs would also benefit from the experience.
Sunday school because if you are sufficiently behind on the material you will never catch up. Never is a long time.
Getting the parents to show up and explain why the grades are bad will force them to consider why that is. I had lots of friends with parents who absolutely loved them but couldn't be any less interested in grades.
I appreciate how anecdotal this all is. How do you see it?
I'm not suggesting it is a good idea, it was just to illustrate the difference. He did learn grammar and went to university.
I'm pretty sure he is equally stubborn and hot headed as his dad if not more so. Now that I think about it, he even believes in pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. ha-ha
It’s the opposite. Being contrarian is free karma, generally. The downvotes come from picking unpopular positions, whether you’re wright or wrong. I used to get downvoted a lot when talking to people about privacy, but now those sorts of posts get upvotes. Times and prevailing opinions change
Make a good website; try to get graphic and Ux designers on board so it won’t be fugly; then contact people, one at a time, using personalized emails. They’ll agree to be on there. Eventually you’ll hit enough of a critical mass that people will start signing themselves up somehow, or asking to be on there. How do you verify? How do you keep spam out? You can figure that out next year or the year after.
Then figure out why a person might want to visit your site. Curiosity? Interest in a person? To learn if a foss project is any good? To see who has traction to decide what to contribute to? Something else?
Bonus points: a podcast with interviews with various community leaders; or try to encourage a volunteer to do such a thing. And try to get on other pro open source podcasts. I bet companies like purism would love any free publicity they can get
Then, I’d you catch on, years from now, look out for Microsoft trying to crush you via some competing index tied to GitHub. Try to avoid the temptation to be acquired by Microsoft. Try to set up your company in a way that convinces foss people that this can never happen, Eg, put some fsf people on the board or something?
Lastly, to make the gnu people happy, make your website usable without proprietary JavaScript and consider open sourcing your client and server code. After all, the valuable thing you hold isn’t the site or tech: it’s the network and traction you build
I'm not sure how much value making something "not fugly" really matters. Design should be based on functionality, not anti-fugliness. In my experience, design considerations should come after building a successful growth "feedback loop." (Or whatever you want to call it.) At that point, you may decide making your website look "polished" isn't even necessary.
IMDB was certainly quite ugly for a long time. See:
>I'm not sure how much value making something "not fugly" really matters.
Eh its still good advice. Far too often decent UX/UI criticism is waved aside as "who cares about making it pretty" and aesthetics and useability very often go hand-in-hand.
An idea for this: you could require them to commit a file to their repo with a specific name and the content would contain a one time use token to add that repo to a users profile.
