Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#1

Post by nop_slide » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns
steve-yegge.medium.com

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#2

Post by throwup238 » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

> The Wasteland was designed for federating work, but its metamorphosis into an RPG seems unstoppable at this point.

This is all just performance art at this point, right?

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#3

Post by jackyinger » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #2

> The Wasteland was designed for federating work, but its metamorphosis into an RPG seems unstoppable at this point. This is all just performance art at this point, right?

Waste… I can’t stop thinking about the waste of human talent and potential. The waste of resources to run AI data centers. The waste of the now old school CS ethos. Yea, wasteland checks out.

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#4

Post by conartist6 » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

This just in, society is cooked guys! I know this sounds incredible to believe, but we don't need society anymore.

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#5

Post by dgathercole » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

The name, at least, is fitting.

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#6

Post by hardwaregeek » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

I really want to host a vibe coding competition and see what can actually be made with these systems. Like if we’re doing insane token spends, it better be in service of creating amazing stuff. Can we make an entirely new programming language? Can we make an OS?

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#7

Post by condensedcrab » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

It's interesting progression from Gas Town, but it seems like the bottleneck is still translating ideas into actionable input/output frameworks for various agentic tasks.

Also there's the issue of how to identify systems-interface problems and posting those tasks for completion as well. No guarantee that a totally federated system will not solve interfacial issues faster than they generate them without feedback and oversight.

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#8

Post by andrew_lettuce » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

Feels like a missed opportunity to not use Blockchain for the reputational ledger. A throwback reference to quaint, olden times.

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#9

Post by xnorswap » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #2

> The Wasteland was designed for federating work, but its metamorphosis into an RPG seems unstoppable at this point. This is all just performance art at this point, right?

I think so?

I've not seen anyone take Gas Town seriously or even semi-seriously in the way people take Openclaw semi-seriously.

Gas Town certainly seems like a concept for performance art. The original blog post read like it, and so does this.

Re: Welcome to the Wasteland: A Thousand Gas Towns

#10

Post by rustyboy » Wed, Mar 04, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

hardwaregeek wrote: post #6

I really want to host a vibe coding competition and see what can actually be made with these systems. Like if we’re doing insane token spends, it better be in service of creating amazing stuff. Can we make an entirely new programming language? Can we make an OS?

That would be awesome to see! If there was some prize pool like $5,000 to build an operating system through vibe coding tools only and then people could stream themselves on twitch and you could have "sorts desk" type commentators who are collating all that together. I'd watch that and donate a hundred bucks.