this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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I do appreciate the transparency from the Lemmy devs and re their views (whether only alleged or actual) on controversial topics, I think the issue is not in the software itself and in how the devs themselves are using it. However given the nature of the fediverse and how Lemmy is programmed, you can use the software however you like, as we do here on Beehaw.
Similarly, we can look to the "death of the author" debate to settle this. I'm not going to discuss what that is and what it isn't here (as that isn't the purpose of this post or this comment), however, I will state that my definition of "death of the author" involves critically enjoying a piece of media despite its author's bad views if and only if those views aren't inherent to the work and they aren't profiting off of my consumption of the work itself. Beehaw is like that. Sure the creators of the software are involved in a controversy, but the way the devs use their own software is not an inherent feature of the software. Beehaw has a fantastic setup and ethos, so I find my home here. Sure, there's not that many specific communities, but that's what federation is for.
Another analogy, however accurate (no analogy is perfect): people lobby governments with money to get them to pass problematic legislation, but people still participate in the economy.
note on that analogy because I feel it needs saying
Yes, I know that participating in the economy, especially in the United States where I live but really anywhere is a bit necessary to, well, exist most places if not everywhere, but people unknowingly support controversial people all the time. See Nestle and their controversies. Even bringing that up reminds me of the illusion of choice and how everything is owned by five companies (and even then mostly everything is owned by like two VC groups). I'm digressing, of course, but I hope you see my point in bringing this up.TL;DR: The way the devs use the software should not impede our use of the software given that the devs' views are not inherent to any use case of the software.
I agree with the first part. I completely fail to see how the analogy at the end applies. Capitalists and their corporations lobby the government to pass legislation that directly fucks the economy to make it worse for working-class people who use it (and, in fact, depend on it for their basic survival). So it's much, much more like Reddit where people have to use the one corporate system that exploits and oppresses them than like someone developing a piece of FOSS software that other people can use independently. In fact, if you try to build a separate economy, the state's violent enforcers (police and/or military, depending on the context) will come in and abuse and murder you and tear apart your independent economy and force people back into the fold.
My point with including thr analogy about the economy was to say, in essence, "people do bad things with money all the time yet we still use it," although, again, I will bring up how this isn't a good analogy because of our reliance on capital to obtain things like healthcare, food, and housing.
Wonderfully put, couldn't have said it better myself.