
Minecraft’s creator excluded from event over his ‘comments and opinions’ - amaccuish
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/29/18522546/microsoft-minecraft-anniversary-event-notch-creator-comments-opinions
======
segmondy
It's sad how wealth affected Notch or perhaps magnified his character. A long
time ago, I started following him on Twitter and I think I lasted about 2
weeks before I unfollowed him. The sheer negativity and woe is me is bananas.
If there's a prime example that money doesn't buy happiness, he is one.

~~~
_eht
To be fair- The Notch you are disliking is the same person he was __before__
the influx of Micro$oft cash. At very least, he's consistent.

~~~
mcphage
I don't know if that's entirely true—I followed him on twitter for a period of
time before and after the sale, and post-sale his tweets got more and more
unpalatable. Perhaps you're right, and he didn't change at all, but at the
very least the public persona that he expressed changed.

~~~
jshaqaw
It gets dangerous when tons of the people around you are somehow seeking to
feed off your wealth and thus you get very little negative feedback anywhere.
Everyone says they hate yes men. In practice most people love yes men.

~~~
mcphage
> Everyone says they hate yes men. In practice most people love yes men.

Sadly true.

------
mancerayder
Notice Verge is quoting a politically-charged journal, called Roots, as proof
of "problematic" language.[1]

I don't know. Microsoft can do what it wants, but as a society we need to
consider doing two things:

A _\- Socially spurning all political language in non-political contexts._

    
    
      or
    

B _\- Being tolerant of all political language that isn 't DIRECTLY hateful.
Using the word "white" and just saying a contextless tweet "It's ok to be
white" should not offend people, or if it does, it should be tolerated. OR, we
can have a long discussion about it, and go back and forth and try to figure
it out._

_A_ seems wise. But society chooses [edit] neither A nor B and we get into
fights over it.

And if C, allowing some opinions but not others is the course of action, then
we have a real problem. We're not going to "eliminate hate" by going option C:
selection of opinions that are Correct and Not Correct. Because those in the
"Not Correct" category will regroup in far worse ways - don't we learn from
history?

[1] - Read this and judge for yourself. Please read their OTHER articles and
tell me if you don't find evidence of hate.
[https://www.theroot.com/minecraft-creator-goes-full-white-
pr...](https://www.theroot.com/minecraft-creator-goes-full-white-privilege-
denying-whi-1820904201)

------
IIAOPSW
I tried clicking the links about Notch's non-pc comments. Those took me to
newsweek articles which also talked about twitter but didn't link to the
offending tweets themselves. Only one article linked (someplace called "the
root") actually referenced any of his words per se. Among the problematic
quotes were:

"Privilege is a made up metric used to silence and repress. We are all
different, and that is ok. We listen to individuals and help each other based
on individual strengths and needs.

We do not generalize based on skin color, bigot."

That's a far cry from the sensationalized title of "Notch hates diversity".

So in answer to your question, my guess is Notch basically a DeMoore type
character and is being crucified by the media.

~~~
bryanlarsen
It took about 5 seconds of googling to find this:

[https://twitter.com/notch/status/901192994971410433?lang=en](https://twitter.com/notch/status/901192994971410433?lang=en)

Another 2 seconds for:

[https://twitter.com/notch/status/1101794469060337664?lang=en](https://twitter.com/notch/status/1101794469060337664?lang=en)

~~~
etrevino
For those of us at work, do you mind summarizing these tweets in a reasonably
SFW fashion?

~~~
neaden
The first "(pizzagate is real)" second "Q is legit. Don't trust the media."
the second is followed with him defending the Q conspiracy in the comments,
the first all the replies have pretty much been deleted.

------
meddlepal
Seriously what the fuck happened to Notch. I don't blame Microsoft from
excluding him at all.

~~~
malvosenior
He's self-made and not afraid to express his opinions even if they aren't
politically correct. People like him should be applauded as they are
increasingly rare in today's society.

~~~
rcxdude
Do you think the reasons most people don't express opinions like the ones
notch has expressed recently is due to a fear of backlash over being
considered 'un-PC' as opposed to not actually holding those opinions? This
rhetoric plays into a common theme among extremists which is quite dangerous:
"Everyone actually thinks the same way I do, they are just afraid to say it".

~~~
NotAnEconomist
> Do you think the reasons most people don't express opinions like the ones
> notch has expressed recently is due to a fear of backlash over being
> considered 'un-PC' as opposed to not actually holding those opinions?

Repeated surveys show that the identitarian left accounts for about 8% of the
population, and that their views are over represented in media, while people
are genuinely afraid of being publicly lynched for saying the wrong thing.

The entire #walkaway movement started because of that.

------
kgwgk
> “His comments and opinions do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang and
> are not representative of Minecraft.”

Do all the comments and opinions of every other participant in the event
reflect those of Microsoft and Mojang?

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Which other participant created Minecraft?

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RandomInteger4
Notch seems to have gone a bit off the deep end, and I'm not referring to his
conservative views. His tweets often sound incoherent. Maybe English isn't his
strongest skill? I can't tell.

Someone in the Minecraft YouTuber community speculated that perhaps he got
involved with party drugs (MDMA) and it affected him permanently, as they had
seen something similar happen with a friend of theirs. Pure speculation.

------
kadendogthing
Why did this get flagged?

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patrickg_zill
If I felt that Microsoft was delivering high quality software and was a
meritocracy I would cut them a lot of slack, no matter what opinions they
espoused and who they favored or excluded.

Unfortunately I have to use Skype for Business literally every working day and
it's symptomatic of a company that is fat dumb and happy, secure in its cash
flow.

------
bitwize
Microsoft is simply applying a strategy that's known to work (see: the study
confirming that banning problematic subreddits has had a positive effect on
Reddit as a whole). This is what happens when you hold views decent people
don't hold: you get silenced, ostracized, and your name blotted from your own
work. Want decent people to engage with you? Change your mind.

~~~
apta
How do you reconcile that with censorship in general?

~~~
kthejoker2
Censorship is being put in actual jail under threat of a gun for saying
something.

Private individuals and organizations should not be forced to subsidize your
speech.

~~~
apta
> Censorship is being put in actual jail under threat of a gun for saying
> something.

I think that's kind of a limited definition. You can be censored without being
put in jail or forced into it by violence.

