Technocrat.net Shut Down

twitter writes "Bruce Perens has pulled the plug on Technocrat.net. 'The technocrat.net public discussion site is shut down. This has happened because the site never achieved the ability to financially sustain its editorial staff and system expenses with its revenues. When it became evident that Technocrat was un-viable as a business, I found that I did not wish to keep supporting the site as a hobby. Certain elements of the community that developed here, unfortunately, creep me out. At the end I faced the decision of asking for donations to keep the site running, or letting it die, and it became clear to me that I'd feel better if it would just die. I am very busy building a new software business, with some great new (and yet unannounced) Open Source software in development. I must focus on that for now. Best holiday wishes to you all.'"

Comments

Good

[midnighttoadstool]

Anyone who supports Stallman is supporting the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Soviet Russia achieved more under Stalin in 10 years than what took most of the Western hemisphere a century.

But let me digress a moment: the idea that envy is wrong is a very Abrahamic one. Judaism and its offshoots have all been about keeping people suffering today with the promise of high life in the afterlife. Great con; now eat your gruel and continue to pay tithes to your master. As part of this, people have been taught that it is wrong to envy.

Nuh-uh. It's very human to want what someone else has, and perfectly natural to question - and object to - someone having more than you. It was the gospel of envy that freed the slaves and gave the vote to women. May envy continue to motivate progress, and leave contentment to those who prefer stagnation.

I hate living in the Western "free" world, and would love to have lived in a Russia of the '20s, or a Soviet Union of the '70s, where I would have been thoroughly nurtured for my abilities in mathematics, and been given the opportunity to maintain an establishment based on egalitarianism (at least in the first period, and far closer than anything in the West in the second). Those with less mental acuity, less opportunity and worse physical health would have, through the gospel of envy, rightly hated me had I not lived in a system designed to lift them toward me, while at the same time not lifting me too high.

Academia maintains rigour and mental preparedness but stifles productivity; I refuse to enter industry until the appearance of another state which comes at least remotely close to the ideals of communism. Fortunately, I am still young, and look forward to the rise and fall of new empires in the next 20-30 years.

(Incidentally, if on reading this you think "but look at the great conditions in which I live in the free world!" then you are the minority kulak so hated in early communist Russia not just because of the gospel of envy but because you were honestly blind to just how much better off you are than the average man living in your country. Because you measure the worth of yourself and your country by your ability to buy ten televisions rather than two, you are rightly destroyed as useless and harmful.)

"Main Stream Media"?

[FatSean]

That's a reliable sign of a troll. Anyone who uses that phrase is either trolling or drooling. I don't think you have a right to call someone out as trolling in your reasonable conversation when you use such trite talk-radio talking points in your own posts.

Re:How much of a loss was it?

[GuloGulo]

"You realize your statement is illogical, right?"

No it isn't and your analogy sucks.

In fact, every single thing you posted was wrong and moronic.