Technology

Titled “The Ethereum Foundation Mandate,” the document featured ethereal illustrated scenes of glowing lights and anime-style characters voyaging through dark forests. The pages featured white text against a navy blue background and were adorned with cartoon flowers, rainbows and diamonds.

And on page 11 — nestled between a winking anime woman and three yellow cats — was a suicide pledge.

Authors, maintainers, editors and distributors of “this software” would pledge to ensure the software remained free and publicly accessible, and would also vow to “take his or her own life with a sword upon failure to uphold any of the pledges in this license,” the illustration read. It was labeled “Source Seppuku License,” an apparent reference to a traditional Japanese ritual suicide.

To work in crypto you have to have a fairly high baseline separation from reality but this is impressive.

What a pathetic way to lose ~50 employees/volunteers

The Source Seppuku license sounds moderately hilarious, I think a lot of people here on Lemmy would approve of it if crypto wasn't involved (the people who call permissive licenses "cuck licenses"). Luckily there's no way to legally enforce it.

The whole nazi anime lady is pretty bad though, and terminating someone for having cancer is beyond fucked.

Paywalled article. Great thanks for that.

https://archive.li/6jnqb

And on page 11 — nestled between a winking anime woman and three yellow cats — was a suicide pledge. Authors, maintainers, editors and distributors of “this software” would pledge to ensure the software remained free and publicly accessible, and would also vow to “take his or her own life with a sword upon failure to uphold any of the pledges in this license,” the illustration read. It was labeled “Source Seppuku License,” an apparent reference to a traditional Japanese ritual suicide. When the document went out on that Friday in March, employees were told to commit to the principles in the mandate by Monday or quit their jobs, according to the lawsuit brought by Kayleen Fulton, a Boulder woman who was fired from the Ethereum Foundation after she led employee resistance to the suicide pledge.

Winking character, keep it free... I am not a crypto holder but something seems off with the article.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

The decomposing corpse of the blockchain cult is getting even weirder than it was at the peak of the mania.

That they would produce a legal document with a clause like that and in such a childish format speaks of the general sleaziness of crypto.

The mandate’s visual aesthetic — the anime and other illustrations — reflected imagery from a controversial online figure who was known to promote “white nationalist ideology and disturbing pro-anorexia content,” according to the lawsuit.

When an Ethereum Foundation board member objected to the aesthetic, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin responded that “the controversialness (sic) of those aesthetics is itself part of the point,” according to the lawsuit.

After demanding that employees agree to the mandate, Bastian Aue, co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, defended the suicide pledge to employees as “part of the artwork of the mandate.”

It was, he said, “a cultural reference like other elements in there. Chosen deliberately, but not meant to be taken literally.”

"We deliberately referenced white nationalism when getting you to promise suicide if you don't do as we say, but we didn't mean it"

What the fuck? Lmao, cringe anime seppuku pledge?

Crypto bros are so pathetic.

Looks like the funny money bros running the fucking cringeshit cult must come from 8chan.

This is on par with Aum Shinrikyo and Happy Science. Shades of Lychee Light Club.

Another reason to yell FUCK CRYPTO.

Nearly 80 of the foundation’s 250 or so employees voted to nix the suicide pledge after the draft was released

Nearly 80... So the other 170 employees were okay with this? I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that just maybe this is a cult of some sort.

Edit: I pledge to not math before coffee anymore.

I think this would be the best contract to sign. Including BS like that in it would make it easy to argue the contract is completely void. And given the timeline and threat of being fired. You can also argue it was obviously signed under duress.

Seppuku if they don't keep things open source? Wow that's messed up!

"Dude, it's a joke, how dense can you be?!!

... Sign here, here and here or you're fired. The sword and a body pillow of your assigned anime waifu staring into your soul have been delivered to your desk."

“If you reward making a stink with outcomes, then everyone will know that essentially making that kind of show both internally and externally is the way to cause outcomes inside of the EF,” he said, according to the lawsuit, which cited a recorded conversation between the pair.

So he doubled down instead of removing a suicide pledge? Legitimately insane. Now he's getting sued because of it. But from his point of view it was more about asserting who was in charge. He's insane.

Here make a legal declaration regarding this anime cartoon that's contains some clauses which are binding and others which are just there for color.

For anyone looking for the full PDF: https://ethereum.foundation/ef-mandate.pdf

onion? no?

I can't find the post off hand, but I saw the document pages with this suicide pledge software license on it abd thought it was a joke! Knowing it's not is disgusting!

I thought it was some sick, edgy joke about the state of tech companies. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that modern tech companies and even nonprofits are trying to build the torment nexus from within their own walls, but here I am.

Reality has gone off the rails...

If I had to legally defend the foundation my main argument would be that any proposed thousand-year policy is clearly satire, and that this was actually a test to weed out those who didn't get it.

Jfc…. We live in the most embarrassing timeline. And it’s VERY upsetting that pieces of trash like this company are allowed to exist in the same world where people are starving.

Pretty worthless with the paywall

https://archive.ph/6jnqb

Downvoted for paywall. Sorry.

Omg Crypto CEOs need to get Luigied so hard, he's practically begging for it