It’s been a while that I haven’t update the blogs. It is so easy to slack off on good habits. “Oh I will continue once I finish A B C”. We are all busy as hell, in the software world, you WORK, you WORK and you GO TO SLEEP. Like this one, I am always hoping to switch to Hugo, then I can continue writing the blog. The thing is, I never got the good weekend to do the switching. Weekends are really no for staying at home confronting monitors.
Okay, this topic started a while ago when I was on YouTube watching the fake guru video, it kinda touch my own feelings as in many ways. We programmers, I would say are simple peoples, whenever you have technical questions, there are always that one hero on Stack Overflow, give you the snippet you need for free. I have being taking advantages of this incredible website for my entire career, to the point I start to take it for granted. Like I think it runs the same way for everything else in the world. The hard cold truth is, IT DOES NOT.
Software world, especially the free software world, are actually really exceptional in this capitalistic world. Everyone else is think about profit and exchange, and that is how Adam Smith explained in his book, how it is taught in the economic classes. The world is functioning on exchange, free labor produces ZERO economical value. I won’t try to judge it, or comment on the correctness, or scare you off with Marxian economics. But today really, MARKETING has becoming increasing more important than the PRODUCT itself. To the point you can simply sell the empty promises, without putting any labor on product.
Have you ever read Rich Dad Poor Dad? I did, in the beginning, it felt polarizing, “let the morning work for you”, “watch your cash-flow”. This book and millions books after it, promise you will be a happy, rich person after reading it. Then I found out, all he wrote(not sure if Robert Kiyosaki actually even wrote most of the book) in the book is promising. And in the end you find out he wrote nothing real in the book at all. Right, do you want to know more, go to his seminars, listen more of those marketing speech and make him rich… “The Promise of Happiness”, It is a dopamine hook, we human are all vulnerable to it. Especially when you are in your 20s trying to figure out life. In the end, if you go deeper and deeper, you will get into the hands of devil, the classic, and vicious MLM.
What does this has to do with the title? Cult or Belief, I am not sure if I chose the word right. To me free software is a belief, it is a real thing you can grab on, bring value to you and your communities. How is the free software ideology different than those fake gurus? It is a noble cause? It is about giving and not taking? I think there is no shame searching for happiness and wealth in life. We are not monks after all. If there is one true “guru”, could point you to the right way… Not sure if there is but I never met one. Or do you think there will be successful people giving out their SECRETS to you, maybe if they are you mom and dads, Ha-Ha.
In the end I couldn’t answer the my question, Is it a cult or belief? I hope you are wise enough when you see one. Take care in the world.