Only One Survives

I’ve been obsessing about operating systems. Windows, Linux, Mac OS X. They feel like more than software—like something that matters. The line is that only one will survive. But which? And which would I actually want to?

What does the user of the future look like? A Windows drone, locked in and oblivious? A true believer in the Apple religion, convinced paying more means thinking better? Or someone in Linux, talking freedom while they debug drivers at 3 AM?

The idea of one corporation controlling everything terrifies me. Microsoft, Apple, whoever. Doesn’t matter which one. That nightmare is the same.

But Linux is different. It’s actually free, not as a sales pitch but structurally. No single entity owns it. It’s distributed—pieces that work together, each replaceable, nothing essential. That’s where its real strength lives.

I think about this in sci-fi terms. Einstein’s line about the fourth world war fought with sticks and stones. And here’s what I believe: when the world turns to desert, when water costs everything, when civilization exists only in fragments, whatever still functions will be running Linux. The only system that survives will be one no one owns.

When the grid fails and cities get swallowed, something built on that principle will still run. No permission needed, no one to answer to. That’s the only infrastructure I’d trust to actually survive.