Do you ever get sad because the cyberpunk dystopia we're living in is so much stupider then the one we were promised?
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:David Campeyreplied to BananaBarrow on last edited by
@BananaBarrow @serge @jenniferplusplus Here for this too.
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Serge from Babkareplied to :David Campey on last edited by [email protected]
@davidcampey @BananaBarrow @jenniferplusplus
The very short version is that I was very depressed. I felt worthless, I had only a couple of friends, and my girlfriend, who I had felt was the only person who could love me, had broken up with me before college.
On top of that, both because of neudivergence, and because of the depression, I didn't socialize well. I didn't say hello, I would blurt things out in a blunt and thoughtless way, etc.
It made it even harder to make friends- and basically impossible to meet, nonetheless have meaningful connections with women.
In the winter of 1997, I learned about "Linux", in part from a friend, and in part from a homeless man who slept in the computer lab I worked at.
I didn't go home that winter break. I stayed in the dorms. For part of it, I wasn't even allowed to return to my own dorm room, having to be in a temporary dorm. My computer was too big to lug, so it stayed in my dorm.
1/
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Serge from Babkareplied to Serge from Babka on last edited by
@davidcampey @BananaBarrow @jenniferplusplus
I wanted to learn Linux/Unix, so I bought two books, "No BS Linux" and "Teach Yourself Unix in 24 hours". The 24 hour book was really 24 1-hour lessons, so I decided to do one lesson a day over the break.
I studied the book every day more intensely than any textbook. I struggled with the concepts. I tried things that I could, and what I couldn't, or what left me confused... I went to bed angry. I woke up angry too, but determined.
I had to get it done. It drove me, like an obsession, like a purpose.
Eventually when i got back to the dorms, I worked on my PC, getting Linux on it. Back then it wasn't so easy, even with the "easy to use" Red Hat 4.1 disk that No BS Linux came with.
I broke my computer's install so many times, and reinstalled, and broke it and reinstalled.
But by the end of winter break, I knew the system. I really felt I understood it.
I learned Unix!
And then came the second part...
2/
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Serge from Babkareplied to Serge from Babka on last edited by
@davidcampey @BananaBarrow @jenniferplusplus
Knowing Linux was great, but when I learned about Free Software, and that whole ideology, it changed my life.
There was a multi-page article about the movement in Forbes, with a cover of Linus Torvalds, and images of RMS, in *Forbes*, talking about the philosophy of Free Software.
It wasn't just software, it was a new way (for me) of looking at the world, of ethics, of societal structures.
It felt like I saw a way out of the nightmare I'd written about...An alternative world, of freedom and empowerment.
I became obsessed with Linux and Free Software. I had a purpose, a reason to live.
I went to LUG meetings, I made friends. Yes these friends were in their 30s, but they were friends.
I had a community of people, and a philosophy to live by, and a reason to keep going.
I was part of a movement that was at the cutting edge of the (new) thing called the Internet, and the way it would transform people's lives.
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Serge from Babkareplied to Serge from Babka on last edited by
@davidcampey @BananaBarrow @jenniferplusplus
Eventually these friends helped me get my real first job, working for Ralph Nader, doing what I felt at the time was good, important work. I was making the world a better place.
When I graduated college, I was able get another job working on FLOSS as well, mostly because I'd run a LUG at my school and met a guy who took me to a drinking event with sys-admins.
That gave me a job, something I don't think I'd have been easily able to get without those friends and connections.
Free Software saved my life, more than once.
4/4
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BananaBarrowreplied to Serge from Babka on last edited by
@davidcampey @jenniferplusplus @serge
I really appreciate you writing and sharing this. There’s a lot of doom in the world, and it does deserve attention, but stories like this one help me get up and keep trying each day. So, thank you. -
:David Campeyreplied to BananaBarrow on last edited by
@BananaBarrow @jenniferplusplus @serge Very much, yours is an inspiring story, one to encourage the #opensource movement and pursuit of freedom from oppression in all its forms.
Thanks for sharing and helping epitomise the reason we strive for freedom.
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Serge from Babkareplied to :David Campey on last edited by [email protected]
@davidcampey @BananaBarrow @jenniferplusplus
I see my story as not inspiring, but important for a different reason.
More than anything else, I was lonely and felt unlovable.
Free Software gave me two keys things: Community and Purpose.
When I see so many people, especially a lot of young men, who are lost in society, and they get caught up in hate movements, or Incel, or any of those- what I see are people who weren't able to find a good community or good purpose, so instead they got caught up with really bad people instead.
There's so much lost goodness with these folks, but when you're lonely and you feel like no one loves you, and no one can love you, you're going to gravitate to people who show you care, especially if they present it as "it's us against them".
Society needs to do a much better job for these folks.
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Serge from Babkareplied to :David Campey on last edited by
@davidcampey @BananaBarrow @jenniferplusplus
Also, I'm going to be a little bit of a stickler here... The Open Source movement has no ethical framework. That was its specific design goal, to divorce the ethical framework from the practical benefits of Free Software.
We certainly need a better, less toxic, more inclusive Free Software movement, but the important part there is to maintain a purpose, and Open Source's practical benefits only are great for getting people in the door, but it's Free Software's philosophy of helping the world that drove me, and I think drives many others.