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Frequently Asked Questions
Not to be confused with frequently questioned answers.
{ answers by ~drummyfish }
Is this a joke?
No.
What the fuck?
See WTF.
How does LRS differ from suckless, KISS and similar types of software?
These sets largely overlap and LRS is often just a slightly different angle of looking at the same things. I have invented LRS as my own take on suckless software -- as I cannot speak on behalf of the whole suckless community, I have created my own "fork" and simply set my own definitions without worrying about misinterpreting and misquoting someone else. However, LRS does have its specific ideas and areas of focus such as its stress on public domain and legal safety, altruism, anti-capitalism, accepting software such as games, NOT subscribing to the productivity cult, seeing privacy as ultimately undesirable etc.
Why this obsession with extreme simplicity? Is it because you're too stupid to understand complex stuff?
I used to be the mainstream, complexity embracing programmer. I am in no way saying I'm a genius but I've put a lot of energy into studying computer science full time for many years so I believe I can say I have some understanding of the "complex" stuff. I speak from own experience and also on behalf of others who shared their experience with me that the appreciation of simplicity and realization of its necessity comes after many years of dealing with the complex and deep insight into the field and into the complex connections of that field to society.
You may ask: well then but why it's just you and a few weirdos who see this, why don't most good programmers share your opinions? Because they need to make living or because they simply WANT to make a lot of money and so they do what the system wants them to do. Education in technology (and generally just being exposed to corporate propaganda since birth) is kind of a trap: it teaches you to embrace complexity and when you realize it's not a good thing, it is too late, you already need to pay your student loan, your rent, your mortgage, and the only thing they want you to do is to keep this complexity cult rolling. So people just do what they need to do and many of them just psychologically make themselves believe something they subconsciously know isn't right because that makes their everyday life easier to live. "Everyone does it so it can't be bad, better not even bother thinking about it too much". It's difficult doing something every day that you think is wrong, so you make yourself believe it's right.
It's not that we can't understand the complex. It is that the simpler things we deal with, the more powerful things we can create out of them as the overhead of the accumulated complexity isn't burdening us so much.
Simplicity is crucial not only for the quality of technology, i.e. for example its safety and efficiency, but also for its freedom. The more complex technology becomes, the fewer people can control it. If technology is to serve all people, it has to be simple enough so that as many people as possible can understand it, maintain it, fix it, customize it, improve it. It's not just about being able to understand a complex program, it's also about how much time and energy it takes because time is a price not everyone can afford, even if they have the knowledge of programming. Even if you yourself cannot program, if you are using a simple program and it breaks, you can easily find someone with a basic knowledge of programming who can fix it, unlike with a very complex program whose fix will require a corporation.
Going for the simple technology doesn't necessarily have to mean we have to give up the "nice things" such as computer games or 3D graphics. Many things, such as responsiveness and customizability of programs, would improve. Even if the results won't be so shiny, we can recreate much of what we are used to in a much simpler way. You may now ask: why don't companies do things simply if they can? Because complexity benefits them in creating de facto monopolies, as mentioned above, by reducing the number of people who can tinker with their creations. And also because capitalism pushes towards making things quickly rather than well -- and yes, even non commercial "FOSS" programs are pushed towards this, they still compete and imitate the commercial programs. Already now you can see how technology and society are intertwined in complex ways that all need to be understood before one comes to realize the necessity of simplicity.
Who writes this wiki? Can I contribute.
At the moment it's just me, drummyfish. This started as a collaborative wiki name based wiki but after some disagreements I forked it (everything was practically written by me at that point) and made it my own wiki where I don't have to make any compromises or respect anyone else's opinions. I'm not opposed to the idea of collaboration but I bet we disagree on something in which case I probably don't want to let you edit this. I also resist allowing contributions because with multiple authors the chance of legal complications grows, even if the work is under a free license or waiver (refer to e.g. the situation where some Linux developers were threatening to withdraw their code contribution license). But you can totally fork this wiki, it's public domain.
If you want to contribute to the cause, just create your own website, spread the ideas you liked here -- you may or may not refer to LRS, everything's up to you. Start creating software with LRS philosophy if you can -- together we can help evolve and spread our ideas in a decentralized way, without me or anyone else being an authority, a potential censor. That's the best way forward I think.
Since it is public domain, can I take this wiki and do anything with it? Even something you don't like, like sell it or rewrite it in a different way?
Yes, you can do anything... well, anything that's not otherwise illegal like falsely claiming authorship (copyright) of the original text. This is not because I care about being credited, I don't (you DON'T have to give me any credit), but because I care about this wiki not being owned by anyone. You can however claim copyright to anything you add to the wiki if you fork it, as that's your original creation.
Why not keep politics out of this Wiki and make it purely about technology?
Examining any subject in depth requires also understanding its context. Politics and technology nowadays are very much intertwined and the politics of a society ultimately significantly affects what its technology looks like (capitalist SW, censorship, bloat, spyware, DRM, ...), what goals it serves (consumerism, productivity, control, war, peace, ...) and how it is developed (COCs, free software, ...), so studying technology ultimately requires understanding politics around it. I hate arguing about politics, but it is inevitable, we have to specify real-life goals clearly if we're to create good technology. Political goals guide us in making important design decisions about features, tradeoffs and other attributes.
Of course you can fork this wiki and try to remove politics from it, but I think it won't be possible to just keep the technology part alone so that it makes sense, most things will be left without justification and explanation.
What is the political direction of LRS then?
Anarcho pacifist communism, however we are NOT pseudoleftist (i.e. we don't support political correctness, violence, cancel culture, Marxism-Leninism etc.). We create technology to help everyone and abuse no one, i.e. a technology for the society of people that are socially (not necessarily physically) equal. Aiming for equality we reject anti-equality means and concepts such as violence, censorship, bullying, canceling, capitalism, governments, police, wars etc.
WTF I am offended, is this a nazi site? Are you racist/Xphobic? Do you love Hitler?!?!
We're not fascists, we're in fact the exact opposite: our aim is to create technology that benefits everyone equally without any discrimination. I (drummyfish) am personally a pacifist anarchist, I love all living beings and believe in absolute social equality of all life forms. We invite and welcome everyone here, be it gays, communists, rightists, trannies, pedophiles or murderers, we love everyone equally, even you and Hitler.
What we do NOT engage in is political correctness, censorship, offended culture, identity politics and pseudoleftism. We do NOT support fascist groups such as feminists and LGBT and we will NOT practice bullying and codes of conducts. We do not pretend there aren't any differences between people and we will make jokes that make you feel offended.
Why do you use the word Nigger so much?
To counter its censorship. The more they censor something, the more I am going to uncensor it. They have to learn that the only way to make me not say that word so often is to stop censoring it, so to their action of censorship I produce a reaction they dislike. That's basically how you train a dog. (Please don't ask who "they" are.).
It also has the nice side effect of making this less likely to be used by corporations and SJWs.
How can you say you love all living beings and use offensive language at the same time?
The culture of being offended is bullshit, it is a pseudoleftist (fascist) invention that serves as a weapon to justify censorship, canceling and bullying of people. Since I love all people, I don't support any weapons against anyone (not even against people I dislike or disagree with). People are offended by language because they're taught to be offended by it by the propaganda, I am helping them unlearn it.
But how can you so pretentiously preach "absolute love" and then say you hate capitalists, fascists, bloat etc.?
OK, firstly we do NOT love everything, we do NOT advocate against hate itself, only against hate of living beings (note we say we love everyone, not everything). Hating other things than living beings, such as some bad ideas or malicious objects, is totally acceptable, there's no problem with it. We in fact think hate of some concepts is necessary for finding better ways.
Now when it comes to "hating" people, there's an important distinction to be stressed: we never hate a living being as such, we may only hate their properties. So when we say we hate someone, it's merely a matter of language convenience -- saying we hate someone never means we hate a person as such, but only some thing about that person, for example his opinions, his work, actions, behavior or even appearance. I can hear you ask: what's the difference? The difference is we'll never try to eliminate a living being or cause it suffering because we love it, we may only try to change, in non-violent ways, their attributes we find wrong (which we hate): for example we may try to educate the person, point out errors in his arguments, give him advice, and if that doesn't work we may simply choose to avoid his presence. But we will never target hate against him.
And yeah, of course sometimes we make jokes and sarcastic comments, it is relied on your ability to recognize those yourself.
So you really "love" everyone, even dicks like Trump, school shooters, instagram influencers etc.?
Yes, but it may need an elaboration. There are many different kinds of love: love of a sexual partner, love of a parent, love of a pet, love of a hobby, love of nature etc. Obviously we can't love everyone with the same kind of love we have e.g. for our life partner, that's impossible if we've actually never even seen most people who live on this planet. The love we are talking about -- our universal love of everyone -- is an unconditional love of life itself. Being alive is a miracle, it's beautiful, and as living beings we feel a sense of connection with all other living beings in this universe who were for some reason chosen to experience this rare miracle as well -- we know what it feels like to live and we know other living beings experience this special, mysterious privilege too, though for a limited time. This is the most basic kind of love, an empathy, the happiness of seeing someone else live. It is sacred, there's nothing more pure in this universe than feeling this empathy, it works without language, without science, without explanation. While not all living beings are capable of this love (a virus probably won't feel any empathy), we believe all humans have this love in them, even if it's being suppressed by their environment that often forces them compete, hate, even kill. Our goal is to awaken this love in everyone as we believe it's the only way to achieve a truly happy coexistence of us, living beings.
I dislike this wiki, our teacher taught us that global variables are bad and that OOP is good.
This is not a question you dummy. Have you even read the title of this page? Anyway, your teacher is stupid, he is, very likely unknowingly, just spreading the capitalist propaganda. He probably believes what he's saying but he's wrong.
Lol you've got this fact wrong and you misunderstand this and this topic, you've got bugs in code, your writing sucks etc. How dare you write about things you have no clue about?
I want a public domain encyclopedia that includes topics of new technology. Since this supposedly modern society failed to produce even a single one and since every idiot on this planet wants to keep his copyright on everything he writes, I am forced to write the encyclopedia myself, even for the price of making mistakes. No, US public domain doesn't count as world wide public domain. Blame this society for not allowing even a tiny bit of information to slip into public domain. Writing my own encyclopedia is literally the best I can do in the situation I am in. Nothing is perfect, I still believe this can be helpful to someone. You shouldn't take facts from a random website for granted. If you wanna help me correct errors, email me.
How can you use CC0 if you, as anarchists, reject laws and intellectual property?
We use it to remove law from our project. Using a license such as GFDL would mean we're keeping our copyright and are willing to execute enforcement of intellectual property laws, however using a CC0 waiver means we GIVE UP all lawful exclusive rights that have been forced on us. This has no negative effects: if law applies, then we use it to remove itself, and if it doesn't, then nothing happens. To those that acknowledge the reality of the fact that adapting proprietary information can lead to being bullied by the state we give a guarantee this won't happen, and others simply don't have to care.
What software does this wiki use?
Git, the articles are written in markdown and converted to HTML with a simple script.
I don't want my name associated with this, can you remove a reference to myself or my software from your wiki?
No.
Are you retarded?
:( Maybe, but even a stupid person can sometimes have smart ideas.