Comment by pacman1337

> They have so much power to improve and fight against the dystopian world that is being created by all these evil corporations, if they just realized what we actually need to build.

That is a tad dramatic. You could also say the same thing about any art form.

- Painters spend all of their time working on artwork only a few people will ever see!

- Musicians don't realize how their time is wasted composing music that won't solve any problems!

- People are starving right now, as another writer dares to write a story that simply tries to entertain the reader.

Everything is political, and we all should keep that in mind. We all have effects on society no matter what. But also, it's fine to make a cromulent thing because it's interesting. We've all only got so much time alive, but you're going to squander the experience if you try to min-max impact on those 90-odd years. People do have to live for themselves sometimes, and this person likes making a neat homebrew OS.

The majority of what we make is temporary, and a majority of software amounts to wheel reinvention. But this is true throughout history. Crafted objects had always have their design iterated upon and adjusted to meet the available dependencies.

Liberation isn't found in "fighting", as if there were some kind of ideological showdown that resolved everything. That's a way to drain your energy for living while waiting for a final resolution that never comes. Indeed, by directing it towards "enemies" you can accumulate guilt in yourself, and become increasingly unstable.

Rather, it has to be part of living and personal character, to take opportunities to "do hard things" because they are interesting, not because you are coerced. When you do this, succeed, and pass down the knowledge, the potential opens up to others. You don't have to believe right things to stumble into new ideas.

Thinking like that is a trap. No matter what you are working on there could always be some other project that has greater "value to humanity".

I for one celebrate any time people invest their efforts in building something unique, new and interesting. This project is absolutely delightful.

you already provided 3 reasons: "Very cool and impressive, you probably learned a lot". Why does everything you do have to serve humanity? what have you done to serve humanity and why are your other projects not serving humanity? And who are you to push your views and dictate what others do?

Jesus, can't people have fun anymore? Does everything have to be "important for humanity"?

Do you listen to music, read books, have sex etc? I bet you do. And I also bet that you would find it pretty ridiculous if someone asked you why you do those things instead of helping humanity.

Not sure why you were downvoted. I think you're probably right about a lot of that. I do know that it's certainly the case for me. I have a lot of talent, but I can't harness it unless I find a project I truly believe in. But who's to say which projects are worthwhile, which projects genuinely help humanity? Not everything we do and breathe needs to be activism against injustice all the time. Take pico8 as an example. That has rejuvenated the joy and wonder of countless aging programmers, and probably taught many young people how to make games. Is that not inherently a good thing? And it made money doing it, should it not?

Imagine being the guy saying this to Linus Torvalds when he did the OG "Show HN":

  Hello everybody out there using minix -

  I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. ...

  It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

  I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

  ...

  Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)