That was way back in 2007. Probably close to when I read his stuff... but even then he was clearly still clinging to the Halloween Letters and seemed extremely old school.
Emphasis on used to. He worked fairly hard at becoming a household name, but ultimately his fame was pretty brief. Stallman achieved meme status, love him or hate him. Torvalds actually ships shit people use. There's just no discourse around Raymond these days, good or bad.
Every once in a while someone trips over one of the pitons he's driven into the wall of FOSS to try and climb it, discovers his abysmal takes, amd everyone promptly forgets about him again.
You're being perhaps too generous to consider ESR a famous FOSS personality.
Least insane ESR post
They're gonna ruin cities by further limiting the rights of pedestrians to work around their mediocre programming.
Definitely, there was no coming back from that debate.
fuck the accelerationists for pumping shitheaded propaganda into the fediverse, for the victory lap they’re taking now, and for the general idea that their revolution is worth our deaths
So much this
still, something gets me about completely generated, transient-when-you’re-not-looking, constantly shifting worlds. might have to collect more examples
It's dream logic.
The point was SSCers reacting. Vance being an SSCer isn't notable as he's a Thiel creature. SSCers being confronted with the eyeshadowed mirror that is Vance is much more interesting because they spend a lot of time being nominally not exactly what Vance is.
I haven't read the whole thread yet, but so far the choice line is:
> I like how you just dropped the “Vance is interested in right authoritarianism” like it’s a known fact to base your entire point on. Vance is the clearest demonstration of a libertarian the republicans have in high office. It’s an absurd ad hominem that you try to mask in your wall of text.
The writing has been on the wall since they reprinted Alpha as non playable $250 packs.
You missed his most important job, reminding everyone about previous discussions of PG essays whenever someone reposts a PG essay.
Russia complaining that the US sells too many weapons is an awkward line when the AK platform is the universal symbol for armed conflict across the globe.
Oof, that slid right past me. I think I skimmed some of the parts the article told me it was ok to skim if I wanted to.
This is actually a really damning article. Despite the carefully constructed facade, Scott simply isn't curious about anything that might broaden his world.
It's just a question of when they pull the trigger on this.
Especially leadership of a political organization that's basically just there to turn his opinions into code and publish his essays.
I don't think anything in the report is new, is it? Isn't this the exact weirdness that got him kicked off the board in the first place? I was shocked when he was quietly added back to the board; I really thought the allegations would stick the first time.
Nice to have it all in one place though.
On 16 March 2024, I sat down to chat with New York Times technology reporter Cade Metz! In part of our conversation, transcribed below, we discussed…
The actually not even really a hatchet job NYT piece on SlateScott that mostly just called him a weird little guy has nonetheless created a festering psychic wound that oozes to this day. Here manifests as an interview with the author on LW. See also: discussion on reddit.
My favorite section, talking about how people are mad that be brought up Scott's notorious race stuff™️:
> CM: That's great. That's a valid position. There are other valid positions where people say, we need to not go so close to that, because it's dangerous and there's a slippery slope. The irony of this whole situation is that some people who feel that I should not have gone there, who think I should not explore the length and breadth of that situation, are the people who think you should always go there.
Hounding the president of Harvard out of a job because you think she's a DEI hire is one thing, but going after a Billionaire's wife? How dare these journalists! What big bullies.
Bonus downplaying of EA's faults. He of course phrases the Bostrom affair as someone being "accused" of sending a racist email, as if there were any question as to who sent it, or if it was racist. And acts like it's not just the cherry on top of a lifetime of Bostrom's work.
Utilitarian brainworms or one of the many very real instances of a homicidal parent going after their disabled child? I can't decide, but it's a depressing read.
May end up on SRD, but you read it here first.
Someone posted this on ssc with a warning about talking to cops, but really just marvel at what's going on here.
Aaronson manages to turn a story where he is briefly arrested for a theft (which he did commit on video!) into paragraphs and paragraphs of indulging in his persecution fantasies.
Zero empathy on display for the people he stole from, the people just doing their jobs, or reflection on the fact that it wasn't a simple little mistake anyone could make but rather... a fairly weird move? Do people usually put change in cups?