It’s a set of apps that help you sync files between devices. It does so without relying on a centralized server, which is a curse (because you need the devices to be on and online) and a blessing (because it can be fast and private). I use it every day. It’s great!

I use my to-do app as a ‘Read Later App’ 🤷‍♂️🙃

There’s a fair bit of bias in the terms “restrictive” and “permissive”, which make MIT seem like a ‘better’ choice than a give-and-take license like GPL.

The truth is, MIT is risky for developers. Using just one line from an MIT-licensed project will automatically allow others to exploit your work without giving back. I’d prefer to advocate for balanced licenses that protect both user and developer interests.

We are at risk

of losing many developers who would otherwise choose a license like the GPL. Fortunately, I’m glad to be surrounded by people, just like you, who care about licenses like GPL. By uploading this type of content and engaging with it, be show our commitment to it. I wish to suggest how we can deal with this threat.

We will lose developers who choose GPL if we use words that suggest GPL is “restrictive”. Sure, the word “restrictive” was avoided in this meme by using the word “copyleft”, but the cognitive jump from “permissive” to “restrictive” is minimal: just add an “opposite” and you’ve got “permissive is the opposite to restrictive”. It really is that simple. That’s how brain works (check out Relational Frame Theory to see how that works).

So what can we do about it?

Well, we can approach this with science. There is a historical global trend towards people being more meta-cognitive. That means that people are becoming more aware of how our thoughts interpret everyday reality and how to be intentional with our relationship with our thoughts so that we live better lives. We know this trend is happening to virtually everyone everywhere because of the work of brilliant sociologists like Anthony Giddens and Christian Welzel. Heck, even the history of psychology —going from noticing and changing behaviors (behaviorism) to noticing and changing behaviors and thoughts (cognitive-behaviorism), to noticing and changing the context and function of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions (functional contextualism)— reflects this trend.

We can use meta-cognition in our favor; we can use the meta-cognitive tool of framing to change how we think about GPL and MIT licenses. Effective communicators like influencers, political campaign experts, and influential activists use framing all the time. For example, instead of using the dangerous framing that suggests GPL is ‘restrictive’, we can use another one that truly displays the virtues of the license.

What would this other frame look like? I may not have a perfect answer, but here are some

ways of framing (thinking about) the relationship between licenses like GPL and MIT:

(ironically!!!, these were ‘suggested’ by an LLM; I wonder if these frames already existed)

• “Investment-Protecting Licenses” vs. “Investment-Risking Licenses” (as in developers invest by working on projects that they could (not) lose the ability to contribute to)
• “Community-Resource-Guarding Licenses” vs. “Exploitation-Vulnerable Licenses”
• “Give-and-Take Licenses” vs. “Take-and-Keep Licenses” ⭐
• “Freedom-Ensuring Licenses” vs. “Freedom-Risking Licenses” ⭐
• “Contribution-Rewarding Licenses” vs. “Contribution-Exploiting Licenses”
• “Open-Source-Preserving Licenses” vs. “Closed-Source-Enabling Licenses”

I’d be happy to hear what you think, including suggestions!

A friend of mine and I have gotten used to using it during our conversations. We do fast fact-checking or find a good first opinion regarding silly topics. We often find it faster than digging through search-engine results and interpreting scattered information. We have used it for thought experiments, intuitive or ELI5 explanations of topics that we don’t really know about, finding peer-reviewed sources for whatever it is that we’re interested in, or asking questions that operationalizing into effective search engine prompts would be harder than asking with natural language. We always always ask for citations and links, so that we can discard hallucinations.

If people are here to receive recommendations, I’m preaching to the choir. But responding the question directly, a computer of my own. Being able to go online or work on digital stuff whenever I want to has changed my life for the better.

It seems like you’re passionate about emojis

The book Influence by Cialdini not only talks about the levers of influence, but how to minimize their impact.

I agree. And that’s exactly my point 😅

I love how you put it. I think the particular consequences of not making money quickly enough is pulling the plug in projects. Investors want money, not games.

You seem to be doing quite some things well. Maybe pay attention to your brushing? My dentist once had me brush my teeth in front of her and identified why in some teeth I’d consistently be clean and in others I’d consistently build plaque.

Her recommendations: brush from the gum to the tip of the tooth. Try to aim at the holes between teeth. Pay close attention to the part in front of your tongue, in your lower front teeth; that part can easily build plaque if you don’t use the tip of your brush well to get in the holes between your teeth.

I read ebooks 😢

Out of curiosity, what makes you say so?

Edit: Oh. Did a “Wooosh” happen to me right now? Are you being ironic and referring to the XKCD thing about how to make a secure password using words in phrases?

We all have thoughts in our head. They are the lenses through which we see reality.

Sometimes, we are aware of that. For example, we may realize we’re being prejudiced or that we’re being cranky because of our mood.

However, this uses up a lot of energy; our frontal lobe is very energy-hungry. So we spend most of the time thinking habitual thoughts and following habitual behaviors. We don’t realize we’re looking at reality through a lens. We assume we are simply looking at reality.

What I am wishing for is for people to constantly be aware that the way they are looking at reality depends on the lenses they have learned and habitually use.

Metacognition becomes routine for humans. We are able to better de-fuse from our thoughts, and recognize them not as reality but as thoughts about reality.

Could this backfire? Like, sure, no combustion engines, but that would be solved in the long run with electricity. But are there things I’m forgetting that would be critical? Like a chemical process for critical chemicals that requires explosions or something like that.

This brought to my mind Coherence Therapy and its emphasis on memory reconsolidation. Also this therapy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFdSd5ow0yw

I do the same but with interviews with the people that made the movie, especially the writers.

Frame challenge: to avoid mass surveillance, a good FLOSS E2EE app ✌️😎

This makes me think that malware will be able to be in an iPhone even before it is taken out of the box. I wonder if this will become an issue in the future. I suppose time, good research, and effective journalism will let us know.