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Linux Inventor Says He Doesn’t Believe in Crypto (u.today)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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  • Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, does not believe in cryptocurrencies, calling them a vehicle for scams and a Ponzi scheme.
  • Torvalds was once rumored to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but he clarified it was a joke and denied owning a Bitcoin fortune.
  • Torvalds also dismissed the idea of technological singularity as a bedtime story for children, saying continuous exponential growth does not make sense.
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[–] 170 points 2 years ago (23 children)

The modern tech industry needs the old Linus to pay it a visit. Too many grifts

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  • [–] 85 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (22 children)

    I for one would love for Linus, probably Woz, and a third party yet to be decided(this would be Aaron Schwartz in a better world) to be given free reign to gut the whole industry and rebuild it into something isn’t wholly based on ad revenue and grift

    Edit: a bunch of good suggestions of people I need to read about for position three. If anyone can think of a digital equivalent to Marshall McLuhan I think we desperately needs input of that sort

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Maybe Cory Doctorow?

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I definitely considered just saying him outright but I don’t know quite enough about him outside of a few articles I’ve read to be certain I wanted to be so bold

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago

    Old Linus with Woz and Schwartz is a dream.

    I understand why Linus wanted to clean up his act with people he works with. That is a good and admirable thing to do. I wish he would have kept his smoke for companies though.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I wonder if those three would get along. Collaborative chemistry can be an elusive thing, even if the individuals' principles are mostly aligned.

    Either way, I'll bet it would be interesting.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    It’s certainly possible they wouldn’t get along, I feel like their shared enthusiasm for tech, plus the fact that Woz can get along with even the largest and stinkiest of assholes would help

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I've never met Woz, but yes, I've long had the impression that his humility and sincerity reach depths seldom seen in humans, let alone in tech. Sadly, I also suspect these traits have made him easy to take advantage of in the past.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Stallman.

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  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Stallman, is in fact, GNU/Stallman, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Stallman. Stallman is not a man unto himself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I lack the creativity, but someone please come up with a recursive acronym for Stallman.

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