this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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What is bad about Notch?
Transphobia, homophobia, gamergate agitator, alt-right dog whistler, Billionaire. Take your pick.
It doesn't matter who is speaking out. The ESA is EVIL and Illegal. for calling out PRIVATE servers.
This is not about Notch or private citizens. This is about MS once again *fucking it all *up.
It matters in the sense of popularity, which is important if you want bring a message out. His voice matters because lot of people will listen, as he is not a nobody to Minecraft. Why would most people listen to me or you? In that sense it makes sense to "use" him to get the message to the people.
Why would most people listen to me or you
idea: build a reputation such that people listen to you. if not online, in person.
That's the point.
Never attribute to Malice that which can be explained by nearly terminal levels of stupidity.
Isn't notch like one step away from full blown Nazi
I mean yes, but it should be even more concerning when the sociopath thinks you might want to dial the evil down a bit.
Spill it!🍵💥☕
How is this relevant to the actual topic?
everything to ~~increase~~ maximize shareholders' profits
This is a great argument for open source :)
Why is he the worst person?
Looks like the typical social media comments from regular users too. It's "just" the typical transphobia and pridephobia or what its called. I wouldn't call it the worst person, but definitely not a pleasant person based on the presented information. To make it clear: I am not defending his opinion.
It also seems like he learned and went back on his comments somewhat, I think we should encourage people making mistakes and growing from them, not demonizing them even if they try to change
I don't know if he isnt as public or I haven't been paying attention, or people haven't been reporting on him, but after the initial series of rants, I haven't seen him making unhinged comments. So that's nice. Maybe he's keeping his opinions to himself now. That said.. he has a right to have a public opinion on this one.
He also did some white supremacy, talking about how certain races must be worse because if incarceration and great replacement theory nonsense etc.
Been a while since I looked into it, so I can't remember specifics, but it was more stuff than what you mentioned
I wouldn't call it the worst person,
It's hyperbole, dude
I don't play minecraft, and I live under a rock so, I didn't understand the meme. TIL Notch took the good will he received from the gaming community and summarily flushed it down the toilet.
To play devils advocate,
When Notch was still a normal developer he was pretty progressive. I still remember the blog post where declared Minecraft has no distinct genders, all animals can breed with all of the same species, therefor everyone in Minecraft is gay. As a way to bash homophobes.
The chain of events as i witnessed it. And he also spoke of a few times is that money destroyed all his authentic friendships, his wife divorced him, everyone he met wanted him just for his money and he got completely isolated, also claimed to living for the most part on potato chips when on a podcast with moistcritical.
I also high suspicion from experience with other people he developed an alcohol problem which fuel his social media posts.
It’s no excuse but it is a recipe to make an otherwise decent person act in a monstrous way. Also a recipe to be easily influenceable by the wrong kids of al media.
Last i checked he took a long break from social media, and eventually came back as more sober person.
Can’t erase the fact he made some bad comments in the past. Many people seem to trow him on the same pile as Jk Rowling, who is actively and consistently doing harm. Such is far from fair.
Found the post
The chain of events as i witnessed it. And he also spoke of a few times is that money destroyed all his authentic friendships, his wife divorced him, everyone he met wanted him just for his money and he got completely isolated, also claimed to living for the most part on potato chips when on a podcast with moistcritical.
this happens a lot. I've got three circles of friends i trust and the defining characteristic is they stuck by either me or my wife when one of us was in crisis. fairweather friends are all too common when you're successful, but it's the ones who are there when you're down and out that are [generally] trustworthy.
What could go wrong by taking an average dude and give them billions of dollars?
I have yet to see a billionaire that is not severely mentally ill.
Might infer that no one should be a billionaire and that capitalism was a mistake.
Money has behaviour the same way that electrons have behaviour. Humanity is like the quantum field of money.
This is a fascinating take, I love it
We should find out by giving me billions of dollars
I consider him in a similar category to Rowling not in effect, but in cause. I think they're actually both prime examples of people who had been functional humans until becoming ultra wealthy, isolated, and internet brained.
Sounds like notch has changed back for the better, which is awesome.
I think I kind of identify with this perspective. I used to view agender as the obvious goal and anyone trying to emphasise binary gender as being kind of backwards. I just assumed that every cool person secretly just wanted to abolish gender and then we could just do whatever we wanted without having to label it one way or another.
And so for a split second I thought the terfs had a point. I even defended the perspective on reddit I think 🤦 anyway, you know the rest. If you read enough terf shit they tell in themselves and it's not a feminist movement at all, but only about guarding access to their role as afabs (in the patriarchy).
I'm not going to waste to many more bytes on a transphobe, but if he's been doing some work and coming to his senses then I'm happy for him. I can imagine how his particular life path fucked him up (solo Java developer to probably richest indie dev in the world).
Notch is better than Rowling if only that he had the good sense to leave the public eye and separate himself from his work.
Thank you for this!
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His wife divorced him shortly after he became a billionare. Money is a disease
That tends to happen after you cheat on your wife with a gold-digger
I know it's a redundant statement but they became a billionaire AND became alt-right, especially in regards to their opinions towards the LGBTQ+ community. Microsoft actually scrubbed their name off of everything because of it.
It's really sad to me because I used to really look up to them as a Minecraft obsessed teenager trying to learn to program
I remember being told that I'd become more conservative when I get out of school and start making money.
Turns out that's just what shitty people do.
I make pretty decent money now. Fuck conservatives, fuck conservative ideals, eat the rich.
I can't imagine a world where I ever follow such drivel.
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Exactly the meme that came to mind. Notch turned out to be such a disappointment
Nothing "borderline" about it.
As others have stated, while he is correct on this issue, I wouldn't look to Notch for his opinion on anything these days.
I honestly can't even tell if Jennifer Gibbons (ESA VP of State Government Affairs who made the original statement) even has any idea what Private Servers are. It's almost as if she was equating them to something like the community run WoW servers, which regardless of the morality argument, were in fact breaking ToS by circumventing WoW's subscription fees.
In the case of Minecraft, that argument doesn't apply. Minecraft has no online subscription. Private servers were the only way to even play online until Realms. While Mojang doesn't officially support private server administration, they do provide downloads for the server binary and documentation on their official website. It's not just allowed, it's explicitly listed as a way to play.
Obviously they would prefer to push people toward Realms as an extra revenue stream, but the way multiplayer is architected in Minecraft makes this argument make zero sense.
I think the gaming community's intuition on this one is correct in that she accidentally said the quiet part out loud:
The end state of the tech industry desired by corporations is one where copies of software and even the means to compute can no longer be owned, they must be rented from the gatekeepers--i.e. "You'll own nothing and be happy."
It's not evil, it's plain stupid, why would I ever play Minecraft with my friends now if we can't control the lobby?!
Yeah, one asshole complaining about fellow assholes shouldn't be considered news, even if it is his clock's time of day to be correct.
I mean, it is news if he's the one who made the game that's being talked about.
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