[Arm-netbook] OT: Librem 5?

[Christopher Havel]

Throwing my voice in the ring...

*On topic --* I agree with the 'shades of grey' view of things. Life is not
simple, and (with exactly one single exception, AFAIK) anyone who says
otherwise is deluding themselves and possibly others. There are just
varying kinds of complexity. The sole exception I can find is blissful
ignorance, and I for one want nothing of that.

*Not-entirely-on-topic-but-we're-talking-about-it-so-whatever --*
"socialism" got its bad rap because of a different but similar system
called "communism". Someone somewhere got the bright idea (not!) to
conflate the two, and away we went. Actual, real, true socialism (Marxist
or otherwise) has, as far as I'm aware, never been actually tested as a
means of governance. Communism has, but that's different, in a way that (as
usual) is nuanced and can't be really reduced to a sound bite quite nearly
as easily as "socialism is bad ya'll".

For those who do not study political science enough to know the difference
-- in a nutshell, socialism relies on the people to overthrow their
existing government and replace it with socialism. Communism is a
revolution from within the government, in that the people are not to be
trusted to pull it all off correctly and so the government must do it for
them. This demonstrably leads to paranoia in governance and a totalitarian
state.

*Nota Bene -- *mind you, while I consider myself a socialist, I am NOT NOT
NOT FLAMING NOT a Marxist. Marx's original idea called, as the end product,
for a "non-state" (for lack of a better term) -- what amounted to a sort of
cooperative anarchy wherein a government didn't exist because it was to be
superfluous. I do not have anywhere near enough faith in humanity (or
anything else) to imagine that such an organization (again, for lack of a
better term) would last one hot minute. The first yahoo born who realizes
how easy it is to game that system is going to bring the whole thing
crashing down -- and, given how crafty we all are as it is, that's going to
happen in a time frame best measured in fractional heartbeats. What I would
like to see, would look a little more like the way many Nordic countries
operate -- what they call "social democracy". I personally think there are
ways to improve even those systems, but that's the model I'd primarily
start with if I were given the order to reinvent civilization from the
ground up... (please don't ever give me that order, though, as I will
freely volunteer that I am in no way qualified for the job. I'm just
another armchair emperor, so to speak...)