[PLUG-TALK] Voting Fraud, and back to open source

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> We have open source hardware for voting; its called paper
> ballots.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 06:59:46AM -0700, Paul Heinlein wrote:
> The Oregon system is good at optimizing for small-scale fraud while
> making large-scale fraud very difficult. 

The whole voting "system" is not just the balloting;
it includes the rules for getting on the official ballot,
the information channels to voters, and the beliefs and
prejudices that the voters are trained to have.

At the 10,000 foot level, it is the processes that divide
voters (mostly) into two hostile and ineffective camps,
rather than unite them against the power monopolies that
rob individuals of vocation, freedom, and community.

Training people to become docile consumers of federally
subsidized crap food and fashionable fragile consumables
doesn't even benefit rich plutocrats; they are mindlessly
running on their own ultra-status consumer treadmills,
the fake luxury rabbits chased by the plebeian greyhounds
around a dog track that goes nowhere.

If this pointless "system" was on a ballot, THAT is what
I would vote against.  Instead, I'll just leap the fence
and join the feral mutts in the alley; scorned, disheveled,
underfed, ... and free. 

Open source software used to be an alley mutt; we did it
because it was cute, and fun, and free.  Free in both
senses; we could do what we liked with the software, and
we did not need to spend time earning more money to
purchase the temporary permission to use it.

Then Open Source became a job, defined by chasing the
Microsoft and Apple rabbits around the track.  It became
big bucks and lucrative IPOs and expensive recruiting
booths at OSCON.  We are so busy chasing fake rabbits
that we don't have time to putter around, and just plain
ignore the "two party, zero freedom" duopolies.  We are
fashionable, and relevant, and restricted, and robotic.

While I would love to vote on the fundamentals, I don't get
to.  Instead, I vote with how I spend my time, and I spend
little of it arguing about "the wrong candidate" winning. 
Ridiculous systems deserve ridiculous leaders, and I'm glad
ridiculous people waste their ridiculous lives on such
nonsense.  They are too busy to find me and waste my time.

Be free; don't wait for a vote, don't ask for permission.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com