*"I think all censorship should be deplored."* --Aaron Swartz
TODO
Aaron Swartz (1986 - 2013) was an [American](usa.md) [jewish](jew.md) prodigy that did a lot of activism and played a big role in creation of [Reddit](reddit.md) (back then a big platform for [free speech](free_speech.md), nowadays hugely censored), [RSS](rss.md), [Creative Commons](creative_commons.md), [Markdown](markdown.md) and other quite important things. His life story is quite sad as he killed himself by hanging at a young age (there are some conspiracy theories around it), people see this loss as even more tragic because he was so talented and could have done many great things. But don't be mistaken, he was also an American and an "[entrepreneur](entrepreneur.md)", so a [capitalist](capitalism.md) at least to some degree; do not follow [people](hero_culture.md), appreciate their art and their ideas.
*Avoiding the problem is in majority of cases the best solution to the problem.*
In many cases avoiding the problem really is the objectively best solution.
Is this the hardcore minimalist disease?
Avoidant Personality Disorder (AVPD) is one of the great myriad of psychological personality "disorders" that's basically characterized by extreme shyness, social isolation and tendency to solve everything by avoidance -- people with this thing have no friends, social life, they isolate, don't go out, don't go to [work](work.md) (that's good), they constantly think about how they're judged by others, may try to adjust personality according to what the other people around seem to want etc. It could possibly be seen as the hardcore [minimalist](minimalism.md) disease, AVPD positives just minimize their life to the a bare minimum of things they can't avoid, like eating, breathing etc. Of course this goes with anxiety, panic attacks and [depression](depression.md), sometimes self harm and so on.
Bytecode (BC, also *P-code*, "portable code") is a type of [binary](binary.md) format for executable programs usually intended to be [interpreted](interpreter.md) or to serve as an [intermediate representation](intermediate_representation.md) in [compilers](compiler.md) (i.e. meant to be translated to some other language); it is quite similar to [machine code](machine_code.md), however machine code is meant to be directly run by some physical [hardware](hardware.md) while bytecode is more of a [virtual](virtual.md), machine independent code preferring things like [portability](portability.md), speed of interpretation, retaining meta information or being easy to translate.
@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ Firstly let's sum up some of the reasons why C is so good:
- **It's extremely well establishes, optimized, stable and time tested, with many tools**: Being among the oldest languages, the language of the old time [hackers](hacking.md) and the language of [Unix](unix.md), maybe the most important piece of software in history, C has been so widely adopted, reimplemented, optimized and tested over and over that it's considered to be among the most essential pieces of software any platform has to have. Everything on the low level is written in C, so you essentially first have to have C to be able to run anything else. Many companies have invested great many resources to making C fast as it benefited them. While other languages come and go, or at least mutate and become something else over time, C stands as one of very few stable things in computer technology. There are also tons and tons of tools that help with C development, various static analyzers, debuggers, code beautifiers etcetc.
- **It doesn't have any [modern](modern.md) [bullshit](bullshit.md)**: There is no [OOP](oop.md), [generics](generics.md), [garbage collection](garbage_collection.md), no [package manager](package_manager.md) etc.
- **There is a huge number of [compilers](compiler.md)**: While a "[modern](modern.md)" language has some kind of main reference implementation and then maybe one of two alternative implementations, C has dozens (maybe even hundreds) of compilers. You'll find compilers under all the [licenses](license.md), huge ones with many features and great optimizations, small ones that will run on tiny devices, ones that compile very fast, ones that translate C to other languages etcetc.
- **It is elitist**: The relatively higher difficulty of learning the language has a nice effect of keeping idiots out of its community, keeping the language less intoxicated by retarded ideas.
- **It is elitist**: The relatively higher difficulty of learning the language has a nice effect of keeping idiots out of its community, keeping the language less intoxicated by retarded ideas. { NOTE: The word "elitist" here is not to really mean inherently "discriminating" of course, but rather "unpopular" because it's quite different from the mainstream and requires some effort on unlearning bad mainstream habits, i.e. nowadays it needs some dedication, you can't just join in effortlessly. It's elitist in the same way in which Unix systems or suckless software are elitist. ~drummyfish }
- **C is close to the [hardware](hw.md), reflecting how computers work**: This has many advantages: firstly efficiency, as code that maps well to hardware is predictable and efficient, lacking [magic](magic.md) in translation. It simplifies implementations, making the language more free. Then also the programmer himself is close to the machine, he has to learn how it works, what it likes and dislikes -- a knowledge every programmer has to have.
- **There is a great balance between low and high level (minimalism vs "features")**: C seems to have hit a sweet spot at which it offers just enough high level features for comfortable programming, such as [data types](data_type.md), functions and expressions, while not crossing the line beyond which it would have to pay a high cost for this comfort, i.e. it managed to buy us a lot practically for free. Things like this cannot really be planned well, it takes a genius and intuition to design a language this way, this shows the greatness of the old master programmers.
- **It is [old](old.md), written only by white male [hackers](hacking.md), at times when [capitalism](capitalism.md) was weaker**: No [women](woman.md) were probably involved in the development (of course we aren't racists or sexists, it's just a fact that white men are best at programming), the development was largely part of genuine research, at the time when computers weren't mainstream and computer technology wasn't being raped as hard as today. C developers didn't even think of embedding any political message in the language. Times like this will never be repeated.
Chasm: The Rift is a 1997 FPS [game](game.md), developed basically by a few Ukrainian basement nerds to be a cheaper version of [Quake](quake.md), which was of course completely overshadowed by this giant and therefore isn't much known but which is nevertheless quite technically impressive upon closer inspection.
{ TODO: do more research about the engine, attempt to translate the Russian YT video, reach the devs. ~drummyfish }
*COC is like a tiny little guillotine during this "[open $ource](open_source.md) revolution".*
*COC is like a tiny little guillotine of the "[open $ource](open_source.md) revolution".*
Code of conduct (COC), also *code of coercion* or *code of [censorship](censorship.md)*, is a [shitty](shit.md) invention of [SJW](sjw.md) [fascists](fascism.md) that's put up in projects (e.g. software) and which declares how developers of a specific project must behave socially (typically NOT just within the context of the development but also outside of it), generally pushing toxic woke concepts such as forced inclusivity, exclusivity of people with unapproved political opinions or use of [politically correct](political_correctness.md) language ([newspeak](newspeak.md)). Sometimes a toxic COC hides under a different name such as *social contract* or *mission statement*, though not necessarily. COC is typically placed in the project repository as a `CODE_OF_CONDUCT` file. In practice COCs are used to establish dictatorship and allow things such as kicking people out of development because of their political opinions expressed anywhere, inside or outside the project, and to push political opinions through software projects. COCs are an indication of [tranny software](tranny_software.md). See also http://techrights.org/2019/04/23/code-of-coercion/.
Color (also *colour*, from *celare*, "to cover") is the perceived visual quality of light that's associated with its [wavelength](wavelength.md)/[frequency](frequency.md) (or mixture of several); for example [red](red.md), [blue](blue.md) and [yellow](yellow.md) are colors. [Electromagnetic](electromagnetism.md) waves with wavelength from about 380 to 750 nm (about 400 to 790 THz) form the **visible spectrum**, i.e. waves our eyes can see -- combining such waves with different intensities and letting them fall on the retina of our eyes gives rise to the perception of color in our brain. There is a hugely deep *color theory* concerned with the concept of color (its definition, description, reproduction, psychological effect etc.). Needless to say colors are extremely important in anything related to visual [information](information.md) such as [art](art.md), [computer graphics](graphics.md), astrophysics, various visualizations or just everyday perception of our world. Color support is sometimes used as the opposite of systems that are extremely limited in the number of colors they can handle, which may be called [monochromatic](monochrome.md), 1bit (distinguishing only two colors), black&white or [grayscale](grayscale.md). Color can be seen to be in the same relation to sight as [pitch](pitch.md) is to hearing.
**How many colors are there?** The number of colors humans can distinguish is of course individual (color blindness makes people see fewer colors but there are also conditions that make one see more colors) but various sources state we are able to distinguish millions or even over 10 million different colors on average. In computer technology we talk about **color depth** which says the number of [bits](bit.md) we use to represent color -- the more bits, the more colors we can represent. 24 bits are nowadays mostly used to record color (8 bits for each red, green and blue component, so called *true color*), which allows for 16777216 distinct colors, though even something like [16 bits](rgb565.md) (65536 colors) is mostly enough for many use cases. Some advanced systems however support many more colors than true color, especially extremely bright and dim ones -- see [HDR](hdr.md).
**How many colors are there?** The number of colors humans can distinguish is of course individual (color blindness makes people see fewer colors but there are also conditions that make one see more colors), then also we can ask what color really means (see below) but -- approximately speaking -- various sources state we are able to distinguish millions or even over 10 million different colors on average. In computer technology we talk about **color depth** which says the number of [bits](bit.md) we use to represent color -- the more bits, the more colors we can represent. 24 bits are nowadays mostly used to record color (8 bits for each red, green and blue component, so called *true color*), which allows for 16777216 distinct colors, though even something like [16 bits](rgb565.md) (65536 colors) is mostly enough for many use cases. Some advanced systems however support many more colors than true color, especially extremely bright and dim ones -- see [HDR](hdr.md).
**What gives physical objects its color?** Most everyday objects get its color from reflecting only specific parts of the white light (usually sunlight), while absorbing the opposite part of the spectrum, i.e. for example a white object reflects all incoming light, a black one absorbs all incoming light (that's why black things get hot in sunlight), a red one reflects the red light and absorbs the rest etc. This is determined by the qualities of the object's surface, such as the structure of its atoms or its microscopic geometry.
**What gives physical objects their color?** Most everyday objects get its color from reflecting only specific parts of the white light (usually sunlight), while absorbing the opposite part of the spectrum, i.e. for example a white object reflects all incoming light, a black one absorbs all incoming light (that's why black things get hot in sunlight), a red one reflects the red light and absorbs the rest etc. This is determined by the qualities of the object's surface, such as the structure of its atoms or its microscopic geometry.
Compiler bomb is a type of [software bomb](software_bomb.md) (similar to [fork bombs](fork_bomb.md), [zip bombs](zip_bomb.md), [tar bombs](tar_bomb.md) etc.) exploiting [compilers](compiler.md), specifically it's a short [program](program.md) (written in the compiler's [programming language](programming_language.md)) which when compiled produces an extremely large compiled program (i.e. executable binary, [bytecode](bytecode.md), [transpiled](transpilation.md) code etc.). Effectiveness of such a bomb can be measured as the size of output divided by the size of input. Of course compiler bombs usually have to be targeted at a specific compiler (its weaknesses, optimizations, inner mechanisms, ...), the target platform and so on, however some compiler bombs are quite universal as many compilers employ similar compiling strategies and produce similar outputs. Alternatively a compiler bomb can be defined to do other malicious things, like maximizing the amount of [RAM](ram.md) and time needed for compilation etc.
{ Found here: https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/69189/build-a-compiler-bomb. ~drummyfish }
@ -8,4 +8,5 @@ Compiler bombs in various languages:
- [C](c.md): `main[-1u]={1};`, creates 16 GB executable, works by defining a huge array an initializes its first element so the whole array will be explicitly stored in the executable.
*"The most beautiful thing in the world is freedom of speech."* --Diogenes
Diogenes (412 BC - 323 BC) was one of the biggest ancient Greek [philosophers](philosophy.md), the best known proponent of [Cynicism](cynicism.dm) and one of the absolutely most [based](based.md) men in [history](history.md) as by his philosophy he practiced extreme life [minimalism](minimalism.md) (he lived in a barrel), [asketicism](asketicism.md), self-sufficiency, nonconformism, he refused to [work](work.md), [refused all authority](anarchism.md), criticised absolutely everything and was always extremely logically consistent and behaved in accordance to what he taught, which is really what makes all his critics -- mostly just big [hypocrite](hypocrisy.md) pussies -- so greatly pissed; the philosophy of Diogenes is quite close to [our own ideals](less_retarded_society.md). The word "cynic" itself comes from a word for "[dog](dog.md)" and indeed, Diogenes lived as one, he just roamed the streets, didn't give a shit about anything, preached his [wisdom](wisdom.md), he basically didn't own anything as he believed possession only enslaves us and that everything we need is already there in the nature. He didn't want fame, wealth power of possession, he wanted [freedom](freedom.md), spiritual and moral purity, he wanted to let go of absolutely all [bullshit](bullshit.md). He was also pretty funny, reading about him is really on the level of [4chan](4chan.md) humor, more than 2000 years ahead of his time. Diogenes wrote some stuff, most famously his *Republic* describing an ideal society, however none of his writings sadly survived, we now only know what others have written about him (there are possibly some recounts of the works who have read them). Let's remember we shouldn't call him a [hero](hero_culture.md), that would itself contradict both his and our philosophy, but if we are to see anyone as a good inspiration and moral example, Diogenes is among the best (well, at least in most things, it goes without saying we can't absolutely embrace everything someone ever did).
Some famous and/or [interesting](interesting.md) things he did (or at
least is said to have done):
- He lived in a barrel with his only possession being a bowl which he later threw away because someone showed him he could actually drink using just bare hands.
- He didn't [work](work.md), just begged.
- He walked with a lantern in crowds of people, saying he was "looking for a man". By this he implied all those around weren't even worth being called *people*. { There seems to be a widespread inaccuracy in translations that say he was looking for "honest man", but apparently he just said "man", i.e. literally just human. ~drummyfish }
- He masturbated in public. When asked why, he replied: "If only I could satisfy hunger by rubbing my belly!" { Based. ~drummyfish }
- When asked where he was from, he always answered "I am citizen of the world", using the word [cosmopolitan](cosmopolitan.md) (he's credited for coining it). By this he gave a huge fuck you to [nationalism](nationalism.md).
- He just shat, pissed and farted wherever he wanted, he was stealing without shame, he would eat where it was forbidden to eat, e.g. in Plato's lectures. He also didn't restrain from always saying what he was thinking, he did zero self [censorship](censorship.md).
- As he became quite famous, Alexander the Great himself (the biggest boss in the world at the time) came to meet him and asked if he could do anything for him, Diogenes just replied "yeah, get out of my sunlight". It impressed even Alexander who allegedly said "If I weren't Alexander, I would be Diogenes". Another of their dialogue went like this: Alexander: "Are you not afraid of me?", Diogenes: "Why? Are you good or bad?", Alexander: "I am good!", Diogenes: "Well then, who is afradid of the good?".
- Being asked what the most [beuatiful](beauty.md) thing in the world was, he replied "[freedom of speech](free_speech.md)". { Sauce: the book *Lives of the Eminent Philosophers*. ~drummyfish }
- When he was dying he said after death he just wanted to be thrown to animals to be eaten. { I'm thinking of actually writing this in my will. ~drummfish }
- When asked why he was begging when Plato wasn't, he said "He is too, he just holds his head down so it can't be heard."
- LULZ (not embraced but funny): Once he was asking some man for fruit, the man said "I'll give it to you if you can persuade me". Diogenes said: "If I could persuade you, I would persuade you to [hang yourself](kys.md)".
- ...
**His life in short summary**: he was born probably 412 BC in Sinope (Turkey) to Hicesius, a money changer, then he got into trouble for devalving the currency with his father so he left the city and went to Athens where he became the pupil of Antisthenes. He started to live in a tub belonging to the temple of Cybele. He hated Plato's philosophy, called it shite and disrupted his lectures on purpose e.g. by eating there or asking weird questions -- he also had some funny conversations and [troll](trolling.md) moments with him, like when he offered him some figs and when Plato ate them, Diogenes was like "Bruh, I thought you would share them, not eat them all". When travelling to Aegina he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave to Xeniades, a man living in Corinth. Being a greatly educated slave, Xeniades actually made Diogenes a teacher of his two sons, and Diogenes didn't live such a bad life, he could still preach his philosophy and indeed he did, until he died in 323 BC -- it is said he died on the same day as Alexander the Great. They erected a pillar with marble dog in honor of Diogenes.
**Why was he so based you ask?** Most normies don't get this, they are like ["shit in public = bad"](shortcut_thinking.md) or "no werk = steal" etc., it just shows how immensely retarded everyone is (and why Diogenes really couldn't find a man anywhere, he really just saw monkeys). Diogenes was the only one around who was ACTUALLY THINKING, he wouldn't accept any word of a propaganda without first thinking about if those words were actually true. He saw something and asked "is it good?". And he came to conclusion that most things are just [bullshit](bloat.md). But that's not all: not only did he say something's bullshit -- something most people would just go on doing without end -- he actually just stopped doing the bullshit and by that proved his point. Most people hated (and still hate) him because he just clearly proves them wrong, without any shadow of a doubt, simply by showing them something is unnecessary by living without it. Politicians in suits are just idiotic talking retardheads in expensive suits who just talk talk talk talk and lie and preach huge bullshit without actually doing anything and if someone just clearly shows they are idiots, their only possible "defense" is to discredit the opposition, which is why all the idiots just try to spread hate of Diogenes (and ad hominem of his teaching) based on shallow things like "the guy shit in public + his cloth smells = bad = words false" (but ofc it's actually effective on the population made basically of zombies). Diogenes didn't even have to talk much, he just said "this is bullcrap, look, you can live without it", and then he JUST DID IT like the biggest chad.
Internet overtook the world thanks to having enabled great number of services to be provided very cheaply, at great scales and/or with extremely elevated attributes such as minimal [delay](delay.md) or great [bandwidth](bandwidth.md). This is crucial to many industries who couldn't do without such a network, however to individuals or even smaller organizations Internet is frequently just a tool of comfort -- they could exist without the Internet, just a little less comfortably. As Internet is becoming more and more monitored, controlled, overcrowded, limited and censored, we may start to consider the less comfortable alternatives as [good enough](good_enough.md) ways that actually gain us advantages in some other ways, e.g. more [freedom of expression](free_speech.md), more robust network (independence of the Internet infrastructure), technological independence etc. We have to keep in mind the services allowed by the Internet, such as long distance communication, information searching or playing games still mostly exist even without Internet, just usually separated or somehow suffering a few disadvantages; nevertheless these disadvantages may be bearable and/or made smaller, e.g. by adjusting ourselves to the limitations (if our communication becomes slower, we'll simply write longer messages to which we put more thought and information etc.) or combining these alternative services in a clever way. Additionally we can make use of the lessons learned from the Internet (e.g. cleverly designed [protocols](protocol.md), steganography, broadcasts, [digital](digital.md) data, ...) and apply them to the alternative networks. Let us now list a few alternatives to the Internet:
- **[books](book.md), [encyclopedias](encyclopedia.md), magazines, libraries, printed media, paper, film, ...**: Paper is an awesome medium, it's cheap and can hold quite a lot of information, both digital and analog, it can be used without a [computer](computer.md) but can still be combined with computers (e.g. [printers](printer.md), scanning and [OCR](ocr.md), ...) and/or lower tech tools like [typewriters](typewriter.md) that may help manually copy books (see e.g. [samizdat](samizdat.md)). Quality paper can be used for reliable [backups](backup.md). Posters can leave information for others to find. Books that have been written throughout history provide enormous amount of data and information, great part of which isn't even accessible through the Internet. Books are generally of much higher quality than websites, older ones are additionally free of modern propaganda and [censorship](censorship.md). Print encyclopedias can here and there be used instead of [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md), and they are extremely cheap (seek second hand book stores, no one wants them anymore). Books also provide entertainment, from traditional fiction, poetry etc. to entertaining reads such as the Guinness World Records book or even interactive [RPG](rpg.md) games (see [gamebooks](gamebook.md)). Making your own small library of quality books isn't expensive at all and can really greatly reduce your dependence on the Internet in many ways. **[Micrography](micrography.md)** (scaling down documents to fit many of them on a small film) can help maximize store quite large amounts of data on small media without computers.
- **[books](book.md), [encyclopedias](encyclopedia.md), magazines, libraries, printed media, paper, film, ...**: Paper is an awesome medium, it's cheap and can hold quite a lot of information, both digital and analog, it can be used without a [computer](computer.md) but can still be combined with computers (e.g. [printers](printer.md), scanning and [OCR](ocr.md), [bar codes](bar_code.md), ...) and/or lower tech tools like [typewriters](typewriter.md) that may help manually copy books (see e.g. [samizdat](samizdat.md) that heavily utilized the ability of typewriters to produce several copies at once; in Antiquity books were copied by slaves with one reading the original out loud with others writing down many copies). Quality paper can be used for reliable [backups](backup.md) (source code, books, photos, even sound -- consider a high DPI print with each pixel recording one sample with its brightness). Posters can leave information for others to find. Books that have been written throughout history provide enormous amount of data and information, great part of which isn't even accessible through the Internet. Books are generally of much higher quality than websites, older ones are additionally free of modern propaganda and [censorship](censorship.md). Print encyclopedias can here and there be used instead of [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md), and they are extremely cheap (seek second hand book stores, no one wants them anymore). Books also provide entertainment, from traditional fiction, poetry etc. to entertaining reads such as the Guinness World Records book or even interactive [RPG](rpg.md) games (see [gamebooks](gamebook.md)). Making your own small library of quality books isn't expensive at all and can really greatly reduce your dependence on the Internet in many ways. **[Micrography](micrography.md)** (scaling down documents to fit many of them on a small film) can help maximize store quite large amounts of data on small media without computers.
- **[snail mail](snail_mail.md), avian carriers, arrows, messengers, [USB](usb.md) exchange, messages in bottle, ...**: Physically transforming messages is another historically tested option, travelers will always be around wanting to get from point A to point B and while at it they may also serve as information carriers -- information doesn't weight that much. There even exist volunteer organizations that distribute mail. People used to play correspondence [chess](chess.md) over snail mail, with enough dedication you could probably scale it up to some turn-based [MMORPG](mmorpg.md) game. Owing to the small weight, data can be transferred also by small animals such as pigeons (in some places with very bad Internet this is allegedly still the superior way even nowadays, in wars pigeons helped carry huge numbers of messages on microforms) or even just by "throwing", shooting an arrow with message on it, sending it down the river stream and so on. USB sticks are used by activists to send western propaganda to North Korea (e.g. small helium balloons carrying USB sticks with movies and books over the borders for the inhabitants to find). The disadvantage is high communication delay but even if it's orders of magnitude worse than what Internet offers us, bandwidth can still be excellent, sometimes even beating the Internet! Consider that a truck carrying 1000 1 terabyte harddrives arriving from start to its destination in a week achieves a bandwidth of about 1.6 gigabytes per second. That's pretty solid. Future inhabitans of Mars and other planets will inevitably have to deal with [interplanetary Internet](interplanetary_internet.md) that's doomed by laws of physics to have high delays -- if they can get around the issue, so can we. An interesting concept might be a "slow" network of people who simply meet up once a week and exchange their USB sticks (or SD cards or diskettes or whatever) on which they pass files and messages to others, such as requests for files etc.
- **leaving signs ([rocks](rock.md), sticks, leaves, messages in sand, bulletin boards, ...)**: Some forest people communicate by leaving signs for others e.g. by leaving tears on leaves or making shapes from sticks or rocks -- these can carry messages like "beware, dangerous animal around", "today I hunted down a monkey here" or "I have extra food, come take some". When improved, we could communicate whole text messages, numbers and any binary data this way -- imagine e.g. a small ["bulletin board"](bbs.md) on some frequently visited crossroads between villages where people leave latest news, offers, demands, jokes etc.
- **leaving signs ([rocks](rock.md), sticks, leaves, messages in sand, bulletin boards, ...)**: Some forest people communicate by leaving signs for others e.g. by leaving tears on leaves or making shapes from sticks or rocks -- these can carry messages like "beware, dangerous animal around", "today I hunted down a monkey here" or "I have extra food, come take some". When improved, we could communicate whole text messages, numbers and any binary data this way -- imagine e.g. a small ["bulletin board"](bbs.md) on some frequently visited crossroads between villages where people leave latest news, offers, demands, requests for information from others, silly jokes etc. In some cities there exist book exchange booths where people just leave their old books for others to take -- this could be further improved by adding some sort of message board for communication.
- **[intranet](intranet.md), [LAN](lan.md), [WAN](wan.md), ...**: Networks using basically the same technology as the Internet ([TCP](tcp.md)/[IP](ip.md), [ethernet](ethernet.md), [wifi](wifi.md), routers, ...), just on smaller scales -- the technology can actually be simpler: simpler routers can be used, no high performance backbone routers are needed, [Ronja](ronja.md) may be used instead of wifi, [DNS](dns.md) may be omitted and so on. There are many such networks, [military](military.md) has its own isolated networks, North Korea has its famous nation-wide isolated intranet ([Kwangmyong](kwangmyong.md)), Cuba has the famous [SNet](snet.md) -- "street net" that's used for pirating and games -- and so on. The advantage is relative simplicity of implementation -- the technology is all there and quite cheap, you can set up your own network in the neighborhood and have complete control over it, government isn't gonna bully you for sharing movies, it won't spy on your communication (at least not so easily) etc.
- **[radio](radio.md), [telegraph](telegraph.md)**: Plain FM/AM radio communication is a serious competition to Internet in terms of delay, bandwidth and distance of reach, while being very simple in comparison -- a skilled individual can construct or repair a radio with just some basic electronic components, which can't be said about digital computer networks that require extremely complex computer chips. Radio can relatively easily transfer analog information such as voice, but it can also send digital information. With [Morse code](morse_code.md) even the most primitive radio communication system can turn into something extremely powerful.
- **[broadcast](broadcast.md)** (see also [world broadcast](world_broadcast.md)): broadcasts (one way communication towards many) can be implemented in many ways: with radio, audio, optically and so on. Broadcast only networks, such as [teletext](teletext.md), TV or radio station broadcast, can be much simpler than a two way communication -- there don't have to be complex protocols, devices can work on low power (as they're only receivers) and the broadcaster can't be overloaded by client requests. These can cover a great range of services such as news, weather forecast, time synchronization, localization, work organization ("now we need you to produce this and this"), some forms of entertainment or providing generally useful data such as maps and books.
- **optical telegraph, smoke signals, lanterns, flag semaphores, kites and other optical communication**: Optical communication is another technique widely used throughout history -- the advantage here is speed as obviously [light](light.md) is the fastest medium you can ever use. Lighting bonfires on hill tops could send a message about incoming enemy at great distances, later on even a more complex information could be sent using optical telegraph -- a chain of towers that forwarded symbols one to another by positioning big arms on their rooftops to form some specific shape, with the next tower copying the symbol and so on. You can leave big symbols in your window to send a few bytes to anyone with a telescope in the line of sight of your house. Basically if you can make someone see something, you can send a message; you can increase the amount of data by utilizing [color](color.md), movement, blinking and so on.
- **audio signals (bells, canon shots, drums, horns, megaphones, ...)**: Audio signal were again used a lot in history, a church bell could tell people many different things by how it was rang, canon shots could warn of incoming enemies and so on, voice can be used too. Drums are still widely used this way in Africa. The principle of string telephone can be considered to make some audio based networks.
- **[broadcast](broadcast.md) and alternative network topologies** (see also [world broadcast](world_broadcast.md)): broadcasts (one way communication towards many) can be implemented in many ways: with radio, audio, optically and so on. Broadcast only networks, such as [teletext](teletext.md), [TV](tv.md) or radio station broadcast, can be much simpler than a two way communication -- there don't have to be such complex protocols, there are no handshakes, devices can work on low power (as they're only receivers) and the broadcaster can't be overloaded by client requests. These can cover a great range of services such as news, weather forecast, time synchronization, geolocalization, work organization ("now we need you to produce this and this"), some forms of entertainment or providing generally useful data such as maps and books. If we do go for two way communication anyway, we should at least consider simpler network topologies -- with Internet we tend to think in mesh networks, i.e. "everyone connected to everyone", but that may be too complex to implement with other kinds of networks, it may be better to consider something like a ring network.
- **optical telegraph, smoke signals, lanterns, flag semaphores, kites, flares, mirrors and other optical communication**: Optical communication is another technique widely used throughout history -- the advantage here is speed as obviously [light](light.md) is the fastest medium you can ever use. Lighting bonfires on hill tops could send a message about incoming enemy at great distances, later on even a more complex information could be sent using optical telegraph -- a chain of towers that forwarded symbols one to another by positioning big arms on their rooftops to form some specific shape, with the next tower copying the symbol and so on. You can leave big symbols in your window to send a few bytes to anyone with a telescope in the line of sight of your house. Basically if you can make someone see something, you can send a message; you can increase the amount of data by utilizing [color](color.md), movement, blinking and so on. Also remember that [optical fiber](optical_fiber.md) doesn't need a computer to work, it could probably be operated even manually provided we have some kind of [laser](laser.md).
- **[audio](audio.md) signals (bells, canon shots, drums, horns, megaphones, ...)**: Audio signal were again used a lot in history, a church bell could tell people many different things by how it was rang, canon shots could warn of incoming enemies and so on, voice can be used too. Drums are still widely used this way in Africa. The principle of string telephone can be considered to make some audio based networks.
- **[pneumatic tube](pneumatic_tube.md)** and similar non-electric networks: A network of tubes using pressured air to transform small capsule containers from one place to another pretty fast, often used in factories -- this can carry written messages but also, unlike the Internet, physical objects! Other mechanism could be explored to construct similar networks, e.g. something based on hydraulics, string pulling, steam engines, gears, simple gravity (sending a marble down some tunnel could be a quite fast message) and so on.
- **phone networks, [phreaking](phreaking.md) etc.**: phone networks (and possibly other networks like the electric network, TV network etc.) can be [hacked](hacking.md) to be used for free or cheap communication -- old time hackers knew how to rape phone boots to let them make free calls. Nowadays many safety measures are in place but you may still e.g. exploit the fact that merely ringing someone's phone is completely free, which can be used to send a few [bits](bit.md) of information. WARNING: It's generally illegal to mess with these networks, trying this shit's always on you :-) Also touching random electric cables can kill you. If you by accident take down some optical cable or something, you'll be fined to death.
- **phone networks, [phreaking](phreaking.md), power line communication etc.**: phone networks (and possibly other networks like the electric network, TV network etc.) can be used for all kinds of communication, with [modems](modem.md) they can interconnect digital computers (which was widely used before Internet became widespread, see e.g. [BBS](bbs.md) networks); these networks can also be [hacked](hacking.md) to be used for free or cheap communication -- old time hackers knew how to rape phone boots to let them make free calls (see [phreaking](phreaking.md)). Networks primarily used for carrying power can also carry information alongside power (see [power line communication](plc.md)). Nowadays more anti hacking measures are in place but you may still e.g. exploit the fact that merely ringing someone's phone is completely free, which can be used to send a few [bits](bit.md) of information. WARNING: It's generally illegal to mess with these networks in unintended ways, trying this shit's always on you :-) Also touching random electric cables can kill you. If you by accident take down some optical cable or something, you'll be fined to death.
- **normal voice communication**: As stupid as it sounds, we can sometimes just talk to other people, even if they live in another village, simply by going there and talking to them. You can use shouting to reach even people who are far away instantly -- some communities even invented things like [whistling languages](whistling_language.md) to communicate simple messages on extreme distances, this was used by hunters in forests etc. We got too much used to using cell phones to communicate with someone who just happens to be in another room, but this is just stupid, this can be just discarded as human degeneracy.
- **petroglyphs ([rock](rock.md) carving), wood carving, glass painting, knot tying, metal tables etc.**: Data can be recorded manually in many materials, e.g. Incas used Quipu, a special knot tying language. Carving to stone is hard but will last for a long time, it is ideal for preserving small amounts of important information for a long time. See also [rok carved binary data](rcbd.md).
- **human memory**: Human memory can be used instead of computer memory, though we have to bear in mind its limitations. In very old times, before books became common and cheap, there existed people who made living by memorizing history in forms of long poems and recited them in public (this is how e.g. Iliad and Odyssey survived until they were actually recorded).
*"Everything that modern culture hates is good, and everything that modern culture loves is bad."* --fschmidt from [reactionary software](reactionary_software.md)
So called *modern* [software](software.md)/[hardware](hardware.md) and other [technology](technology.md) might as well be synonymous with [shitty](shit.md) abusive technology. In a [capitalist](capitalism.md) [age](21st_century.md) when everything is getting progressively worse in terms of design, quality, ethicality, efficiency, etc., newer means worse, therefore modern (*newest*) means *the worst*. In other words *modern* is a term that stands for "as of yet best optimized for exploiting users". At [LRS](lrs.md) we see the term *modern* as negative -- for example whenever someone says "we work with modern technology", he is really saying "we are working with worst technology we know of".
So called *modern* [software](software.md)/[hardware](hardware.md) and other *modern*[technology](technology.md) might as well be synonymous with [shitty](shit.md) [bloated](bloat.md) abusive technology. It's one of the most abused [buzzwords](buzzword.md) of today, relying (successfully) on the sheeple [shortcut thinking](shortcut_thinking.md) -- in a [capitalist](capitalism.md) [age](21st_century.md) when everything is getting progressively worse in terms of design, quality, ethicality, efficiency, etc., newer means worse, therefore modern (*newest*) means *the worst*. In other words *modern* is a term that stands for "as of yet best optimized for exploiting users". At [LRS](lrs.md) we see the term *modern* as **pejorative** -- for example whenever someone says "we work with modern technology", he is really saying "we are working with as of yet worst technology". Is it shit? Does it abuse you? Is useless? Doesn't matter, it's NEW!
The word *modern* was similarly addressed e.g. by [reactionary software](reactionary_software.md) -- it correctly identifies the word as being connected to a programming orthodoxy of [current times](21st_century.md), the one that's obsessed with creating bad technology and rejecting good technology. { I only found reactionary software after this article has been written. ~drummyfish }
@ -10,6 +10,8 @@ Sometimes random people notice the issue, though there are very few. One blog (h
**Avoid anything labeled as follows**: "modern", "state-of-the-art", "cutting-edge", "for 21st century", "for INSERT CURRENT YEAR", "up-to-date", "innovative", "novel", "latest technology", "high tech" etc.
Remember, [older is always better](older_is_better.md).
## Modern Vs Old Technology
It's sad and dangerous that newer generation won't even remember technology used to be better, people will soon think that the current disgusting state of technology is the best we can do. That is of course wrong, technology used to be relatively good. It is important we leave here a note on at least a few ways in which old was much, much better.
Here is a list of people notable in technology or in other ways related to [LRS](lrs.md).
- **[Aaron Swartz](aaron_swartz.md)**: famous computer prodigy activist involved in creation of famous things like [Reddit](reddit.md), [RSS](rss.md) and [Creative Commons](creative_commons.md), [suicided](suicide.md) at 26
- **[Alan Turing](turing.md)**: mathematician, father of [computer science](compsci.md), [gay](gay.md)
- **[Alexandre Oliva](alexandre_oliva.md)**: [free software](free_software.md) advocate, founding member of [FSFLA](fsfla.md), maintainer of [Linux-libre](linux_libre.md)
- **[Bill Gates](bill_gates.md)**: founder and CEO of [Micro$oft](microsoft.md), huge faggot
@ -25,6 +26,7 @@ Here is a list of people notable in technology or in other ways related to [LRS]
- **[John von Neumann](von_neumann.md)**: early 20th century multidisciplinary genius, one of the greatest [computer scientists](compsci.md) of all time, also famous for huge [IQ](iq.md) and being a human calculator
- **[Ken Silverman](key_silverman.md)**: famous oldschool 3D engine programmer ([Duke Nukem 3D](duke_3d.md)'s [BUILD engine](build_engine.md), ...), sadly proprietaryfag
- **[Ken Thompson](ken_thompson.md)**: co-creator of [Unix](unix.md), [C](c.md) and [Go](go.md)
- **[Kurt Godel](kurt_godel.md)**: mathematician famous for his groundbreaking incompleteness theorems proving that [logic](logic.md) itself has intrinsic limitations, was a tinfoil schizo and died of starvation believing his food to be poisoned
- **[Larry Sanger](larry_sanger.md)**: co-founder of [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md), also one of its biggest critics
- **[Larry Wall](larry_wall.md)**: creator of [Perl](perl.md) language, linguist
- **[Lawrence Lessig](lessig.md)**: lawyer, founder of [free culture](free_culture.md) movement and [Creative Commons](creative_commons.md), critic of [copyright](copyright.md)
The true definition of progress is "advancement towards more [good](good.md)", though in the mainstream the term has been twisted to mean things such as "[more complicated technology](capitalist_technology.md)", "[bigger economy](capitalism.md)" and so on. Idiots rarely think, they can't ask a series of two questions in a row such as "what will this lead to and is the result what we want?", they can [only understand](shortcut_thinking.md) extremely simple equalities such as "moar buttons in a program = more gooder", hence the language degeneration.
It's important to realize that by definition the only true progress that matters is just that which gets us closer to our [ideal society](less_retarded_society.md), i.e. progress is only that which makes the life of every individual better as a whole and all other kinds of "progress", such as [technological](tech.md), [scientific](science.md), artistic, political and so on only exist SOLELY to serve the main progress of well being of individuals. A thousand year leap in technological development is worth absolutely nothing if it doesn't serve the main goal, it's useless if we can send a car to space, harvest energy of a whole star or find the absolute meaning of life if that doesn't serve the main goal -- in fact such "progress" is [nowadays](21st_century.md) mostly made so that it works AGAINST the main goal, i.e. [corporations](corporation.md) develop more complicated technology to exploit people more and make them more miserable -- that is not true progress, it is its exact opposite.
@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ There is a controversial 1994 book called *The Bell Curve* that deals with diffe
It is useful to know the **differences in intellect** between different races (no matter whether the cause is genetic, cultural or other), though cultural and other traits linked to races may also play a big role. Of course, it is important to keep in mind intelligence isn't one dimensional, it's one of the most complex and complicated concepts we can be dealing with (remember the famous test that revealed that chimpanzees greatly outperform humans at certain intellectual tasks such as remembering the order of numbers seen for a very short period of time) and that other traits than raw intelligence may be equally or more important for good performance in intellectual tasks, e.g. personality traits such as curiosity (imagine a fast CPU running shit software versus slower CPU running good software). We can't generally simplify to a single measure such as [IQ](iq.md) score (though it can still give some rough ideas, IQ is not absolutely useless), but we can measure performance at different tasks. Let intelligence here mean simply the ability to perform well in the area of given art. And of course, there are smart and stupid people in any race, the general statements we make are just about statistics and probabilities.
The smartest races seem to be [Jews](jew.md) and [Asians](asian.md) (also found so by the book *Bell Curve* and many old books). Asians have always been regarded as having superior intelligence and their [religions](religion.md) and [culture](culture.md) also seem to be the most advanced, with very complex ideas (as opposed to e.g. Christianity based on trivial rules to blindly follow), closest to [nonviolence](nonviolence.md), [socialism](socialism.md) and true [science](science.md) (e.g. [Buddhism](buddhism.md)). There is no question about the intelligence of Jews, the greatest thinkers of all times were Jewish ([Richard Stallman](rms.md), [Einstein](einstein.md), [Marx](marx.md), [Chomsky](chomsky.md), even [Jesus](jesus.md) and others) -- the man often regarded as the smartest human in history, William James Sidis, was a Jew. Jews have dominated despite being a minority, they seem to have a very creative intelligence and some of them decide to gain further edge by giving up their morality (i.e. becoming [capitalist](capitalism.md)), while Asians are more mechanically inclined -- they can learn a skill and bring it to perfection with an extremely deep study and dedication. Closely following is the general white race: white people have of course absolutely dominated history and there is always that one white guy at the top even in areas more dominated by other races (e.g. Eminem in rap, Carlsen in chess, Grubby in Warcraft 3, ...), however whites are still primitive in many ways ([individualism](individualism.md), [fascism](fascism.md), violence, simple religions and cults, e.g. that of economy, money, simplified commandments of Christianity etc.). The African black race known as the *negro* is one of the least intelligent according to basically all literature -- this makes a lot of sense, the race has been oppressed and living in harsh conditions for centuries and millennia and didn't get much chance to evolve towards good performance in intellectual tasks, quite the opposite, those who were physically fit rather than smart were probably more likely to survive and reproduce as slaves or jungle people (even if white people split from the blacks relatively recently, a rapid change in environment also leads to a rapid change in evolution, even that of intelligence). However the more primitive, less intelligent races (blacks, indians etc.) were found by some to e.g. have significantly faster reaction times, which sometimes may be an advantage -- this is suspected to be cause be a tradeoff; the "smarter" races perform more complex processing of input information (in terms of computers: having a longer processing [pipeline](pipeline.md)) and so it takes longer, i.e. the more primitive individual acts more impulsively and therefore quicker. The 1892 book *Hereditary Genius* says that the black race is *about two grades* below the white race (nowadays the gap will most likely be lower). Hispanics were found to perform somewhere in between the white and black people. There isn't so much info about other races such as the red race or Eskimos, but they're probably similarly intelligent to the black race. The above mentioned book *Hereditary Genius* gives an intelligence of the Australian aboriginal race *at least one grade below that of the negro*, making possibly the dumbest race of all. The brown races are kind of complicated, Indian people have Asian genes and showed a great intellectual potential, e.g. in [chess](chess.md), [math](math.md), philosophy (nonviolence inherently connected to India is the most intellectually advanced philosophy), and lately also [computer science](compsci.md) (even though many would argue that "[pajeets](pajeet.md)" are just trained coding monkeys, really their compsci "universities" are mostly a meme); they may be at the similar level to Hispanics.
The smartest races seem to be [Jews](jew.md) and [Asians](asian.md) (also found so by the book *Bell Curve* and many old books). Asians have always been regarded as having superior intelligence and their [religions](religion.md) and [culture](culture.md) also seem to be the most advanced, with very complex ideas (as opposed to e.g. Christianity based on trivial rules to blindly follow), closest to [nonviolence](nonviolence.md), [socialism](socialism.md) and true [science](science.md) (e.g. [Buddhism](buddhism.md)). There is no question about the intelligence of Jews, the greatest thinkers of all times were Jewish ([Richard Stallman](rms.md), [Einstein](einstein.md), [Marx](marx.md), [Chomsky](chomsky.md), even [Jesus](jesus.md) and others) -- the man often regarded as the smartest human in history, William James Sidis, was a Jew. Jews have dominated despite being a minority, they seem to have a very creative intelligence and some of them decide to gain further edge by giving up their morality (i.e. becoming [capitalist](capitalism.md)), while Asians are more mechanically inclined -- they can learn a skill and bring it to perfection with an extremely deep study and dedication. Closely following is the general white race (which according to studies is also seen as most physically attractive by all races): white people have of course absolutely dominated history and there is always that one white guy at the top even in areas more dominated by other races (e.g. Eminem in rap, Carlsen in chess, Grubby in Warcraft 3, ...), however whites are still primitive in many ways ([individualism](individualism.md), [fascism](fascism.md), violence, simple religions and cults, e.g. that of economy, money, simplified commandments of Christianity etc.). The African black race known as the *negro* is one of the least intelligent according to basically all literature -- this makes a lot of sense, the race has been oppressed and living in harsh conditions for centuries and millennia and didn't get much chance to evolve towards good performance in intellectual tasks, quite the opposite, those who were physically fit rather than smart were probably more likely to survive and reproduce as slaves or jungle people (even if white people split from the blacks relatively recently, a rapid change in environment also leads to a rapid change in evolution, even that of intelligence). However the more primitive, less intelligent races (blacks, indians etc.) were found by some to e.g. have significantly faster reaction times, which sometimes may be an advantage -- this is suspected to be cause be a tradeoff; the "smarter" races perform more complex processing of input information (in terms of computers: having a longer processing [pipeline](pipeline.md)) and so it takes longer, i.e. the more primitive individual acts more impulsively and therefore quicker. The 1892 book *Hereditary Genius* says that the black race is *about two grades* below the white race (nowadays the gap will most likely be lower). Hispanics were found to perform somewhere in between the white and black people. There isn't so much info about other races such as the red race or Eskimos, but they're probably similarly intelligent to the black race. The above mentioned book *Hereditary Genius* gives an intelligence of the Australian aboriginal race *at least one grade below that of the negro*, making possibly the dumbest race of all. The brown races are kind of complicated, Indian people have Asian genes and showed a great intellectual potential, e.g. in [chess](chess.md), [math](math.md), philosophy (nonviolence inherently connected to India is the most intellectually advanced philosophy), and lately also [computer science](compsci.md) (even though many would argue that "[pajeets](pajeet.md)" are just trained coding monkeys, really their compsci "universities" are mostly a meme); they may be at the similar level to Hispanics.
Fun fact: there seem to be almost no black people in [chess](chess.md), the strongest one seems to be Pontus Carlsson which rates number 1618 in the world; even [women](woman.md) seem to be much better at chess than black people.
{ The "founder", fschmidt, sent me a link to his website on saidit after I posted about LRS. Here is how I interpret his take on technology -- as always I may misinterpret or distort something, for safety refer to the original website. ~drummyfish }
Reactionary software (reactionary meaning *opposing the [modern](modern.md), favoring the old*) is a kind of [software](software.md)/[technology](tech.md) philosophy opposing [modern](modern.md) technology and advocating [simplicity](kiss.md) as a basis of good technology (and possibly whole society); it is similar e.g. to [suckless](suckless.md) and our own [less retarded software](lrs.md), though it's not as "hardcore" [minimalist](minimalism.md) (e.g. it's okay with old versions of [Java](java.md) which we still consider kind of [bloated](bloated.md) and therefore [bad](bad.md)). Just as suckless and LRS, reactionary software notices the unbelievably degenerated state of "[modern](modern.md)" technology (reflecting the degenerate state of whole society) manifested in [bloat](bloat.md), overengineering, overcomplicating, user abuse, ugliness, [DRM](drm.md), [bullshit](bullshit.md) features, planned obsolescence, fragility etc., and advocates for rejecting it, for taking a step back to when technology was still sane (before 2000s). The website of reactionary software is at http://www.reactionary.software (on top it reads *Make software great again!*). There is also a nice forum at http://www.mikraite.org/Reactionary-Software-f1999.html (tho requires JS to register? WTF. LOL they even use [Discord](discord.md), that's just lame.).
Reactionary software (reactionary meaning *opposing the [modern](modern.md), favoring the old*) is a kind of [software](software.md)/[technology](tech.md) philosophy opposing [modern](modern.md) technology and advocating more [simplicity](kiss.md) as a basis for better technology (and possibly whole society); it is similar e.g. to [suckless](suckless.md) and our own [less retarded software](lrs.md), though it's not as "hardcore" [minimalist](minimalism.md) (e.g. it's okay with old versions of [Java](java.md) which we still consider kind of [bloated](bloated.md) and therefore [bad](bad.md)). Just as suckless and LRS, reactionary software notices the unbelievably degenerated state of "[modern](modern.md)" technology (reflecting the degenerate state of whole society) manifested in [bloat](bloat.md), overengineering, overcomplicating, user abuse, ugliness, buzzword hype, [DRM](drm.md), [bullshit](bullshit.md) features, planned obsolescence, fragility etc., and advocates for rejecting it, for taking a step back to when technology was still sane (before 2000s). The website of reactionary software is at http://www.reactionary.software (on top it reads *Make software great again!*). There is also a nice forum at http://www.mikraite.org/Reactionary-Software-f1999.html (tho requires JS to register? WTF. LOL they even use [Discord](discord.md), that's just lame.). The spirit is good, however the people in the group mostly seem not to be the experts of computer technology (still above average tech savvy but not like "top hackers"), which of course isn't anything bad, it's just that they sometimes propose shitty "solutions" -- at least from the forum posts it seems they are mostly frustrated users rather than frustrated skilled programmers. Again, there is nothing wrong about this, we need to listen to them, it's just that we should probably rather listen to the complaints than to some of the proposed solutions.
**The biggest difference compared to suckless/LRS is that reactionary software focuses on the simplicity from user's point of view** (as stated on their forums). This is not in conflict with our views, we just additionally see the simplicity of internals as just as important.
**The biggest difference compared to suckless/LRS is that reactionary software focuses on the simplicity from user's point of view** (as stated on their forums). Of course this is not in conflict with our views, we want the same thing, however if we stay ONLY at the external simplicity, we fall into the trap of [pseudominimalim](pseudominimalism.md) -- we, the LRS, therefore additionally see the simplicity of internals as equally important of a goal.
The founder of reactionary software is fschmidt and he still seems to be the one who mostly defines it (just like [drummyfish](drummyfish.md) is at the moment basically solo controlling [LRS](lrs.md)), though there is a forum of people who follow him. The philosophy can potentially be extended beyond just software, to other fields of endeavor and potentially whole society -- the discussion of reactionary software revolves around wide context, e.g. things like philosophy, religion and [collapse](collapse.md) of society (fschmidt made a post where he applies Old Testament ideas to programming).
fschmidt seems to be a lot into religion and also has some related side projects with wider scope, e.g. [Arkians](arkians.md) which deals with society and [eugenics](eugenics.md). It seems to be trying to establish a community of "chosen people" (those who pass certain tests) who selective breed to renew good genes in society. { **PLEASE DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS**, I just quickly skimmed through it -- people will probably freak out and start calling that guy a [Nazi](nazi.md) -- please don't, read his site first. I can't really say more about it as I didn't research it well, but he doesn't seem to be proposing violent solutions. Peace. ~drummyfish }
**What do [we](lrs.md) think about reactionary software?** The vibes are good, it basically seems like "suckless-lite" -- we agree with what they identify as causes of decline of modern technology, we like that they discuss wide context and the big picture and our solutions are aligned, in the same direction -- theirs are just not as radical, or maybe we just disagree on minor points. We may e.g. disagree on specific cases of software, for example they approve of old [Python](python.md), [Java](java.md) and lightweight [JavaScript](js.md) used on the [web](www.md) -- we see such software as unacceptable, it's too complex, unnecessary and from ground up designed badly. { As clarified on the forums, reactionary software focuses on the simplicity from user's perspective, not necessarily the simplicity of internals. ~drummyfish } Nevertheless we definitely see it as good this philosophy exists, it contributes to improving technology and it may provide an alternative to people who suffer from modern tech but suckless or LRS is too difficult for them to get into. The fact that more and more smaller communities with ideas similar to LRS come to life indicates the ideas themselves are alive and start to flourish, in a decentralized way -- this is good.
The founder of reactionary software is fschmidt and he still seems to be the one who mostly defines it (just like [drummyfish](drummyfish.md) is at the moment basically solo controlling [LRS](lrs.md)), though there is a forum of people who follow him. The philosophy can potentially be extended beyond just software, to other fields of endeavor and potentially whole society -- the discussion of reactionary software revolves around wide context, e.g. things like philosophy, religion and [collapse](collapse.md) of society (fschmidt made a post where he applies Old Testament ideas to programming). This is pretty good, focus on the [big picture](big_picture.md) is something we greatly embrace too.
fschmidt seems to be a lot into religion and also has some related side projects with wider scope, e.g. [Arkians](arkians.md) which deals with society and [eugenics](eugenics.md). It seems to be trying to establish a community of "chosen people" (those who pass certain tests) who selective breed to renew good genes in society. { PLEASE DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS, I just quickly skimmed through it -- people will probably freak out and start calling that guy a [Nazi](nazi.md) -- please don't, read his site first. I can't really say more about it as I didn't research it well, but he doesn't seem to be proposing violent solutions. Peace. ~drummyfish }
**What do [we](lrs.md) think about reactionary software?** To sum up: the vibes are good, it basically seems like "suckless-lite" -- we agree with what they identify as causes of decline of modern technology, we like that they discuss wide context and the big picture and our solutions are often aligned, in the same direction -- theirs are just not as radical, or maybe we just disagree on minor points. We may e.g. disagree on specific cases of software, for example they approve of old [Python](python.md), [Java](java.md) and lightweight [JavaScript](js.md) used on the [web](www.md) -- we see such software as unacceptable, it's too complex, unnecessary and from ground up designed badly. { As clarified on the forums, reactionary software focuses on the simplicity from user's perspective, not necessarily the simplicity of internals. ~drummyfish } Nevertheless we definitely see it as good this philosophy exists, it fills a certain niche, it's a place for people who aren't necessarily hardcore hackers but still see the value of minimalism, which of course shows they're one of the more intelligent out there. Reactionary software contributes to improving technology at the very least by spreading awareness and taking actual stance, they may help provide alternatives to tech refugees who suffer from modern tech but suckless or LRS is too difficult for them to jump right into. The fact that more and more smaller communities with ideas similar to LRS come to life indicates the ideas themselves are alive and start to flourish, in a decentralized way -- this is good.
Examples of reactionary software include (examples from the site itself):
