https://www.cringely.com/2026/05/21/im-writing-again/

Count up the number of comments from Jeremy Reimer - the author of this HN linked article - he cares - a lot about this.

The Kickstarter was more than 10 years ago - 2015. It raised $35,452. 10 years and the trolls maintain their nuclear level outrage.

Go read the announcement post:

https://www.cringely.com/2015/09/29/the-cringely-boys-kickst...

What IS worth understanding is that the aftermath is the Cringely was relentlessly and endlessly hounded about this issue by people who can only be described as mentally unwell - they were so fixated, so deeply angry that this happened that they never ever left any Cringely article or post without flooding it with their deep deep anger and righteous indignation.

But "it MATTERS" all the trolls and weirdos would say as they carried their stupid grudge for decades.

And this guy here who wrote this post is just another one of those mentally unwell permanently angry people.

They're stalkers really with the level of ongoing never ending venom they had for Cringely.

I feel sorry for their ex-partners who likely also are being hounded by people never ever able to let go of their anger.

Can you imagine being so deeply enraged by the failure of a Minecraft server Kickstarter that it becomes your never ending mission to hound that person and to declare them to be the worst of the worst forever - really sad.

So if you pile on in the comments and declare Cringely to be some sort of evil person then just be aware you are being manipulated by mentally unwell trolls who want you to behave the same way they do, to amplify their decades old campaign of righteous indignation and online harassment.

Example:

"Penguin Mail – open-source email client for Linux with AI, written in Rust".

Its important, or people might miss the most interesting/important thing about your software.

Right, so not the slightest basis of fact, just wild speculation about a magical future completely ungrounded in any sort of reality.

That's exactly the point I am making.

I'm not saying I'm super smart - I am continuing to ask for detail to back up the wild claims being made all over the world by politicians, tech celebrities and others - all hallucination/AI psychosis/fiction. If someone says some stupid thing then I'd like them to please explain that stupid thing - seems like a reasonable request.

One single plausible scenario is not an unreasonable thing to ask for - just one.

If a politician/celebrity/tech person with significant influence/power claims that something might end humanity then they absolutely have the utterly minimal standard of evidence which is to describe one single realistic plausible mechanism at a detailed level that might lead to the worst possible thing ever to happen.

You are ignoring that this is about "existential threat to humanity".

You're trying to support the argument that there is an existential threat to humanity by pointing to "something bad might happen".

Because its a mass hallucination/misconception/lie and lots of powerful people are saying that wiping out all humanity is possible, and I am saying, oh yeah, tell me ONE way that is truly possible.

If you make gigantic claims about some terrible disaster that might happen then I think you have the onus to give even one plausible explanation of how.

My argument stands and I don't defer to Gates and Musk and even Hawking - high level hand wavey statements without any plausible description of the mechanism just don't hold up. Famous names should not be automatically assumed to be right - certainly not with Elon Musk.

I am specifically arguing hard against the concept that 100% of humans - or even 50% of humans could be killed by any mechanism at all. Humans would find it close to impossible. A computer program - come on.

This is the topic at hand - AI might wipe out humanity - it is being discussed all around the world by people who should know better - any it's the most fictionish of fictional fictions.

Unless you can detail exactly how this happens its still complete science fiction.

It's ridiculous - anyone who thinks about it for a minute or two will realize that its utterly impossible.

Ordinary people/politicians don't understand AI so they turn off their rational mind and assume there is something super incredible some magical powers that they cannot understand that can destroy all humans.

Even humans - the real risk to humanity - could not destroy all humans even if they tried. There is no plausible scenario.

Even climate change and nuclear war and bio weapons - the most damaging mechanisms - would still only get some percentage of the people on earth.

And if we are talking about Skynet and self replicating robots and Terminators - please, grow up.

It is not true that by default you are forbidden to transmit. In fact there are quite open rules in some ways for transmissions. Whenever these discussions about transmission come up there's always people who, without really undrstanding, freak out about transmitting anything and declare that all tranmissions are illegal. Not so.

USA hobbyists can legally transmit without a licence under FCC Part 15, but the limits are pretty low and depend on the frequency. AM, up to 100 mW into the final RF stage, with the antenna, feedline and ground limited to a total of 3 metres. FM maximum field strength of 250 µV/m measured 3 metres away. There are special cases, such as 49.82–49.90 MHz, where home-built transmitters can go to 100 mW on a 1 metre antenna. One-off home-built transmitters don't need FCC certification if for personal use not being sold.

It's pretty interesting to read if you are a radio head: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A...

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/section-15.209

"operation within these frequency bands is permitted under other sections of this part, e.g., §§ 15.231 and 15.241."

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