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Very aptly put.


> The Dutch simplified the most useful rule in the 17th century: "live and let live", it was codified into (maritime) law.

Would that happen to be the same Dutch that were heavily involved in the slave trade (about the same time you mention)?


Yes I agree, odd interpretation, might be even perverse to a degree, as it only applied to maritime law and was probably abused to engage in slave trade, they could always claim they never killed a slave.

The statement is potentially nice, though.


Thank you. The pretence (naivety) of "there must be a good reason" has to stop


There’s usually a “good reason” — however that “good reason” is subjective to the people maintaining the application and might not align with the preferences of its users.

Reasons don’t really matter to users though. It’s pointless arguing if we should assume innocence or guilt because irrespective of the developers motives, if a particular feature is a show stopper for you then you switch to a platform that supports said feature. Anything else added to colour the discussion is irrelevant.


I agree with what you pointed out about subjectivity. I think it’s still worth discussing though to serve as a warning to others who act with their own best intentions only to have them get bitten. Without calling this out it just always leans on the malicious side which doesn’t trend with reality in my experience.

In terms of end users driving decisions ultimately, I agree. That said, this is a discussion forum so I figured it was open for discussion and assumed that folks would be deciding on their own how to react to the change.

I guess this all depends on what we think we’re having a discussion about!


The problem is any such discussion is going to be entirely speculative. Sure, you can discuss what you presume the developers motives might have been but it reveals more about the opinions and personalities of the people holding the discussion than it does about the developers since all you’re doing is projecting your own story to fill in some pretty sizeable blanks.


But what many others in this thread have done is just as speculative, assuming malice, and to be clear, I think it could very much be the case, but I’m sharing another perspective based on a lot of experiences I’ve had where external parties assumed malice when internally it was far from it. Take it or leave it. This is the internet and I’m typing into a box.


I like this statement; at first blush, it appears uncouth and brutish - upon closer inspection however, it reveals the "natural state" of nature itself.


>People know not to buy magical cure-all patent medicine from an old-times salesman with a handlebar mustache, but they don’t know to avoid miracle essential oils pitched by their cousin who just joined an MLM. Same story, different minor details, larger scale than ever.

Very, very true. Human nature at it's bare essential has hardly changed. We're essentially cavemen and women with (slightly better) manners posturing in ill-fitting suits.


Zuckerberg a programmer? I think that's quite a reach, to call him a programmer.


Zuckerberg did write a lot of the initial code. Does make him a programmer among many other things.


Hahaha, so profoundly true - especially the last paragraph!


Reminds me of this: https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/

I wonder whatever became of it?


TIL what synechdoche means ...


Now we're getting closer to the truth - although your hyperbole doesn't help, you're definitely on the right track.


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