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The other day there was a post about some Doom map viewer Notch had written in Dart. One of the top comments said something along the lines of "This is why we a

The other day there was a post about some Doom map viewer Notch had written in Dart. One of the top comments said something along the lines of "This is why we all need to be rich, so we can work on stuff like this." I thought the comment was so sad because honestly, almost no one is going to benefit from a mostly broken Doom map viewer in Dart that's abandoned after a few days. Same with the numerous games he's started (often with no idea where he's going) and abandoned after a few hours/days. Don't get me wrong, I like watching his coding stream as much as the next person, but compare that to the millions of people who benefitted from the sustained and focused effort on Minecraft. Notch says: > If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately. So sad. Imagine if Jobs/the PayPal guys/etc had taken this approach after their initial succcess. Now I'm all for people being free to do what they want and only this guy owns his life and no one is entitled to have him work for them (hat tip Ayn Rand), and obviously this guy has had a bigger impact on the world than I have, but I tend to agree with Immanuel Kant (and Jesus) that we all have a duty to develop and use our talents in a way that benefits humanity and not just indulge ourselves in idle amusement once we're comfortable. And to be honest, this probably applies more to me than to Notch. From "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals": > A third finds in himself a talent which with the help of some culture might make him a useful man in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to take pains in enlarging and improving his happy natural capacities. He asks, however, whether his maxim of neglect of his natural gifts, besides agreeing with his inclination to indulgence, agrees also with what is called duty. He sees then that a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law although men ... should let their talents rest and resolve to devote their lives merely to idleness, amusement, and propagation of their species- in a word, to enjoyment; but he cannot possibly will that this should be a universal law of nature, or be implanted in us as such by a natural instinct. For, as a rational being, he necessarily wills that his faculties be developed, since they serve him and have been given him, for all sorts of possible purposes.

nightski 12y ago
Minecraft was grown out of the way Notch works. What you are suggesting is impossible. No one, not even Steve Jobs sits down and says "My life mission is to benefit humanity". This is because we really do not know which efforts will have the largest impact on humanity. You could waste a lifetime trying to make a better battery - but it might never happen. Or you could hack around on a game and watch it explode and impact millions of lives around the world. In my opinion the important part is that you are doing something meaningful to you as an individual. If it ends up exploding and benefiting humanity all the better. But the world would be so much better off if we just had everyone doing this.
- yupmetoo 12y ago
  I know this is outside the topic, but to critique your analogy - you could spend a lifetime trying to make a better battery, and share the knowledge of 1000 ways to not make a better battery, which is useful in and of itself.
  - nightski 12y ago
    I wasn't trying to imply such a pursuit wouldn't be useful, rather that you should only do it if you find it individually fulfilling and not solely because it might benefit humanity as a whole (because it might not, no one can predict these things). But of course this is all just a personal opinion and highly subjective.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      While we cannot predict the future with perfect certainty statements like: "A better battery will benefit humanity" are safe bets. There are many things that we know with a high degree a certainty will benefit humanity.
      - nightski 12y ago
        And if you find that individually meaningful you should go for it! Notch however, clearly did not enjoy working on something with so much publicity whether it benefited humanity or not. I don't think we should belittle him for that.
- scottjad 12y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the way he works or toy projects or experimenting or not knowing beforehand what will be successful. I'm just a bit concerned that if he actually takes the attitude of (paraphrased) "if something I do is appealing to many people I'll abandon that and find something nobody cares about," he'll end up shortchanging himself and others. And in fairness to Notch, he probably does mean something more nuanced, transitory, and reasonable.
- 12y ago
clavalle 12y ago
I hope he means 'abandoning it to people who will develop it further so more people can enjoy it: I'm not going to deal with that aspect anymore'. But I could just be optimistic.
- tedks 12y ago
  There are a lot of artistic types that can't handle fame at all and become very destructive to themselves, others, and their work when they break down. John Campbell of Pictures for Sad Children comes to mind as a particularly compelling example. I wish I had a pithy explanation as to why this was but I haven't figured it out yet. "some people aren't cut out for fame" doesn't really do it justice, because the problem isn't entirely in the Notch's of the world, but also how we relate to them and how fame is characterized in our culture.
mikeash 12y ago
I get the impression that Notch may not actually be all that talented. I mean, he's probably more so than the average Joe, but not super exceptionally talented. It seems like he got lucky, and was good enough to leverage his success into more success and was good enough of a businessman to profit handsomely from the whole thing, but that's about it. I understand that he hasn't done anything on Minecraft in quite a while. His attempts at something new don't seem to have gone anywhere. (That weird space programming game from a while back got a lot of attention but never resulted in anything.) So, maybe that was it. Notch is a one-hit wonder. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm sure he's already contributed more to the world than most of us ever will. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we're all losing out on anything significant if he doesn't keep trying to make more big things. And from the other side of things, it seems like Minecraft came out of one of these ridiculous idle amusements. If you had described Minecraft to people before it was made, they would have thought it was ridiculous. Oh, a volumetric 3D world with a 1990s-era renderer. Great. Sounds about as useful as a Doom map viewer written in Dart. Yet it turned into something huge. So if Notch does have another hit in him, it will probably come about the same way, through more strange messing about.
- bsaul 12y ago
  You may confuse talent with algorithmic or scientific skills. Which, in the case of videogame is just one small part of the whole. People like notch and other indie developpers are looking for things beyond immediate technical prowess or easy instant fun. They are after something you may call poetry, and how to explore new opportunities created by technology. In this regard and judging by the large interest of children for minecraft, this man is talented.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    I don't confuse talent. I understand that making a video game fun is completely different from raw programming talent or whatever. But merely looking at what Notch has done, it looks to me like he got lucky rather than having some vast talent for making fun games.
    - 12y ago
miketuritzin 12y ago
I don't think it's sad at all. It's great that Notch is doing what makes him happy. And honestly, I think he's much more likely to continue to do things that benefit the world if he follows this intuition rather than feeling duty bound to build things that are as big and impactful as possible. Honestly I think his is more of an artistic than entrepreneurial mindset. How many artists set out to "change the world" with their art? Not many. But still many do.
auxon0 12y ago
Stress is a bitch. But given some time, he'll get bored and do something with all that money.
mopedDreams 12y ago
> Don't get me wrong, I like watching his coding stream as much as the next person Can you please post a link to his streams? I bet it'd be fascinating to watch.
- reledi 12y ago
  Watching him create a game is unlike any other coding streams I've seen: http://www.twitch.tv/notch http://www.twitch.tv/notch, http://www.hitbox.tv/Notch http://www.hitbox.tv/Notch
  - mopedDreams 12y ago
    thanks, guy.
cLeEOGPw 12y ago
It's sad. But it looks like he simply doesn't have what it takes to be the kind of person we all wish he was. Nobody can't blame him for that. Leading of something big is hard and exhaustive process. Especially for introverts like Notch.
- yupmetoo 12y ago
  Or perhaps he doesn't WANT to be the kind of person you "we all" wish he was. This idea that people who are good enough at a thing must somehow become a CEO or leader creates a lot of unhappy people. Let the managers manage, and the engineers make things. Don't put pressure on people to do something they don't want just because you want to see what happens.
  - cLeEOGPw 12y ago
    You just repeated what I have said without disagreeing with me, but somehow you made it sound like you are telling something of the opposite of what I meant.
    - yupmetoo 12y ago
      You said he "doesn't have what it takes" which was what I was disagreeing with - he may very well have what it takes but he's chosen to not pursue that path.
rpdillon 12y ago
I find it ironic that the laws that allowed Notch to cash out were expressly created to forward the progress of science and arts. Yet we find ourselves at a place where the dream is not to work and perfect craft, but to Get Rich Quick so we can relax for the rest of our lives. I, too, find it sad.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Notch has said that he wants to continue working but that he finds the millstone of Minecraft too weighty. He is getting away from Minecraft and Mojang precisely so that he can perfect his craft and continue to work. He's not leaving Mojang so that he can go and kick puppies or club seals. I find the calls on him to do something noble to be deeply unpleasant.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
Oh come on. The reality is that most people who get freak success are very often one-trick ponies. They don't often have a second chapter and some/most of the ones that do, do so only because they are highly driven type-A personalities who thrive on competition, which is the opposite of who Notch is, from what I can tell. Notch probably understands this and pardon me if I don't accept your morality argument over whats essentially a mild distraction (a video game). With Notch's new found wealth, he could, say, start a charitable foundation or whatever he wants which could impact people a whole hell of a lot more people and in arguably better ways than Minecraft 2: Electric Bugaloo.
eyeareque 12y ago
> So sad. Imagine if Jobs/the PayPal guys/etc had taken this approach after their initial succcess. I for one would be happy if paypal didn't exist. However, I like Musk's other companies.
- oliyoung 12y ago
  That's kinda the point, Tesla, SolarCity & Space-X just don't exist without Musk's $165m exit from PayPal
mwfunk 12y ago
No one is obligated to make themselves miserable by forcing themselves to assume a role in life that they do not want. It might be debatable if he was some sort of political leader or humanitarian icon or something, of the sort where humanity's misery index actually increases in their absence. However, for all of his good qualities, like 99.9999% of humanity, Notch is not wired up to be a hugely public figure, who is constantly interacting with the public, and is under continuous scrutiny to make another Minecraft. That's right, for the rest of his career, everything he does will be held up to the yardstick of being "the guy who created Minecraft". I know, boo hoo and all that, given that he is now possibly a billionaire (on paper at least, and maybe only before taxes, but still!). But that doesn't instantly change his psychology- it doesn't flip any of the axes of whatever his Meyers/Briggs personality type is. If he's not comfortable and not happy being a public figure that everyone stares at waiting for the next Minecraft to pop out, no one should be able to hold that against him. He's not obligated to continue being that guy if it's not who he is. After a few years out of the limelight, if he wanted to he could be a Mark Shuttleworth kind of guy: someone who struck it big while still young, and decided to invest a chunk of that money (and most or all of his time) to a passion project. I've gotta think that after the Microsoft deal, Notch won't have to work, but maybe in a few years he might decide to reinvolve himself with the community in a role that is a better fit for him. Or not, it's up to him. I would personally like to see some kind of Act 2 from him, because he is clearly a very creative and occasionally inspired person, but I won't hold it against him if doesn't want to.
sytelus 12y ago
At higher state of mind you do things for sack of doing or some intrinsic pleasure or even no purpose at all. G.H Hardy puts this best in his book Mathematician's Apology by describing why mathematicians do math. He mentioned, as a mathematician, he never cared about utility of its work. In fact he avoided anything that he thought could be remotely useful after many centuries. Euclid didn't created Elements to be "useful" in a practice sense. Mountaineers don't climb mountains because it benefits humanity. They climb them because they are there. I'd been kind of person in my early life where everything needed purpose and goals. It took me long time to understand and come to terms with this line of thinking. The reason I call it "higher" state of mind because I think you arrive there when you understand something very intrinsic about universe. I've written tons of code purely for sack of writing with no intent of it ever getting used by anyone. Some people try to explain it by saying that they do it "just for fun" but its akin to explaining quantum mechanics to a pre-schooler by watered down analogies.
ionised 12y ago
I'm not sure I would ever agree with the idea that a person owes the world their blood and sweat just by coincidence of being born.
AnonJ 12y ago
Ayn Rand? What good does that kind of stuff do at all anyways? If you want some libertarian ideas, fine, there are countless philosophers out there for you to cite, even Robert Nozick. But Ayn Rand? That's just disgusting beyond belief, seriously.

nightski 12y ago

Minecraft was grown out of the way Notch works. What you are suggesting is impossible. No one, not even Steve Jobs sits down and says "My life mission is to benefit humanity". This is because we really do not know which efforts will have the largest impact on humanity. You could waste a lifetime trying to make a better battery - but it might never happen. Or you could hack around on a game and watch it explode and impact millions of lives around the world. In my opinion the important part is that you are doing something meaningful to you as an individual. If it ends up exploding and benefiting humanity all the better. But the world would be so much better off if we just had everyone doing this.

yupmetoo 12y ago
I know this is outside the topic, but to critique your analogy - you could spend a lifetime trying to make a better battery, and share the knowledge of 1000 ways to not make a better battery, which is useful in and of itself.
- nightski 12y ago
  I wasn't trying to imply such a pursuit wouldn't be useful, rather that you should only do it if you find it individually fulfilling and not solely because it might benefit humanity as a whole (because it might not, no one can predict these things). But of course this is all just a personal opinion and highly subjective.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    While we cannot predict the future with perfect certainty statements like: "A better battery will benefit humanity" are safe bets. There are many things that we know with a high degree a certainty will benefit humanity.
    - nightski 12y ago
      And if you find that individually meaningful you should go for it! Notch however, clearly did not enjoy working on something with so much publicity whether it benefited humanity or not. I don't think we should belittle him for that.
scottjad 12y ago
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the way he works or toy projects or experimenting or not knowing beforehand what will be successful. I'm just a bit concerned that if he actually takes the attitude of (paraphrased) "if something I do is appealing to many people I'll abandon that and find something nobody cares about," he'll end up shortchanging himself and others. And in fairness to Notch, he probably does mean something more nuanced, transitory, and reasonable.
12y ago

clavalle 12y ago

I hope he means 'abandoning it to people who will develop it further so more people can enjoy it: I'm not going to deal with that aspect anymore'. But I could just be optimistic.

tedks 12y ago
There are a lot of artistic types that can't handle fame at all and become very destructive to themselves, others, and their work when they break down. John Campbell of Pictures for Sad Children comes to mind as a particularly compelling example. I wish I had a pithy explanation as to why this was but I haven't figured it out yet. "some people aren't cut out for fame" doesn't really do it justice, because the problem isn't entirely in the Notch's of the world, but also how we relate to them and how fame is characterized in our culture.

mikeash 12y ago

I get the impression that Notch may not actually be all that talented. I mean, he's probably more so than the average Joe, but not super exceptionally talented. It seems like he got lucky, and was good enough to leverage his success into more success and was good enough of a businessman to profit handsomely from the whole thing, but that's about it. I understand that he hasn't done anything on Minecraft in quite a while. His attempts at something new don't seem to have gone anywhere. (That weird space programming game from a while back got a lot of attention but never resulted in anything.) So, maybe that was it. Notch is a one-hit wonder. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm sure he's already contributed more to the world than most of us ever will. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we're all losing out on anything significant if he doesn't keep trying to make more big things. And from the other side of things, it seems like Minecraft came out of one of these ridiculous idle amusements. If you had described Minecraft to people before it was made, they would have thought it was ridiculous. Oh, a volumetric 3D world with a 1990s-era renderer. Great. Sounds about as useful as a Doom map viewer written in Dart. Yet it turned into something huge. So if Notch does have another hit in him, it will probably come about the same way, through more strange messing about.

bsaul 12y ago
You may confuse talent with algorithmic or scientific skills. Which, in the case of videogame is just one small part of the whole. People like notch and other indie developpers are looking for things beyond immediate technical prowess or easy instant fun. They are after something you may call poetry, and how to explore new opportunities created by technology. In this regard and judging by the large interest of children for minecraft, this man is talented.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I don't confuse talent. I understand that making a video game fun is completely different from raw programming talent or whatever. But merely looking at what Notch has done, it looks to me like he got lucky rather than having some vast talent for making fun games.
  - 12y ago

miketuritzin 12y ago

I don't think it's sad at all. It's great that Notch is doing what makes him happy. And honestly, I think he's much more likely to continue to do things that benefit the world if he follows this intuition rather than feeling duty bound to build things that are as big and impactful as possible. Honestly I think his is more of an artistic than entrepreneurial mindset. How many artists set out to "change the world" with their art? Not many. But still many do.

auxon0 12y ago

Stress is a bitch. But given some time, he'll get bored and do something with all that money.

mopedDreams 12y ago

> Don't get me wrong, I like watching his coding stream as much as the next person Can you please post a link to his streams? I bet it'd be fascinating to watch.

reledi 12y ago
Watching him create a game is unlike any other coding streams I've seen: http://www.twitch.tv/notch http://www.twitch.tv/notch, http://www.hitbox.tv/Notch http://www.hitbox.tv/Notch
- mopedDreams 12y ago
  thanks, guy.

cLeEOGPw 12y ago

It's sad. But it looks like he simply doesn't have what it takes to be the kind of person we all wish he was. Nobody can't blame him for that. Leading of something big is hard and exhaustive process. Especially for introverts like Notch.

yupmetoo 12y ago
Or perhaps he doesn't WANT to be the kind of person you "we all" wish he was. This idea that people who are good enough at a thing must somehow become a CEO or leader creates a lot of unhappy people. Let the managers manage, and the engineers make things. Don't put pressure on people to do something they don't want just because you want to see what happens.
- cLeEOGPw 12y ago
  You just repeated what I have said without disagreeing with me, but somehow you made it sound like you are telling something of the opposite of what I meant.
  - yupmetoo 12y ago
    You said he "doesn't have what it takes" which was what I was disagreeing with - he may very well have what it takes but he's chosen to not pursue that path.

rpdillon 12y ago

I find it ironic that the laws that allowed Notch to cash out were expressly created to forward the progress of science and arts. Yet we find ourselves at a place where the dream is not to work and perfect craft, but to Get Rich Quick so we can relax for the rest of our lives. I, too, find it sad.

DanBC 12y ago
Notch has said that he wants to continue working but that he finds the millstone of Minecraft too weighty. He is getting away from Minecraft and Mojang precisely so that he can perfect his craft and continue to work. He's not leaving Mojang so that he can go and kick puppies or club seals. I find the calls on him to do something noble to be deeply unpleasant.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

Oh come on. The reality is that most people who get freak success are very often one-trick ponies. They don't often have a second chapter and some/most of the ones that do, do so only because they are highly driven type-A personalities who thrive on competition, which is the opposite of who Notch is, from what I can tell. Notch probably understands this and pardon me if I don't accept your morality argument over whats essentially a mild distraction (a video game). With Notch's new found wealth, he could, say, start a charitable foundation or whatever he wants which could impact people a whole hell of a lot more people and in arguably better ways than Minecraft 2: Electric Bugaloo.

eyeareque 12y ago

> So sad. Imagine if Jobs/the PayPal guys/etc had taken this approach after their initial succcess. I for one would be happy if paypal didn't exist. However, I like Musk's other companies.

oliyoung 12y ago
That's kinda the point, Tesla, SolarCity & Space-X just don't exist without Musk's $165m exit from PayPal

mwfunk 12y ago

No one is obligated to make themselves miserable by forcing themselves to assume a role in life that they do not want. It might be debatable if he was some sort of political leader or humanitarian icon or something, of the sort where humanity's misery index actually increases in their absence. However, for all of his good qualities, like 99.9999% of humanity, Notch is not wired up to be a hugely public figure, who is constantly interacting with the public, and is under continuous scrutiny to make another Minecraft. That's right, for the rest of his career, everything he does will be held up to the yardstick of being "the guy who created Minecraft". I know, boo hoo and all that, given that he is now possibly a billionaire (on paper at least, and maybe only before taxes, but still!). But that doesn't instantly change his psychology- it doesn't flip any of the axes of whatever his Meyers/Briggs personality type is. If he's not comfortable and not happy being a public figure that everyone stares at waiting for the next Minecraft to pop out, no one should be able to hold that against him. He's not obligated to continue being that guy if it's not who he is. After a few years out of the limelight, if he wanted to he could be a Mark Shuttleworth kind of guy: someone who struck it big while still young, and decided to invest a chunk of that money (and most or all of his time) to a passion project. I've gotta think that after the Microsoft deal, Notch won't have to work, but maybe in a few years he might decide to reinvolve himself with the community in a role that is a better fit for him. Or not, it's up to him. I would personally like to see some kind of Act 2 from him, because he is clearly a very creative and occasionally inspired person, but I won't hold it against him if doesn't want to.

sytelus 12y ago

At higher state of mind you do things for sack of doing or some intrinsic pleasure or even no purpose at all. G.H Hardy puts this best in his book Mathematician's Apology by describing why mathematicians do math. He mentioned, as a mathematician, he never cared about utility of its work. In fact he avoided anything that he thought could be remotely useful after many centuries. Euclid didn't created Elements to be "useful" in a practice sense. Mountaineers don't climb mountains because it benefits humanity. They climb them because they are there. I'd been kind of person in my early life where everything needed purpose and goals. It took me long time to understand and come to terms with this line of thinking. The reason I call it "higher" state of mind because I think you arrive there when you understand something very intrinsic about universe. I've written tons of code purely for sack of writing with no intent of it ever getting used by anyone. Some people try to explain it by saying that they do it "just for fun" but its akin to explaining quantum mechanics to a pre-schooler by watered down analogies.

ionised 12y ago

I'm not sure I would ever agree with the idea that a person owes the world their blood and sweat just by coincidence of being born.

AnonJ 12y ago

Ayn Rand? What good does that kind of stuff do at all anyways? If you want some libertarian ideas, fine, there are countless philosophers out there for you to cite, even Robert Nozick. But Ayn Rand? That's just disgusting beyond belief, seriously.