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What's Up with FUTO?

drewdevault.com

11–20 of 25 posts

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#11

FUTO sent me money for a production server with no strings attached. Seem to be nice people, if possibly a bit inexperienced with charity work. Eron came off as very much the archetype of a Gen-X tech bro what little I spoke with him. Whether a donor's politics are red or blue, their dollar bills are still green. Turning money down, especially when no strings are attached, is just self sabotage. Dunno if that puts me…

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're simply uniformed about Curtis Yarvin and his politics, and think this is just another culture war slap fight.

Go look him up and then decide whether you want to reconsider your stance on the issue. You have that responsibility if you took their money.

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#12
post #11

FUTO sent me money for a production server with no strings attached. Seem to be nice people, if possibly a bit inexperienced with charity work. Eron came off as very much the archetype of a Gen-X tech bro what little I spoke with him. Whether a donor's politics are red or blue, their dollar bills are still green. Turning money down, especially when no strings are attached, is just self sabotage. Dunno if that puts me…

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're simply uniformed about Curtis Yarvin and his politics, and think this is just another culture war slap fight. Go look him up and then decide whether you want to reconsider your stance on the issue. You have that responsibility if you took their money.

Yarvin was always one of the more impressive technologists from the US. Certainly surpassing much of the total slop funded by VCs. His politics are largely a restatement of the Italian elite theorists and people like Schmitt. Definitely one of the more enlightening political thinkers you can read today, especially when it comes to the power of billionaire technologists and how they will seek to reshape the political landscape in the US and elsewhere.

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#13

FUTO sent me money for a production server with no strings attached. Seem to be nice people, if possibly a bit inexperienced with charity work. Eron came off as very much the archetype of a Gen-X tech bro what little I spoke with him. Whether a donor's politics are red or blue, their dollar bills are still green. Turning money down, especially when no strings are attached, is just self sabotage. Dunno if that puts me…

Just because you're not aware of where the strings are attached yet doesn't mean there aren't any. There very well may be none, or they may be unsaid - one historical example:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/1338390/darpa-pulls-fu...

In any case, the examples of donations being given through unconventional channels, then reusing the name/logos as marketing/endorsement for FUTO without obtaining permission, feels very problematic.

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#14
post #10

This reminds me of when Rossman was accused of transphobia and other prejudices because he created a KF account solely to respond to things said about him in his own dedicated thread on that site, without posting anywhere else. Pure guilt-by-association tactics. DeVault apparently considers anything short of complete deplatforming (even spirited debate) as a form of sympathizing, and probably would regard even Robin…

It's always amusing to see takes like

    perpetuating the self-serving myth that “open source” software can privilege one party over anyone else and still be called open source.
from someone who is absolutely okay with doing exactly that, if those "anyone else" are being labelled the morally-justifying label.

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether a donor's politics are red or blue, their dollar bills are still green. So morality doesn't factor into it for you? You'd take anyone's money, regardless of how dirty the source? Where's the line for you? The Irish Republican Army? Hamas? > Turning money down, especially when no strings are attached, is just self sabotage. Reputation is the most valuable currency you have, but it's easy to get it dirty and…

It's ultimately actions that have moral value, and sponsoring projects that do good is a good thing regardless if it's Hannibal Lecter or Mother Theresa that does it. It's a very strange idea that we should try to prevent bad people from doing good deeds. If anything we should encourage and applaud such breaks in character. What Eron does is ultimately a form of wealth redistribution. Money is flowing from the pocket…

So, you'd accept money from any source, regardless of how reprehensible, as long as you got paid? Do you take payment in melted down gold fillings?

See, this is why you shouldn't read Ayn Rand books, or at least take them seriously.

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ultimately actions that have moral value, and sponsoring projects that do good is a good thing regardless if it's Hannibal Lecter or Mother Theresa that does it. It's a very strange idea that we should try to prevent bad people from doing good deeds. If anything we should encourage and applaud such breaks in character. What Eron does is ultimately a form of wealth redistribution. Money is flowing from the pocket…

So, you'd accept money from any source, regardless of how reprehensible, as long as you got paid? Do you take payment in melted down gold fillings? See, this is why you shouldn't read Ayn Rand books, or at least take them seriously.

I can see this is an argument made in bad faith, as I simply don't see any other way a statement made in the context of not looking too closely at the politics of donors has turned into the accusations you are making now.

But still, I happen to quite enjoy pointless sophistry and I am no stranger to hyperbolic comparisons, so: Wouldn't the logical conclusion of your line of argument be that criminals and reprehensible individuals should be tax exempt, in order to avoid making the government evil by association?

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#17
In some way I'm as almost relieved that Yarvin's acolytes are still operating at the level of writing weird internet manifestos and faking endorsements from open source projects.

After all the talk about "dark enlightenment" and the connection to Musk and Thiel, I'd have expected Yarvin to already have an office in the White House or at least ministry of state somewhere.

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#18
post #9

I only know their YouTube app grayjay but I don't really like it because puts all this futo stuff in my video feed. A video player should get out of the way. I prefer smarttubenext (tv) and revanced.

Another: https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/ (has backends for a few extra services, interestingly including media.ccc.de)

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#19
post #10

This reminds me of when Rossman was accused of transphobia and other prejudices because he created a KF account solely to respond to things said about him in his own dedicated thread on that site, without posting anywhere else. Pure guilt-by-association tactics. DeVault apparently considers anything short of complete deplatforming (even spirited debate) as a form of sympathizing, and probably would regard even Robin…

It's always amusing to see takes like perpetuating the self-serving myth that “open source” software can privilege one party over anyone else and still be called open source. from someone who is absolutely okay with doing exactly that, if those "anyone else" are being labelled the morally-justifying label.

The championing of a supposed openness, together with a radical culture of denouncing people with opinions not more extrem then the average American as fascists, is just so bizarre.

Here in Germany a similar anti-fascist hacker culture exists, but those people do not pretend that they want any kind of culture of openness, which would extend beyond their political lines.

Re: What's Up with FUTO?

#20
post #11

FUTO sent me money for a production server with no strings attached. Seem to be nice people, if possibly a bit inexperienced with charity work. Eron came off as very much the archetype of a Gen-X tech bro what little I spoke with him. Whether a donor's politics are red or blue, their dollar bills are still green. Turning money down, especially when no strings are attached, is just self sabotage. Dunno if that puts me…

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're simply uniformed about Curtis Yarvin and his politics, and think this is just another culture war slap fight. Go look him up and then decide whether you want to reconsider your stance on the issue. You have that responsibility if you took their money.

FUTO is not yarvin. parent poster got sponsored by FUTO not by yarvin. perhaps FUTO was also uninformed about yarvin? all we can see is that they talked once or twice. i don' see them actively working together.
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