Damn, that’s some great writing. Funny, self-aware, vicious when it
needs to be, but also full of empathy.
The actual content is not news to me at all; I’ve met clones of most
of the people she meets, I think. But she captures something of the way
those events feel - bright-eyed idealists who don’t notice they’re
surrounded by the worst people on earth, unnoticed misogyny pervading
like background radiation, a general undercurrent of sleaze and
desperation beneath the surface-level sheen, a few scattered “normies”
quietly horrified that this is how the people they admire live…
You could write a similar article about Bay Area rationalists.
"the spectacle of an entire community in a prisoner’s dilemma scenario mashing the Betray button as hard and as fast as possible over and over" - QuarkJets on bitcoin
In the olden days of cypherpunks and financial cryptography nerds
there used to be conferences like
http://ifca.ai/fc98/conference/program.html but these were likely a bit
more low-key affairs.
I promise not to write about what happens at this party, because I’m
off the clock, and I keep my promises, even though it was the only part
of the whole adventure that gave me any hope whatsoever for the future
of humanity. The world still needs hippies, insufferable though they
are—and I come out of a culture where people open their homes to
strangers, try to believe the best of each other, wear lumpy jewelry,
and share whatever they have. This, still, is what the crypto-burners
are about. I sank into it with relief. I may have got hammered and
chalked some socialist poetry on the walls. I may have listened to
straight-laced, lost-looking businessmen tell me about their secret
sexual predilections as hippies played the same songs hippies always
play on the guitar at four in the morning. I may have fallen asleep in a
puppy-pile of half-dressed futurists. I promised no more details. I feel
that the details would be less shocking and more reassuring than the
people they feature worry, but what do I know? I come from a community
where sex and drugs aren’t shameful, but sexism and coercion are. A
community where, when a total stranger tells you you can show up at
their house anytime and stay for as long as you like, they mean it. A
girl I met at that party happens to be sleeping on the sofa behind me
right now.
Damn, that’s some great writing. Funny, self-aware, vicious when it needs to be, but also full of empathy.
The actual content is not news to me at all; I’ve met clones of most of the people she meets, I think. But she captures something of the way those events feel - bright-eyed idealists who don’t notice they’re surrounded by the worst people on earth, unnoticed misogyny pervading like background radiation, a general undercurrent of sleaze and desperation beneath the surface-level sheen, a few scattered “normies” quietly horrified that this is how the people they admire live…
You could write a similar article about Bay Area rationalists.
In the olden days of cypherpunks and financial cryptography nerds there used to be conferences like http://ifca.ai/fc98/conference/program.html but these were likely a bit more low-key affairs.
this is basically the real-life version of The Basilisk Murders, except with less murderers and more not convicted of murderers
This is a great article! Love Laurie Penny’s writing.
Expected more rotavirus and Somali pirates, TBH.
Lol