Comment by GMoromisato

8 hours ago

I think manifestos are useless without a concrete, real-world example for people to follow and add on to. It's easy to wish for puppies and rainbows, but trying to deliver is hard.

For example, Linear has a useful manifesto (https://linear.app/method) because they have a product that attempts to follows it. I have much more respect for a manifesto that is informed by contact with reality.

4 comments

GMoromisato

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patcon  8 hours ago

I agree, but I always assume manifestos are distillations from experience.

Is it that you want to be able to inspect the experience that informs it side-by-side, in case-studies or product or something?

I take it for granted that you're not sceptical of the authors experience, because lord knows there's some experience behind the contributors and signatories :)

Maggie Appleton Samuel Arbesman Daniel Barcay Rob Hardy Aishwarya Khanduja Alex Komoroske Geoffrey Litt Michael Masnick Brendan McCord Bernhard Seefeld Ivan Vendrov Amelia Wattenberger Zoe Weinberg Simon Willison

  • GMoromisato  3 hours ago

    I'm used to manifestos being a call to action or, at least, an explanation of intentions. But if the signers are intent on changing the world, I don't have a concrete view of what world they plan on creating.

    "people must serve as primary stewards of their own context": What does this mean? People must be able to change the system prompt whenever they want? Or does "their own context" just mean "their own prompt" but not the system prompt? Does this mean everyone needs to run a local model?

    "You must be able to trust there are no hidden agendas or conflicting interests.": Any transaction has conflicting interests. I want to pay as little as possible for software, but I want my salary as a software engineer to be as high as possible. How are they planning on eliminating that conflict?

    "No single entity should control the digital spaces we inhabit.": What do they mean by a "digital space"? Do they mean the Internet? If so, then this is already true: no single entity controls the internet. Do they mean any web app that I might use? If I put up a personal blog can I be the only one who controls it? What if my blog gets really popular?

    "Software should be open-ended, able to meet the specific, context-dependent needs of each person who uses it." Also, it should take 0 time to manage, solve any problem I might have, and be absolutely free.

    "Technology should enable connection and coordination, helping us become better neighbors, collaborators, and stewards of shared spaces, both online and off." This was literally the original dream of the internet. We thought a global network that connected everyone would lead to peace and prosperity. We all agree that it hasn't. No one has any idea how to achieve this other than banning it.

    I'm sure we can come up with answers to each one of these questions. But my point is that the manifesto doesn't tell us. We don't know what they have in mind, which makes me suspicious that either (a) they don't know either, or (b) I might not like the answer.

zephen  2 hours ago

> because they have a product that attempts to follows it.

I had no idea what linear.app was. Then I followed your link.

Then I had no idea what linear.app was. Then I went to their front page.

Then I had no idea what linear.app was.

Manifestos are fine. My personal one is that, if I can't tell immediately from your front page what the fuck it is that you do, then we aren't compatible.