Stop Saying Freedom is a Private Matter
Alper Atmaca
There is a wide spread misconseption about freedom. Almost everyone think freedom is theirs(!) to decide. So many sentences starting with “my freedom” are being heard, one may simply get convinced that everybody has some sort of freedom pouch they hang from their belt.
Freedom is defined by -like most things- their dialectic conterpart. Like shadow cannot exist without light, freedom cannot exist without an opressor. If there is nothing to be “free from” why would be there a need to define it? An opressor can be a person, an institution or even physics itself such as gravity. There is no distiction. Restricted by a public rule or gravitational pull, the result is the same; you cannot exert full authonomity. This fact makes freedom a public resource we all share, use and advance together.
Gravity is one opressor we all indiscriminatly share togetter. We cannot jump as well as we like or we fall if we slip. Just because there is someone on an aircraft flying does not mean he has some sort of personal freedom from gravity. The person on the aircraft is defying gravity in expense of all the other ground dweller’s budget; airpolution, explotation of workers who builds the aircraft, occupying limited airspace, ext.
The idea of freedom also one integral part of being a homo sapiens sapiens. Humankind did not invent tools influenced by a black extraterestial monolith[1] but pure need for fending natural opressors. Weather, predetors and every environmental hazzard is narrowing what one can achive and to widen freedom one need to fight them back. That is the reason imprisonment is a punishment and enslavement is never had been truely consented.
You do not have a freedom to use propriority software and services! You do not have a right granted to you to choose enslavement of yourself to overlords of our digital and now physical existence. Saying so is either a sign of ignorance or not being a homo sapiens sapiens at all. There is no freewill when there isn’t totally acceptable two alternatives and in a time where almost every single code and device is controled by handfull of corperation you don’t get to choose freely.
If you are oblivious to the fact that there is an alternative to digital enslavement, you are excused from this discussion. But for those who know free software, free hardware, right ot fix movements exist and how they strugle to get self determination and power back to people you do not get to choose enslavement! Every propriority software you install, every walled garden you get in, every public resource depleting online service you use, when there is an alternative, you actually strip every other person on this planet a bit of their freedom, feed it to your overlords and use what is left on the plate for your own greed!
There is no denying or walking around it. This happened before in human history. People stood up for their life and what we know as freedom and rights are build upon their struggle and pain. If you decide to dispose your freedom, you should know that there is a price tag comes along.