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I'm Leaving Mojang

notch.net

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Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#191

Post by angersock »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103
jere wrote: post #5

>As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. It has always amazed me how down to earth Notch is. Now, he's going to be a billionaire doing little game jams. It's hard to believe and quite awesome. It's like Bruce Wayne deciding to spend the rest of his life playing with legos.

It's like a guy that got lucky and rich and never has to work a day in his life anymore retiring early and doing what he likes to do. I'll be honest, I'm bitter and jealous, :(

Well, at least you're honest.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#192

Post by jedmeyers »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #160
jedmeyers wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to ask if you have any hard data or studies that prove your first point, or you just feel that this is indeed the case? The reality is that there is no "we", there is no "economy" that pushes something - there are specific people and groups of people, like governments and corporations. Everyone is "allowed" to live and thrive if you have the means to do it. And being in poverty now has much more benefits…

> I would like to ask if you have any hard data or studies that prove your first point, or you just feel that this is indeed the case? I don't think one needs to go and find hard studies to realize that we're living in times of prosperity, producing more food than needed, being able to construct a shelter for everyone and that more and more jobs are getting automated. But for citations and elaborations on that I dire…

> I don't think one needs to go and find hard studies to realize that we're living in times of prosperity

Almost every generation in history thought that they live in prosperity compared to generations before them. And I don't think one needs to go find hard studies to realize that.

> producing more food than needed, being able to construct a shelter for everyone

Are you personally producing food or constructing shelters? If not, then apparently you expect someone else to construct shelters for everyone because in your opinion they have the ability to do so? If someone has the ability to do something do they have to do it just because of the fact that they can?

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#193

Post by aidenn0 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #136
jedmeyers wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the beginning of humanity people have been slaves to the necessity of survival.

Yes, but for the first time ever, we've reached the theoretical capacity to change that. What's funny (for some definitions of fun), we will actually need to do that - given how our current economy pushes automation to replace humans everywhere, we can either accept that people should be allowed to live and thrive without having to earn for the living, or we'll see a massive increase of poverty.

> Yes, but for the first time ever, we've reached the theoretical capacity to change that.

This has been predicted for at least the past 100 years it seems; I'm not holding my breath on it panning out in my lifetime, so I don't see how it should affect my short-term behavior.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#194

Post by TeMPOraL »

jedmeyers wrote: post #189
TeMPOraL wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they did. So what? Just because we always had to do something, doesn't mean we should continue to do so. We always had to die from random stupid illnesses until one guy stumbled over penicillin and the other one figured out that it might be a good idea to wash hands before performing surgery. The whole concept of progress of mankind is the idea that we should strive to get rid of stupid shit that caused harm, mi…

You are saying that we should not continue doing what we do not like, and then you proceed to say that "one guy" Alexander Fleming "stumbled over" penicillin. Are you planning to stumble upon a way to relieve people from the need to obey the bosses or you expect someone else to do it?

I was saying that we as human species should strive to get rid of things that cause us misery. The "getting rid of" is the difficult part, as solutions are not always available or sustainable.

And while I'm definitely not the second Fleming or Pasteur and I don't expect myself to stumble upon a way to get us to post-scarcity utopia, I do want to work towards humans getting there. To work alongside other humans, so that our grandchildren don't have to.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#195

Post by lem72 »

chasing wrote: post #170
melvinmt wrote: post #111

There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish. The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?” The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.” “Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The…

Ugh. Parables can be used to demonstrate just about anything. There once was a fisherman, much like the one you describe in the parent comment. One day a businessman approached him with a proposal that would require more work, but would, in the end, result in much more financial freedom and stability. The fisherman declined the advice and went about his life, happily fishing for the days food and spending the rest of…

In this situation, It sounds like he got more out of life by following his original goal of hanging out with his family since they all die in the end anyways.

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#196

Post by tcfunk »

ErikRogneby wrote: post #155

This was the hardest line to read: "If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately." I hope when he says "abandon" he means upload it on github with an MIT license. Seriously though, what a horrible thing to be fearful of creating something that people might like.

Yeah that was the line that caught my attention, too. I hope that fear will subside somewhat with time out of the spotlight (if indeed he manages to get out of it in the first place).

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#197

Post by notastartup »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #129
raldi wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the fisherman got a horrible toothache and there was nothing he could do about it. A few years later, overfishing led to near-depletion of the local supply, and new restrictions were implemented on fishing licenses. The fisherman was unable to afford one, and yet he had no other means of supporting his family. By the end of the decade his wife and children were begging on the street. Meanwhile, the businessm…

The point being, we who are like the businessman are the slaves of our economy. We get great perks from that Moloch, like healthcare, million types of foods, computers, cinemas, all the awesome technology - but in exchange, we need to slave away our lives. It's a trade-off. We're entering the times when we can build machines to relieve us from our chains, but (apart from needing to restructure the capitalist economy)…

> What is striving to earn "FU money" if not trying to free oneself from the slavery?

That last question. Really hit home. It reminds me of this quote my humanities teacher in high school taught us.

    “The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.”

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#198

Post by [deleted] »

jedmeyers wrote: post #151
TeMPOraL wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but for the first time ever, we've reached the theoretical capacity to change that. What's funny (for some definitions of fun), we will actually need to do that - given how our current economy pushes automation to replace humans everywhere, we can either accept that people should be allowed to live and thrive without having to earn for the living, or we'll see a massive increase of poverty.

I would like to ask if you have any hard data or studies that prove your first point, or you just feel that this is indeed the case? The reality is that there is no "we", there is no "economy" that pushes something - there are specific people and groups of people, like governments and corporations. Everyone is "allowed" to live and thrive if you have the means to do it. And being in poverty now has much more benefits…

[deleted]

Re: I'm Leaving Mojang

#199

Post by JacobEdelman »

Notch has done it. By leaving mojang he can no longer be blamed for any major disasters and has already achieved a place of honor in nerd communities. And now he does what every nerd dreams of doing but isn't sure they can do, leaving their company once it gets to big so they can just go and code. By specifically stating he doesn't want to be a huge symbol for the nerd community he has permanently affixed himself as one.
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