The former CEO of Reddit would like you all to stop bickering online

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Yishan Wong, the former CEO of Reddit, wrote that he was in for a world of pain if Elon took over.

Wong suggests a version of Matt Levine's hypothesis. According to Wong, Musk doesn't understand what has happened to internet culture. It is also true that Musk's public interest in cryptocurrencies is relatively recent.

Silicon Valley's real bias is towards coding fun stuff, which is funny. This bias is similar to journalism, which is to get the news out as quickly as possible. This bias can lead to mistakes. Most programmers and executives at social media companies don't want to have to police their users. They are spending a lot of time trying to prevent us from creating flame wars that could affect all of online. This is not as fun as making, for instance, the Twitter timeline go sideways.

I think he knows what he's talking about when it comes to Battle Royales, where one false move leads to absolutely bizarre, severe consequences, because we seem to love creating them. Humans are very good at cooperation when our survival depends on it, but Thomas Hobbes wasn't right about the internet.

It only takes a few bad-faith users to ruin a platform. The platform is scary and the good-faith users leave. That makes things worse.

Wong's thread suggests that Musk is culturally far behind. Gen Xers were raised in a softer world. Musk and a lot of his Xer brethren try to avoid banning stuff that might upset religious authorities. The internet was the main battlefield for our culture wars until Wong discovered it.

Wong writes that this is not the Old Internet. It is sad. It's not because the platforms killed it, it's because there are a lot more people here now. The internet culture battles of the 90s are no longer relevant.