Richard Stallman ruined my computing. I want to thank him for it.
2025-07-15
This morning as I was reading through my Mastodon timeline I came across this article, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI granted up to $200 million for AI work from Defense Department. I took a deep breath. I grumbled and cursed. Then the obvious occurred to me: Google is no longer a tech company, they are a US military contractor. They are a part of the military industrial complex. I stopped using google as a seach engine years ago and stopped using the email a couple years ago. But I still have an account because I have entanglements that I have to unwind before I can actually delete the account. I’m so close. I’ll have the account deleted well before the end of the year.
When I moved my computing to GNU+Linux in February I still didn’t have a clue about the change of thinking that was coming for me in the next six months. And, frankly, I’ve got Richard Stallman to thank for that. Once I began tapping into his many articles and speeches, my entire understanding of my personal computing shifted to the degree that I’ve felt compelled to flip the entire table over. For years I’ve spent many hours a day at a keyboard so nothing about this was casual for me. The simple truth is that computing is a primary element of my life.
I grew up watching Star Trek and superficially the Apple ecosystem of hardware, software and apps seemed to be slowly fullfilling the vision of computing I thought I wanted. Though it’s popular among Apple folk to complain about Siri I found it amazing that with a voice command I could control lights and appliances. It still feels like the future while taking a walk to simply say Siri, call my sister and have her on the link a few seconds later. Or that I could take a photo of a plant, insect or any other critter in nature and get the identification seconds later. In addition to being an excellent camera the iPhone felt like a tricorder. Same for the iPad. Constant, over-the-air connection to the internet, all of my documents and the people I know.
Yeah. Six months later I look back on my previous views of computing and I just shake my head at how easy it was to slip into. How could I not see the compromises I was making? Perhaps I needed to see the larger shift of America under Trump 2.0 to fully reckon with the dystopian dark-side of ever-present computing devices with location tracking. All of my data: my location, my phone calls, my photos, my documents, my passwords, my heartrate, my sleeping schedule, my voice, my fingerprints, my face. Fuck, fuck, fuck. When I list it out like that, it sounds insane. Honestly, absolutely insane. I’d placed great faith in the notion that I could trust a multinational corporation with every possible bit of data and knowledge about me. What did Apple do to earn that trust? I can hardly believe I went along and looking back on it, I’m deeply embarassed.
But here’s the thing. A lot of us did it. Many millions still are. Perfectly comfortable with it. If you’re still in that way of thinking I urge you to stop. Stop. Take a breath and then have a very long think about what you’re sharing and the faith you’re placing in a company, a corporation with the sole mission of maximizing profit via the colonization of every aspect of your life.
Have a good long think on that.
I don't have comments but I love email or you can find me on Mastodon.
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