Comment by arandr0x | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arandr0x | Hacker News Reader

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In the 90s we thought open-source was countercultural. It was something you did to be part of a community, to be elite, to show those big dummies at Microsoft you didn't need them.

Today it's something you do to show Microsoft they need you, because today Bill Gates is the world's nicest old man, big companies are safer than the state, and nobody needs any individual person anymore.

It's happened with many other things. For example, early in the last century, journalism was something you did because you didn't want the powers that be to be the only ones heard, and today, well. In the 70s, popular culture was something you engaged with because you didn't want money to be the end-all of your life, and today, well.

It doesn't make open source (or writing or talking about music you like) a bad thing. It's just eventually adults who have money adopt things you like and adulthood and money change people. And when that happens it's not necessarily a loss. Counterculture becomes mainstream after it's _won_. In a lot of ways Linux won, and it _is_ on most people's daily computers today, even though that computer doesn't have a keyboard.

I wish I knew a kid today like I was then, though. A kid that doesn't want mainstream stuff, a kid who thinks we've all got it wrong, a kid who could tell me I don't get it. Because I'm sure I don't "get it" the way adults didn't get it in the 90s: I just don't know what "it" is anymore.

Hi, that’s easy. It = Youtube. Details:

It = feminism and men’s rights. I don’t know where is the crux of it, but nothing adds up about it: Feminist studies are all disproved one by one (remember wage gap?) and storytelling keeps making people believe women are unequal, which _isn’t true_ by far.

It’s Brexit. It’s Trump. Again, storytelling makes people believe they’re bad although careful study shows... least I say, the opposite. Storytelling.

It’s the state. People, especially in Europe believe in the state like they believed in God in 1100: The state is the source of all goods, it represents the people’s general will, and no matter how you show them this isn’t the case, they believe in it so much that we’ll need a Galileo Galilei to shake them off their beliefs. We’ll have to disprove this belief in the state like we had to disprove the belief in God in 1630.

If there’s something you underestimate, it’s the culture shift represented by Youtube, in which youngsters devote themselves. Youtube is a great way to present an idea and link to sources. Show a document on screen and link to sources. Everyone can present a trial of a false idea on Youtube and disprove it. That’s what’s happening for feminism. For Brexit. For Trump. For Kavanaugh. For the Iraki war. For Bachar el Assad. You don’t get Youtube ;) Those answers lie in all the deleted channels of Youtube (ex: “Soph”’s deleted channel, available on Bitchute). You say people engaged in journalism in 1900 because they didn’t want the powers that be to be the only ones heard. Now you have a full generation of Gen Z kids, 13 years old, already able to denounce the storytelling that doesn’t add up, built by mainstream media, movies, school, newspapers. It is sweeping. You _don’t_ get it :D

I’m kidding of course, because chances are you do understand where they’re coming from. But chances are you’ve built mental barriers to prevent from acknowledging their points too, like “muh fake news I only trust CNN”, but so did conservatives in 1969 couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that the Generation X could use a bit more social freedom than their parents. Older people never understand the big changes, because they had reasons to believe they were incorrect.

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