His latest YouTube post, from 2 weeks after the alleged go-dark date, is also all about his personal plan to walk away from tech. Needed to make sure there is a GoPro in his face while he talks about how low-tech he yearns to be. Needs to make sure everyone on the internet sees HD digital footage of him tapping on a typewriter, carving a stamp by hand, and switching to paper bank statements.
> Your cynicism is misplaced, Chad has been a fixture on HN for well over a decade
I don't doubt it. I also don't doubt the claims in other comments that he has made incredible contributions to open source, is a good, kind person, and so forth. He deserves immense credit for these things.
None of that negates the fact that this is an incredibly performative and hypocritical way to make this particular transition. Defending it by pointing out his other virtues is just a reverse ad hominem.
You initially suggested that there was something suspicious about this being posted on HN. If you want to walk that back, okay, but doesn't that poorly judged initial sentiment undermine your cynicism?
Yes, of course this is "performative". Publishing is performance. Chad is, obviously, performing for his audience in sharing this, he wants to get his perspective out into the world.
Given Chad's decade plus of leading by example, embracing his ideals, it is important to know that he is a person of integrity when reading his words. Could this be a grand lie to some strange end? Sure, I guess, but everyone who knows Chad knows that he is exactly the type of person to mean everything in this letter in earnest.
His blog was part of his job. His job was an open source advocate, he was responsible for talking about open source. He posted on BlueSky in his role as an advocate for open source. Adding in a GoFundMe link that someone emailed to him on a post that got a bunch of attention doesn't undermine his point, at all.
A "hypocritical way to make this particular transition"? He's not advocating for you to make the same transition. He's not espousing moral superiority because he made this transition and you didn't. Life is messy, complicated, difficult, it's not "hypocritical" to... have a BlueSky account as part of your job while announcing you're stepping away from technology.
I’ve noticed HN becoming a cynical black hole lately. Any contrarian opinion is pushed back with a lot of force and grayed out, like yours. I thought about upvoting you but I’ll just leave a comment agreeing with you. Fighting against people determined to see the worst in every situation is exhausting.
>His latest YouTube post, from 2 weeks after the alleged go-dark date...
Did we want to stop and ask how it got posted? Are we sure he did it himself? Does it matter if his letter is off by a couple of weeks? Could it have been a typo and he posted that on his last day, forgetting to add the 9 in his letter? Or are we just flippantly reacting to this?
>None of that negates the fact that this is an incredibly performative and hypocritical way to make this particular transition.
Some people can rip the band-aid off and go cold-turkey. Others need a bit of a transition. This just seems to be the latter. You seem to be letting this ruffle your feathers more than it needs to.
It's plainly not.
https://bsky.app/profile/chadwhitacre.com/post/3mmvzmugfqk2g "my good friend Dana could really use some help paying for major dental work. <gofundme link>"
His latest YouTube post, from 2 weeks after the alleged go-dark date, is also all about his personal plan to walk away from tech. Needed to make sure there is a GoPro in his face while he talks about how low-tech he yearns to be. Needs to make sure everyone on the internet sees HD digital footage of him tapping on a typewriter, carving a stamp by hand, and switching to paper bank statements.
> Your cynicism is misplaced, Chad has been a fixture on HN for well over a decade
I don't doubt it. I also don't doubt the claims in other comments that he has made incredible contributions to open source, is a good, kind person, and so forth. He deserves immense credit for these things.
None of that negates the fact that this is an incredibly performative and hypocritical way to make this particular transition. Defending it by pointing out his other virtues is just a reverse ad hominem.