T has been almost 43 years since Richard M. Stallman (“RMS”), “The Last MIT Hacker”, started GNU. He was about 30 at the time and he later quit his job to focus on GNU and avoid a conflict of interest.

I quit my job when I was 40 to focus on various endeavours and I have no regrets; if anything, there’s room to regret not doing so sooner. I could have done and written so much more (had I quit sooner), but at least I saved enough money to defend against lawfare.

Frugal lifestyles have earned credibility (resurgence) as the economies sank, energy became more scarce (or expensive), and political problems more profound. If you’re not seeking to become part of the solution you might be a passive component (or “cog”) of the problem.

The world needs more activists, not more capital.

omeone recently asked me about devoting money to Software Freedom causes so as to focus on what is right, what one is “meant” to do as it is better devoting one’s capacity/potential/knowledge/energy/experience/recognition to maximise public good. It makes perfect sense because life is finite and money does not go into one’s grave. It is meant to be used for something, not to be hoarded. Hoarding is in human’s nature and it is a weakness, nothing to be boastful about.

I am thankful and truly grateful for the fact that my life is rewarding and satisfying, with few exceptions here and there (not every moment is perfect). Vices and online additions are not necessary. Compared to peers and relatives, my life is good, it’s better than theirs. I am happier, freer (as in free will), healthier, and richer (except in monetary terms) than them. Some people I know became slaves to (or of) money – to the point of being willing to work from every morning until every night (maybe 60-80 hours a week) to make someone else or some large company richer. They seem to fail to grasp that those salaries are merely a form of compensation for them compromising their best years (of one’s life), plus abandoning the prospect/potential for self-determination while dragging down both physical and mental health (of most staff, most of the time). It’s a fast-corroding, slowly-progressing experience (corrosion is silent, not sudden) that over time shortens people’s lives. In my 40s I can still do a fullstack circuit” at the gym like I did my in 20s. I have hardly lost muscle mass/weight, only relative strength, and my stamina probably improved owing to regular jogging.

Ultra-capitalists dislike such ideas because they rely on intellectual people becoming their de facto slaves and brown-nosing management for pay increases and better job titles (the latter are merely symbolic rewards, a fake “status” nobody objectively cares about).

Safety and mental comfort (calm, zen) cannot be taken for granted either, more so in world full of conflicts and scarcities. To love and be loved is easier said than done, but that too is attainable. One must actively pursue it, not follow herds.

Summary: The company that I left this month is breaching several regulations and failing to follow the law; to make matters worse, pointing this out from within the company is impermissible and may very well instigate witch-hunts

THE HOLIDAYS are not over, but we’re still in a relatively quiet period of the year. People are resting. Nevertheless, we’re receiving additional information, which we plan to cover next month. As we shall show, under the guise of “manners” and the veneer of “professional” self-appointed enforcers are lying to people and lying about people. It is highly manipulative and it pits Sirius ‘Open Source’ in conflict with human rights, not just labour regulations and ethical codes.

Shown below is a portion of a month-old report (predating my resignation). It highlights the fact that the company where I worked for since early 2011 had gradually become more and more hostile towards its workers — to the point of false accusations and pathological lying.

Adherence to the Rule of Law and Human Rights

From what can be gathered thus far, the company is shooting from the hip, walking in the dark without any legal guidance. From what’s witnessed and what lawyers have made an assessment of, legal protocols are disregarded or simple breached; the managers don’t go through HR as they did before (impartial), probably due to cost-related overheads and a lack of budget/money in the company’s bank account, as can be seen by failure to comply with very basic legal protocols. Very, very basic stuff.

In a society based on the Rule of Law it is important to ensure, at all times, that laws are being followed, including the freedom of expression. A proper investigative process should be based on law-compliant guidelines rather than made up or twisted as one goes along, based on some personal preferences of a self-appointed investigator. Improvised ‘laws’ aren’t laws but kangaroo courts of theatrical nature with arbitrary routines.

Freedom of speech was in general respected, but only selectively (i.e. rules not equally and consistently applied). Inside work, for instance, some people were allowed to express political opinions, whereas others got reprimanded for making a harmless joke pertaining to Donald Trump (whom the company’s founder supports). Is it the case that some workers have the privilege to express political opinions, whereas some are denied that? Is kinship a recipe for immunity, not just a recruitment fast lane?

In the same vein, management can use very crude language at times, but even reasonably polite words used by ordinary staff are spun as “rude” and staff is forbidden from expressing opinions, based on false pretexts of “manners”.

here’s this stigma or stereotype associated with people who allege that the government, through politicians and state media for the most part, misleads its people. Sure, they typically lie to populations outside the country too. The stigmas or stereotypes are intended to discourage such view being held or publicly expressed. Of course the government does not always lie (absolutism), but oftentimes there’s more incentive to tell supposedly ‘white’ lies.

Over the past few months I’ve covered many examples where both our government and the BBC lied to us, mostly for business reasons.

Governments aren’t in the business of science, mere facts, truth, evidence…

Governments in modern history — even in supposedly civilised nations — act more like front groups of wealthy businesspeople. The politicians are beholden to them.

This does mean we should expect lies; this is especially true at times of war. I’ve decided to archive this old and rusty page, seeing it’s likely to be offline altogether some time in the future and it’s likely Fair Use given the diversity of voices and of course key quotes going centuries back. The underlying HTML looks like something from the 1990s.

Who coined the phrase, “The first casualty of War is Truth”?

Mike Owen, Hebden Bridge UK

• In 1918 US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson is purported to have said: The first casualty when war comes is truth. However, this was not recorded.

  In 1928 Arthur Ponsonby’s wrote: The ‘When war is declared, truth is the first casualty’. (Falsehood in Wartime)

  Samuel Johnson seems to have had the first word: ‘Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.’ (from The Idler, 1758)

  Peter Brooke, Mewmachar Scotland

• The original quote is “The first casualty when war comes is truth”. Hiram W Johnson, staunchly isolationist senator for California, to the US Senate in 1917 (the year of his election to the Senate, where he remained until his death in 1945).
  Philip Draycott, Leicester UK

• …”The first casualty when war comes is truth,” was coined by Hiram Johnson a Republican politician from California who served in the United States Senate for nearly 30 years, beginning in the midst of World War I and concluding with his death in 1945–as it happens, on the same day the U.S. dropped its first atomic bomb on Hiroshima…
  Gareth, Leeds UK

• Rudyard Kipling.
  Paul Hardy, Croydon England

• It has been attributed to both Athur Ponsonby in “Falsehood in Wartime” (1928) and US Senator Hiram Johnson in a 1918 speech. However, the true origin may be in the edition of “The Idler” magazine from 11/11/1758 which says “…among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.”
  Andy Ward, LONDON UK

• Hiram Johnson (USA). The full qoute is “The first casualty when war comes is truth”.

  Coincidentally Johnson died on August 6th 1945 (of old age!)

  Kevin Wooldridge, Lowestoft UK

• Boake Carter, an American Radio Reporter. Not sure when though. I seem to remember hearing the original broadcast in a TV origram some time ago.
  Ken Blair, Stirling Scotland

• Hiram Johnson (1866-1945) – a Progressive Republican senator in California. His actual quote, ‘The first casualty, when war comes, is truth’, was said during World War 1. He died on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
  Gilbert Sharp, Bury St Edmunds UK

• Michael Herr in his book “despatches” based on his experience as a journalist in the Vietnam War.
  Martin Togher, London England

• Aeschylus.
  Joy, Doha Qatar

• In war, truth is the first casualty.
  Aeschylus
  Greek tragic dramatist (525 BC – 456 BC)
  B Smith, Chicago Il USA

• The most fundamental of the Chinese fifth century general Sun Tzu’s principles for the conduct of war is that “All warfare is based on deception”.
  Ed Richardson, Deer Lake, Canada

• Alfred E. Neumann
  David Page, Gatineau, Canada

• Aeschylus
  Frank Olsen, Ringoes United States

• Although frequently attributed to Sun Tzu (544?496 BC), “All warfare is based on deception”; the Sun Tzu quote actually refers to methods of subterfuge in war and goes further to explain, “Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”

  The first corroborated quote reflecting the true essence, almost verbatim is “In war, truth is the first casualty,” attributed to Greek writer/poet Aeschylus (525BC – 456BC).

  Reese, Jeffersonville, IN United States

• “In war, truth is the first casualty”, this quote is from Aeschylus
  Ensar, Dusseldorf, Germany

• Read “the First Casualty” by Philip Knightley – a history of deception in war – it’s all in there.
  John, London

• Aeschylus

  “In war, truth is the first casualty.”

  Susanna Richards, Somerset West, South Africa

• Aeschylus greek tragic dramatist
  525-546 BC
  In war, truth is the first casualty
  Andy, South Boston, Ma USA

• There are now two books that give authoritative answers to these kinds of questions, namely the Yale Book of Quotations and the Dictionary of Modern Proverbs. The latter records that Mrs. Philip Snowden wrote in the Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association: “Someone has finely said that ‘truth is the first casualty in war’.” A similar quotation appears in E. D. Morel, Truth and the War (1916). The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs further notes that “Currently the proverb is often attributed to Aeschylus, but the attribution seems to be no older than the 1980s.”
  Fred Shapiro, Bethany, Connecticut USA

• Soooooo many answers…. yet sooooo many of them are wrong, ignorant, and ethnocentrically shortsighted!

  The first to coin such a phrase (and then be PLAGIARIZED by all these other people that you all tout and argue over) was a Greek writer (Dramatist – theatrical arts) named Aeschylus.

  Good job proving the ignorance of the masses (especially since you can learn the etymology of this particular phrase with a little researching online these days… or by GOING TO COLLEGE and taking a dramatic literature course or two!)

  “Ignorance is a disease that can never truly be cured”

  James T., San Diego USA

• Perhaps “James T., San Diego USA” would likely to cite precisely where Aeschylus wrote it. As presently he’s is looking the most ignorant poster here.
  Davey F=Dave, Ickenham England

• This quote was stolen from Aeschylus “In war, the first casualty is truth.” Aeschylus lived from 456 B.C. to 524 B.C
  Jayme Ariss, Shelburne, Canada

• Let’s cut the sniping. Would anyone like to support their arguments by accurately citing the primary source?

  Many thanks,
  Ian.

  Ian Buckingham, Norwich, UK

N THIS weird age when corporations are assumed to have the rights of individuals (e.g. privacy) while evading the liabilities and burdens of individuals (e.g. tax, which they can evade using loopholes) it makes one wonder what became of so-called democracy and capitalism. This was not the vision people had after they had laid the foundations for what they considered to be a humane system. Nowadays, our society is based upon ever-increasing debt and a debt that our descendants are expected to pay back. It’s a society where corporations (and their owners) gain vast amounts of money at the expense of real people and when things go awry, corporations will get bailed out and in some cases left alone when they hurt people (e.g. BP in the gulf). There is a massive looting — “piracy” one might say — going on all the time. All the power and welth gets passed to corporations, which now control the political systems too.

If we wish to cautiously proceed with the idea that corporations are like people, then we must subject them to the same standards and restrictions we apply to individuals. Otherwise, civilisation as we know it will sooner or later collapse.

EGACY of one’s life may typically matter to a person when death is near. That’s partly because last/recent memories persist better than old ones. Legacy is also what remains in visibility after a person departs from this world, having first emerged in it through conception. But legacy need not be associated with depressing things such as being deceased. Legacy throughout one’s life can be seen as the work that’s left to have impact when one moves from one area to another, from one field of work to another.

In older terms, publications and books were seen as a form of legacy. In a digital world the importance of these becomes more questionable and long-term persistence almost dubious. Work that is done in the disciplines of science and technology may matter a lot at the time of publication/invention, but only years later that work becomes uninteresting due to irrelevance. There are of course exceptions such as key, landmark papers (Charles Darwin’s for example) and immortal series such as Cosmos, but the vast body of work will only have its 15 minutes or fame — if any — and thereafter be shelved.

Activism is different in the sense that it has broader impact due to scale of reach (like target audience). Those who fought SOPA, for example, achieved a great deal and did this not for profit but for ideology.

In my younger days as a researcher I strived to publish papers and had my name put on half a dozen of them around 2005 when I was completing practical work on my Ph.D. In early 2006 I stopped submitting papers and also ceased to attend conferences. These had low impact compared to my sites, their target audience was small (mostly departments in the same field as mine), and the sense of accomplishment was not high. It was then that I turned to activism and spent the majority of my day dedicating energy/effort to good causes, even if it comes at the expense of a paying job. There have been no regrets, except perhaps regrets that I had not started doing this sooner.

The life of an activist is a lot richer than the life of a compulsive businessman. Richness cannot be properly measured in terms of monetary currency and some people are so poor that all they have is a high bank balance. Over the long run, history teaches, activists have a memorable legacy; the latter have not.