The redpill is that systemd is UNIX bullshit. It's written in C and full of typical C bugs and UNIX brain damage. It's an implementation of the UNIX "init" program. The "d" on the end is the UNIX naming convention for daemons (a CTSS and Multics word for programs that run in the background independently of users). It uses the UNIX time epoch of January 1st, 1970. UNIX weenies want to put the blame for why it sucks on unnamed "other operating systems" and bring up binary log files, because they apparently don't know that UNIX already has several binary formats, like ar and tar. They also blame systemd's log corruption on the fact that it's binary and not the fact that UNIX weenies don't know how to design binary formats that don't suck.
http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/5/archive
BUGS
Names are only 8 characters, not 14. More important, there
isn't enough room to store the proper mode, so ar always
extracts in mode 666.
UNIX weenies have been misdesigning file formats since the first lines ran on a PDP-7.
Now, we all know that software has bugs. On every system.
But Unix and X bugs are somehow different. Stronger. More
distressing. More consistently dumb. More clearly based on
a programming philosophy that says "oh, no one would ever
want to do that. After all, *I* never want to do that."
Somehow, these just seem to scream UNIX! X! at me.