--- /dev/null
+#+TITLE: LibrePlanet 2022: Living in freedom with GNU Emacs
+#+AUTHOR: Protesilaos Stavrou (https://protesilaos.com)
+
+Hello LibrePlanet! Hello folks! My name is Protesilaos, also known as
+"Prot". I am joining you today from the mountains of Cyprus. Cyprus is
+a country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
+
+In this presentation I will explain how GNU Emacs has allowed me to live
+in greater computing freedom. Most of this talk will cover what Emacs
+is, why it can help the user live in freedom, and how those relate to my
+particular case.
+
+There will also be some more theoretical insights. They are not
+specific to Emacs or computing in general, but will help us reason about
+liberty both in its personalised experience and community-based
+actuality.
+
+The text I am reading from is provided to the organisers of this
+conference. Those interested will be able to retrieve it from the
+relevant sources.
+
+* A brief introduction to Emacs
+
+Let's start with an overview of what GNU Emacs is. At a surface level,
+it is a capable text editor. One can use it to do programming or write
+prose. Emacs has everything a user needs to perform these tasks, such
+as efficient keyboard-driven motions, mouse support, spell checking and
+code linting, line numbers to show where the focus is on the current
+file, integration with the underlying operating system, and much more.
+
+One can use Emacs as a generic text editor, if they want. Though Emacs
+is much more than that. Here are some other highlights that are
+provided by the official package:
+
+- A thoughtful windowing or multiplexing facility so that the user can
+ have different files or "buffers" displayed on the screen at once.
+
+- A potent file manager or what is technically referred to as "directory
+ editor" (=dired=).
+
+- A comprehensive suite of tools for handling to-do lists, capturing and
+ filing ideas or information, organising a daily agenda, establishing
+ hyperlinks to all sorts of contexts to create a knowledge base or
+ simply retrieve what is needed, and writing potentially technical
+ documents with a lightweight-yet-powerful markup language. This is
+ the much-lauded "Org mode" and its numerous accoutrements.
+
+- A framework to search through lists of candidates and narrow to a
+ given item using simple or advanced pattern matching styles.
+
+The list of features that are built in to Emacs is too long. But that
+is still not exhaustive, because Emacs is an extensible program. There
+are literally hundreds of third-party packages which provide additional
+functionality to fill in practically every niche. For example, there is
+a superb package which provides a fully fledged interface to the Git
+version control system (=magit=). Or another nimble tool which centres
+the contents of the buffer in the window (=olivetti=). I am using
+Olivetti right now for this presentation together with my own extras.
+
+In short, Emacs is powerful out-of-the-box and it gets even better with
+additional configuration. All are available under libre terms.
+
+* Emacs as a computing environment
+
+Now I want to tell you why I was drawn to Emacs by explaining what
+underpins all of the aforementioned features.
+
+Packages with advanced functionality are nice to have, but they still do
+not quite capture the essence of Emacs and what its true value
+proposition is. Besides, most modern editors have a plugin system to
+give the user whatever piece of ad-hoc functionality they require. So
+what's so special about Emacs?
+
+The answer consists in the fact that Emacs is not really a text editor.
+It is a programmable platform where text editing is one of the main
+points of interaction.
+
+Emacs is written in a programming language that is a dialect of Lisp.
+It is called "Emacs Lisp" or "Elisp". The vast majority of the code
+base is written in Elisp. While this language is also used to apply all
+user configurations. For the end-user then, there is only one language,
+one paradigm. In other words, there is no distinction between the
+built-in code and whatever code is provided by the user: everything is
+done uniformly.
+
+At the core of Emacs is the capacity to read and run Elisp. This is
+known as "evaluation". When some Elisp is evaluated, its return value
+becomes readily available to the environment. There is no need to
+restart the program: extensibility happens in real-time where the user
+can discern the effects right away in an interactive fashion.
+
+In this regard, Emacs is a Lisp machine that can be used to execute any
+sort of program. By "program" I mean anything from a powerhouse like
+Org or Magit, to small-scale functions that streamline text editing
+patterns and motions.
+
+Furthermore, Emacs is self-documenting. What this means is that it
+understands when the value of a variable has changed and will inform the
+user about it in the relevant Help buffer. Same principle for
+referencing other functions whose new value is relevant to the matter at
+hand.
+
+Lastly, Emacs is free software and provides the means to access the
+entire source code both for the built-in tools as well as any installed
+packages. This bridges the gap between what the documentation says and
+what the actual program is doing.
+
+* I use Emacs as an integrated computing environment
+
+I switched to Emacs in the summer of 2019, without any knowledge of Lisp
+and with only a basic understanding of programming. My background is in
+the humanities and I was not a tech-savvy user until only a few years
+ago.
+
+I was drawn to Emacs because I recognised the potential of a Lisp
+machine. What I wanted was to develop a layer of integration between
+the otherwise disparate tools I was using before for my day-to-day
+computing. I wanted a consistent theme, precise typography, the same
+set of motions or patterns of interaction for everything. Moreover, I
+wanted to be able to draw linkages between the various contexts or
+interfaces: my email client should talk directly to my task planner and
+file manager, the configurations that apply to prose should also be
+usable for programming, and the like.
+
+Emacs makes all of this possible either out-of-the-box or with
+third-party packages and custom code. If the user is willing to learn
+some Elisp, the possibilities are virtually endless. Here are some
+common workflows that can be achieved without too much knowledge:
+
+- Use the completion framework to run an asychronous search for file
+ contents, put the results in a dedicated buffer and edit them in
+ place. The changes will be propagated to all the affected files.
+
+- Capture the contents of the email you are reading and produce a to-do
+ item out of them. This task can also have a link back to the original
+ message and it may be assigned a scheduled date as well as a deadline,
+ making it show up on the agenda.
+
+- Mark some files in Dired and attach them to an email that is being
+ composed. Dired can mark items one by one or with regular expressions
+ and more advanced commands.
+
+- Record a set of motions (a "keyboard macro") which uses Dired as a
+ starting point, jumps to a given file, makes some changes, returns to
+ the file manager, and repeats the process for the next file.
+
+In all those cases, the user does not need to learn something new. For
+instance, keyboard macros are the same everywhere. Same principle for
+all the other pieces of functionality. They can be used on their own,
+yet also work in concert.
+
+Emacs thus makes it possible to connect the various interfaces without
+any of the friction that context-switching causes.
+
+-----
+
+This ultimately is about ease-of-use and simplicity at scale. For
+example, I use my own custom code to do this presentation. It takes a
+section of the document and narrows the view to give the impression that
+this is a pre-built slide. It is not. This is ordinary text that I can
+edit right now. So I am actually using a general purpose and minimalist
+"focus mode" which is equally useful for presentations, reading,
+writing, and programming.
+
+Because I do everything inside of Emacs, I only have to implement this
+once. I don't need to have a bespoke focus mode for my email client,
+then another for my text editor or text processor, a third for my agenda
+planner, and so on. Also, I don't need separate tools for writing and
+presenting my text. It is one and the same. Nice and simple!
+
+Add to this the fact that the underlying configuration is all done in
+Elisp, which further contributes to the streamlining of the overall
+result. Whereas before switching to Emacs I had to use different
+paradigms and/or languages for each application. For instance,
+Thurderbird and Libreoffice have their own settings menus that do not
+talk to each other. Mutt has another way of being configured; Vim
+another one; Tmux yet another; the terminal emulator has its own; and so
+on for practically every other application.
+
+This is not to say that each of those applications is bad per se. What
+I am suggesting is that their combined use, their gestalt form, is not
+optimal. The user has to go to great lengths to piece together a system
+out of all those silos of functionality. And even with great effort and
+all sorts of possible hacks, the result will still leave something to be
+desired, as those programs do not share a common platform and do not
+speak the same language (figuratively and literally).
+
+Whereas with Emacs every new package automatically gets what all other
+packages already have, such as the same font configurations and theme, a
+common set of motions and patterns of interaction, and so on. We then
+get the network effect that engenders emergent workflows. Everything
+that happens inside of Emacs partakes in the same environment. All
+contexts are potentially interconnected and one may draw linkages at
+will. This does not involve fragile workarounds. Integration and the
+singular experience of consistency it yields is at the centre of the
+value proposition of Emacs.
+
+* Consistency and autonomy
+
+Emacs is free software in terms of the license attached to it. Though
+the freedom it bestows upon the end-user is not limited to a legal
+arrangement or an abstract moral value. There is a practical aspect to
+it, which is the integrated computing environment I already outlined.
+
+The extensibility of Emacs empowers the user to make their computer do
+what they actually want for a broad range of tasks. While the
+uniformity of Elisp lowers the barrier to entry, especially if we
+contrast it with the multifaceted corpus of knowledge one needs to
+possess in order to piece together applications with no shared basis.
+
+Which brings me to the theme of this year's LibrePlanet about living in
+freedom. We want to appreciate liberty in its quotidian manifestation,
+as an expression of agency in the here-and-now. In this regard, Emacs
+is a tool that we use to minimise the distance between what we think and
+what the computer renders possible.
+
+Freedom of software is about ownership of the means of computing. It
+enables the development of autonomy within this space, in the original
+sense of the word as "self-rule". We have autonomy when the tools we
+use do what we want, instead of having their own hardcoded telos or,
+worse, being employed in the service of an entity that operates outside
+our control.
+
+In practical terms, I always found the lack of integration between the
+various applications I was using to be somewhat problematic. I felt
+like I was not getting the most out of my rights, as I could not make my
+tools do exactly what I wanted. Consequently, I was experiencing the
+seemingly paradoxical case where an assortment of free software
+applications was not leading to the maximisation of my autonomy. The
+emergent reality was not as good as the sum of the parts. The
+inconsistencies between those programs, or else their heterogeneity, was
+not working in my favour. Even though I was getting the maximum freedom
+on paper, the actual outcome was only one of partial autonomy; an
+/autonomy manqué/ or else the unfulfilled promise of liberty.
+
+To put it differently, I was being alienated from my own tools and was
+thus left in a position where I was not truly in charge: a state of
+heteronomy (rule by another).
+
+With Emacs, I managed to remove this heterogeneity and its resulting
+heteronomy from my everyday computing. Now I use Emacs for almost
+everything: to read and write, manage my files, organise my task
+planner, deal with my email correspondence, handle my music collection
+and play back tracks, browse the Internet, and so on. All contribute to
+the singular experience I alluded to earlier. The rare exception is
+when I have to use a graphical Web browser.
+
+-----
+
+The general insight here is that freedom has two aspects to it: the
+nominal and the substantive. The former is about the license attached
+to the code base. While the latter pertains to the code /in vivo/: how it
+can be used and how it relates to other programs in a given environment
+or as part of a wider workflow.
+
+I believe this has to make us reason about software freedom in the
+expanded sense. Consider code correctness, composability, and
+extensibility as attributes of a program that together contribute to its
+emancipatory function in practice. We want the substance, not mere
+conformity with legal requirements.
+
+Consider the case of a program that comes with no documentation
+whatsoever and is written in a way that makes the code difficult to
+read. It has a libre license but is otherwise not helping the user
+experience autonomy. The inner workings of the program make it hard for
+the user to understand what is going. In my experience, this is not
+sufficient for living in freedom, because "living" in freedom involves
+experiencing it, and "experiencing" is not limited to what a document
+says about the applicable copyright terms.
+
+What Emacs has taught me indirectly or perhaps inadvertently is that our
+focus as a community must be the end-user. We do not want to have freed
+code that is operated by powerless users. Instead, we want to teach the
+user how they may assume stewardship over their own means of computing.
+Free software must not be a mere alternative to proprietary code. It
+must incentivise a shift in attitude towards self-rule. We should
+strive to educate the user through the design of the program that they
+can use what is offered to them in a way that makes sense for them and
+not just the developer or provider. Little by little, step by step, the
+user will learn to seek freedom in everything and assume the requisite
+responsibility.
+
+The intent is to liberate the code from the familiar fetters of
+copyright in order to give power to the user. The code itself is not
+the final goal. As such, we must not limit our free software
+contributions to a formulaic =COPYING= file that accompanies some source
+code. The "take it or leave it" approach does not empower the user or
+anyhow lacks ambition. It is of paramount importance to make the
+program as accessible, configurable, and well documented as possible.
+Then we have both an excellent program and one that is conducive to the
+cause of freedom.
+
+The ideal must then be to provide points of entry so that all programs
+can be made to work in tandem. The best outcome is for the user to be
+in charge of the entirety of their computer and for everything to behave
+as part of a greater whole.
+
+* Freedom as a collective achievement
+
+If we discern the common in the multitude of all freedoms and
+concomitant rights, we find that freedom is two-fold: (i) the capacity
+for initiative and (ii) the absence of control. The first requires that
+the agent can act, while the second entails that the impetus for it is
+not provided, framed, or otherwise influenced by another agent.
+
+Action necessarily involves an agent and a patient or what we have in
+grammar as the subject and object of a verb. For our purposes, human
+action affects other humans or species. Thus what is possible as just
+action in this case is whatever does not create a form of control and
+does not deprive others of their initiative. Put differently, freedom
+has a social aspect to it and, by extension, ethics belong to the field
+of politics in the broader sense. There is no action in a vacuum and
+thus no qualitative aspects to be discerned thereof.
+
+Freedom is thus realised through the collective. The individual is but
+a part of the bigger picture. The realisation of freedom is a function
+of what the collective enables through the rules it establishes and
+upholds. These can be laws or norms of conduct with varying scopes of
+application. Freedom is thus instituted as such: humans enact and
+substantiate it.
+
+As with the case of the free software program that needs to work for the
+end-user's autonomy, so freedom in general is not simply what some
+charter of fundamental rights declares. There has to be a culture in
+place. The members of the collective must recognise each other's
+capacity for initiative and must not try to impose any arbitrary
+controls over it.
+
+In short, we cannot have freedom simply by stating the rules. We must
+also educate the people to cherish and champion liberty. Which is also
+why conferences such as this one are important, as they raise our
+community's self-awareness while bringing forth ideas and information
+that are worthy of our common objectives.
+
+We already know about the essence of freedom and its actuality as a
+collective achievement through our participation in the free software
+community. We understand that every contribution we make or benefit
+from is made possible by the work of others. We are aware of the fact
+that none of us can enjoy computing freedom as a decontextualised
+individual. No single person holds all the knowledge that goes into a
+computer and all of its programs. No one person can ever acquire such
+knowledge that is not communicated in some way, which implies
+interpersonal affairs or else the presence of the others beside the
+self.
+
+Ask yourself: "who am I without the community?". The answer is "not
+much; not enough".
+
+* The Emacs community and how I became a contributor to core Emacs
+
+Since my talk involves Emacs, we too have our own community. By and
+large, it welcomes newcomers and is eager to disseminate whatever
+knowledge it holds. The most obvious way the community helps the user
+live in freedom is with the lofty expectations it maintains about the
+quality of a package. All decent Emacs packages come with detailed
+documentation and they provide multiple options for the user to
+configure things to their liking.
+
+The Emacs community recognises that it must not impose controls over the
+end-user's capacity for initiative. Hence the extensibility and
+customisability of all the relevant code. The community also
+understands the notion that freedom unfolds as an intersubjective
+experience and that it is not sufficient to emancipate the code from
+legal constraints. As such, Emacs users promote a strong documentation
+culture, where every Elisp form has to explain in ordinary language what
+it does and every package must provide instructions on how to use and
+configure it. These are in addition to the four freedoms which we
+expect as a minimum.
+
+This is the "Emacs way" of doing things, which extends to the core
+application. The very design of Emacs as a Lisp machine empowers the
+end-user, since everything is subject to evaluation anew. For example,
+I started learning Elisp by writing my little wrapper functions that
+tweaked how some default motions behaved. I wanted to have a complement
+to the "move down a line" command where it would automatically move down
+15 lines. Emacs can evaluate code live and, as I said, it grants access
+to the full source code as well as all the relevant documentation. I
+was thus able to learn how a function is defined and then through trial
+and error write my first custom Elisp.
+
+I continued tinkering with Emacs to implement various tweaks or micro
+optimisations that made sense to me. In the process I learnt to use
+Elisp. Equipped with that newfound knowledge I was able to do
+practically everything I wanted with Emacs. Over the past 2.5 years I
+have written thousands of lines of Elisp and have made several
+contributions to core Emacs, including a pair of comprehensive, highly
+accessible, and customisable themes called the =modus-themes= (I am using
+the light variant right now, which is called =modus-operandi=).
+
+To put it in perspective, I learnt more about programming in my initial
+three months as an Emacs user than what I had gathered in the three
+years prior as a member of the free software community when I first
+switched to a GNU/Linux operating system in mid-2016. This, to me, is
+the best example of catering to the needs of the end-user. I, who was
+once not a programmer or tech-savvy user, was gifted everything I needed
+to learn how to program and to ultimately be in a position of autonomy
+insofar as computing is concerned. The rest is the hard work I put in
+by doing things from scratch.
+
+* Consider the bigger picture
+
+Living in freedom demands that we broaden the scope beyond the narrow
+confines of the individual and also transcend the technical requirements
+of any one legal-institutional architecture to consider the context
+holistically: the context of how the program is used as part of a
+workflow; the context in which a user joins our community and wishes to
+learn from the wealth of knowledge on offer; the context of how that
+knowledge is conveyed; the context of freed code as instrumental to the
+lifestyle change that brings about computing autonomy; the context of
+how our individuality with its subjective conception of freedom is
+contingent on the collective.
+
+When we do this, when we look at the bigger picture, we understand that
+what we really want is for everything that affects us to include our
+involvement and to share our common values. The goal is to live in
+freedom, not be a cheerleader of freedom from the sidelines.
+
+This means that we cannot enjoy genuine freedom in our own little
+capsule, because we do not control the factors that contribute to the
+state of affairs. Private freedom, in a strict sense, is an illusion.
+Additionally, we cannot really rollover the problem to some other
+person. That may remove whatever stigma from us but it merely
+obfuscates the real problem where the cultural-institutional order
+inhibits our liberty indiscriminately. To remove the stigma is to
+engage in role-playing, where you claim to be holier than others even
+though the prevailing conditions remain illiberal.
+
+Living in freedom, be it in the computing space or generally, implies
+that we cannot afford to make tokenistic decisions. Each of us is free
+when the community delivers freedom; when the collective institutes
+freedom as such. Liberty is intersubjective. It will remain incomplete
+for as long as some are ostensibly more free than others.
+
+In conclusion, there is an anti-imperialist Greek song that was recorded
+in the 1980s and remains as relevant as ever---alas! I feel it
+expresses a profound insight in its chorus:
+
+#+begin_quote
+I fear everything that will be done for me without me.
+
+---Vasilis Papakonstantinou - Fovamé (I fear)
+#+end_quote
+
+[ Check the Annex for a faithful translation of its lyrics. ]
+
+On this note, I wish to thank you for your attention. I also want to
+express my gratitude to the organisers and volunteers of this year's
+edition of LibrePlanet. Goodbye folks!
+
+* Annex: translation of "I fear" lyrics
+
+This is not part of my presentation. You might find it interesting and
+relevant both for our era and ages past.
+
+The original:
+
+#+begin_verse
+Μπροστά σου τα φώτα μιας πολιτείας
+που περιμένει τις ανασκαφές
+Και τα κλουβιά με τα καναρίνια που κοιμούνται βαλμένα στη σειρά
+Κι εγώ που δεν έμαθα ακόμα ποιος είμαι
+ένας κουρασμένος σκοπός, χωρίς προοπτική
+Και συ που σε λίγο θα σβήσεις
+ένα από τα φώτα, για να κοιμηθείς με κάποιον που μου μοιάζει
+Έτσι που τα σίδερα του κλουβιού
+να χαθούν για μια στιγμή, μέσα στο σκοτάδι
+
+Φοβάμαι όλα αυτά που θα γίνουν για μένα χωρίς εμένα
+
+Τα ρούχα μου παλιώσανε και δεν αντέχουν
+τρύπες στα γόνατα από τις υποκλίσεις
+τσέπες ξηλωμένες απ’ τα κέρματα
+χαλασμένα φερμουάρ, χάσκουν χρεοκοπία
+Το κορμί μου μελανιασμένο
+μες το κρύο σαν λάθος που δεν το παραδέχεται κανένας
+γυρνάει και ζητά τη ζεστασιά σου
+
+Φοβάμαι όλα αυτά που θα γίνουν για μένα χωρίς εμένα
+
+Τα τσιμέντα σου καινούρια
+με έπιπλα λουστραρισμένα
+Και μάρμαρα λευκά
+μια γυαλάδα που στραβώνει
+και δε σ’ αφήνει χώρο να σταθείς
+και μόνο εγώ απ’ όλα εκεί μέσα
+σαπίζω σαν σε αρχαίο τάφο
+Σκεύη παραστάσεις βρέθηκαν εκεί
+εκτός από εμένα, που σε κρύπτη μυστική
+ψάχνω ακόμη να σε βρω να με αναστήσεις
+
+Φοβάμαι όλα αυτά που θα γίνουν για μένα χωρίς εμένα
+
+Τα ρούχα μου παλιώσανε και πέφτουν
+σαν χρεοκοπημένες κυβερνήσεις
+Γέρασα μ’ ένα παιδικό παντελονάκι
+και το πλοίο δε φάνηκε ακόμη
+Σε σφίγγω πιο πολύ γιατί κρυώνω
+το κορμί μου δρόμος, που εκτελούνται δημόσια έργα
+κομπρεσέρ μ’ ανοίγουν και με κλείνουν
+Τράβα λίγο τη κουρτίνα να με δεις
+έγινα διάδρομος για στρατιωτικά αεροπλάνα
+Και το μυαλό μου, αποθήκη, για ραδιενεργά κατάλοιπα
+Μέτρα ασφαλείας πήρανε, για την αναπνοή μου
+και σε πολυεθνικό μονόδρομο
+το μέλλον μου δώσαν αντιπαροχή
+
+Φοβάμαι όλα αυτά που θα γίνουν για μένα χωρίς εμένα
+
+Έτσι ζω προκαταβολικά το παρελθόν μου
+και με δυο γυμνά καλώδια για χέρια
+αγκαλιάζω τα ψηλά σου volt για στερνή φορά
+
+Φοβάμαι!
+#+end_verse
+
+In English:
+
+#+begin_verse
+Before you lie the lights of a polity
+that awaits the excavations
+And the cages with the sleeping canaries lined up
+And I who has yet to know who I am
+a lost cause, with no perspective
+And you who will soon switch off
+one of the lights, to sleep with my look-alike
+Such that the bars of the cage
+vanish for a second, amid the darkness
+
+I fear everything that will be done for me without me
+
+My clothes are worn out and cannot hold together
+holes at the knees from the kneeling
+pockets ripped by the coins
+broken zippers, staring at bankruptcy
+My body bruised in the cold
+like a mistake that none admits
+turns and yearns for your warmth
+
+I fear everything that will be done for me without me
+
+Your cements are new
+with polished furniture
+And white marble
+a blinding shininess
+that leaves no room to stand
+and only I out of everything there
+rot as if in an ancient tomb
+Implements of performances found there
+except me, who in secret crypt
+continue searching for you to resurrect me
+
+I fear everything that will be done for me without me
+
+My aging clothes are falling apart
+like bankrupt governments
+I grew old wearing a child's pair of pants
+yet the ship hasn't appeared yet
+I embrace you more tightly as I'm cold
+my body is a road where public works are performed
+drills open me up and seal me
+Pull the curtain slightly to look at me
+I've been turned into a runway for military aeroplanes
+And my mind, a storage place, for radioactive waste
+Security measures have been adopted for my breath
+and on a [corporate] multinational one-way street
+my future was given away
+
+I fear everything that will be done for me without me
+
+I thus live my past in advance [what has transpired is to be experienced again]
+and with two stripped cables for hands
+embrace your high voltage for the last time
+
+I fear!
+#+end_verse
projects / lp22-speaker-slides.git / commitdiff