Mono
AlisFinished reading: Demon, Volume 1
Second library read for the day, content warning for suicide and self-harm under the cut.
“The Silicon Valley of the 1980s, 90s, and even the 00s still culturally elevated hackers like Woz. The “founders” (entrepreneurs, really) didn’t understand the tech stack, but they knew how to bring a product to market. Steve Jobs couldn’t code for shit, and for much of its history, Silicon Valley revered Woz as much as it did Jobs.
Aaron [Swartz] was, in a sense, my generation’s equivalent of Woz. It isn’t a perfect analogy. But as archtypes go, it fits well enough. They don’t even try to produce Aarons anymore. Everyone is trying to be Sam frickin’ Altman now.”
Dave Karpf on founder mode.
Swartz, incidentally, was one of the original forces behind RSS, Creative Commons, Markdown and Reddit, among others. He attended the startup incubator Y Combinator in the same cohort as chronic grifter and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Swartz took his own life in 2013, in part due to being arrested and aggressively prosecuted for downloading “too many” academic articles from JSTOR. He was 26 years old.
It’s easy to make lionised martyrs out of the early dead, but by all accounts Swartz really was someone who left the world a better place than he found it; a true believer in tikkun olam, in both word and deed.
(Relatedly, I do think Karpf is a bit harsh on Jobs in the above. Jobs was certainly, y’know. An asshole . . . but he did have an eye for talent in a way the industry has never really managed before or since. It’s why he was able to surround himself with people like Steve Wozniak and Susan Kare. The fact that it’s almost unimaginable nowadays for someone like the latter to be picked up and valued by the popped-collar Jobs imitator brigade is pretty much everything wrong with the myth of “founder mode” in a nutshell.)
TheAdamSplitterHello to all my Queers & Dears! Welcome to the September 2023 monthly video essay!
This month, I discuss my history with psych wards, and why Ilymation's video Perks of Going to a Psych Ward didn't sit well with me.
This one took a lot out of me, but i think it's worth it.
CW: suicide, self harm, trauma, psych wards, and brief mentions of police brutality Please prioritize your mental health.
#videoessay #analysis #psychward #cwsuicide
#recovery #support
