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.
Oh a legal professional has definitely seen this document. I’m sure it’s totally enforceable.
What a pathetic way to lose ~50 employees/volunteers
I wish people could just be grown-ups.
There’s this concept in biology called “neoteny.” It’s when adult organisms retain the physical characteristics of juveniles. Hairless bodies in humans is an example.
I think we’re seeing an accelerated psychological version of this in society. We’ve got people , including leaders, going around acting like 10-14 year olds.
Wow. I’m not into kink shaming or telling people they’re have fun the wrong way, but how broken do you need to be to cosplay the Bushido code for the sake of magic money? 🤦🏻♂️
holy shit
comic sans?? everything about this is unhinged
Jesus Fucking Christ.
The decomposing corpse of the blockchain cult is getting even weirder than it was at the peak of the mania.
Can’t wait for Line Goes Up 2
He was always weird though.
What the fuck? Lmao, cringe anime seppuku pledge?
Crypto bros are so pathetic.
I thought it was a joke at first but no, some absolute weirdo put it in there.
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”
It is unenforceable anyway, but adding that sends some signal for sure
Well, yeah. Suicide is illegal, and any contract to commit a crime is void.
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.
“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.
Seppuku if they don’t keep things open source? Wow that’s messed up!
Omg, leik so messed up!
It would be horrible if it was national law.
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.
Had to look up Lychee Light Club, and despite the stort synopsis, it looks like an interesting read, in a very morbidly curious kinda manner.
So, probably not intentional on your part, but thanks for sharing a dark story I’m now morbidly curious about checking out.
"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."
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.
I would have just signed it because as you say there’s no way any of this is legally enforceable, so who cares.
Risky in the current political climate, though. We’ll see where things go from here but the side that would support slavery for life contracts still has a sitting president (who is acting a bit too calm at having just lost the house and senate).
Yeah, but any litigation about this kind of thing always takes years. So either we have new leadership, or we are already totally screwed worse than the contract.
Hence it being risky as its impossible to tell what kind of people will have authority over the decision process if it ends up in court and what their values will be. What might be ridiculous to some are exactly the kind of “gotchas” that predatory people love.
Slavery for life contracts wouldn’t be slavery though as it was entered into willingly.
Speak of the devil…
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.
And your job depends on it. Some of the content is a joke but not the part where you sign.
Pretty worthless with the paywall
How do these websites determine who gets served a paywall? I don’t get one at all.
Me neither.
Maybe to rope people in? I can’t remember ever reading the Denver Post before, so maybe it’s like a free sample?
I’m originally from Denver so maybe they are targeting me.
For anyone looking for the full PDF: https://ethereum.foundation/ef-mandate.pdf
Thanks. It’s full of cringe “animu Lain suicide cult” pictures, I don’t understand how they have employees at all.
What in the AI psychosis? This whole thing is bat-shit crazy.
This is the only part mentioning a license
Supported projects must pledge that they will not change their open source or copyleft license in the future. Permissive licenses are accepted, viral copyleft licenses are appreciated, but merely source-available licenses are not tolerated.
Edit: my bad. it’s in an image on page 11
