JP16h ago
for those tracking John Carmack's descent into right wing total moral disorientation, he's now at "Palmer Luckey should buy Wired and do to it what Elon Musk did to Twitter".
he's full fash at this point. totally gonna deliver AGI by 2030 though.
increasingly disgusting that he named his shitass company after Commander Keen, a joyful little video game from before he became a millionaire and was empowered to become his worst self.
Show threadJP15h ago
if you see no value in having humanity or empathy or intellectual breadth, "being a powerful programmer" will just lead you to pour your talents down a hole, each decade more lost than the last. you'll pick bad collaborators and bad goals, you'll tolerate utter mediocrity outside your incredibly narrow notions of excellence, and ultimately you may just end up serving evil.
Show threadMichael Eggers 🇺🇦🇪🇺14h ago
@jplebreton to be fair he was highly sceptical of the metaverse thing. But otherwise I fully agree. Very sad to see his trajectory.
Show threadBartosz Taudul

@pythno @jplebreton Hm? From what I recall, he was very fond of the Snow Crash book, from where the term sources?

I (tried to) read it, and jeez, the themes in that book are *ugly*. Another puzzle piece that fits, though.

9:35amWeb
Show threadMorten Hilker-Skaaning8h ago
@wolfpld @pythno @jplebreton there is "Metaverse" as whatever the actual product was at Facebook. And "Metaverse" as a fiction in a book. I haven't read Snow Crash, so I took it to vaguely mean "cyberspace". I take it the Metaverse in Snow Crash has bad connotations?
Show threadAndre Weissflog8h ago

@morten_skaaning @wolfpld @pythno @jplebreton Snow Crash's Metaverse is pretty much exactly how you imagine it, a virtual space where you log into as an avatar. The interesting part is rather how the "remains" of the US is depicted.

Also important to know when 'judging' the quality of the book: it was supposed to be a comic project, which was then "salvaged" into a novel. Explains a lot of the writing style ;)

Show threadBartosz Taudul8h ago

@floooh @morten_skaaning @pythno @jplebreton The book setting is basically everything that's wrong with the US, but turned up to 11. I wrote about it shortly some time ago, here's the translation.

For context, you might have heard who Korwin is from the EU parliament already: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39152562

The tubeworms quote is a reference to his direct-to-meme, 100% serious rant about "social parasites who do nothing" or something like that.

The movie is https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780622/

Show threadMorten Hilker-Skaaning1h ago
@wolfpld @floooh @pythno @jplebreton thanks guys. So it sounds like I'm just missing out on 90s vibes. Maybe it'll catch an audio book version👍 😊
Show threadAndre Weissflog8h ago

@wolfpld @pythno @jplebreton for being written in 1992 Snow Crash nailed the "trajectory" of the US as a future failed state pretty well though. I remember that when I read it first (around 2005 maybe?) that I found that aspect of the story quite unbelievable. In the last decade or so it got a lot more believable.

But yeah, shame about Carmack.

Show threadNazo3h ago

@floooh @wolfpld @pythno @jplebreton Snow Crash really was written with more than a small amount of tongue-in-cheek. I mean, heck, the main character's name is pronounced as "Hero." The biggest, strongest mafia arose around, of all things, pizza delivery services.

But yeah, that's it alright. Late stage capitalism gone out of control and government completely gone with businesses as rulers. The only difference is it seems we're going to get nazis instead.

Idiocracy is closer though.