DHH · 2026-08-26 · source ↗ · whole document (10)
PewDiePie
`3:51:10`
Hugely inspiring, and should be hugely inspiring to others who sit in that moment like, "Well, I don't know quite how to program. I don't know this and the other thing." Okay, but if PewDiePie can build the Council of AIs with his bespoke, um, hardware here, then maybe you can also start on things. And I think this is actually an important general point, that we need role models. We need people to inspire others, to push further, and reveal that the perceived boundaries, they're not as fixed as you think they are. And every one of those people, they started out in a situation not too dissimilar from yours. Again, that doesn't mean everyone is gonna be PewDiePie or Elon or Linus. There is not an equal distribution of talent or even intelligence. And we can come to terms with that and still be inspired by these people. Like, in the physical realm, I feel like we don't have any problems with that usually. Like, oh, someone's really good at football, they're really good at basketball, they're really good at something, and we go like, "Oh my, that's amazing. I mean, I wish I was, but I'm never going to be." Sometimes I feel like we struggle a little more when it comes to the intellectual realm.
`3:52:32`
I do like that part of it, and then I accept the part that there's also a million people who think I'm the biggest idiot on the earth and I don't actually know anything, and Omakub's just a bunch of dot files, and-
`3:52:46`
And a lot of it, I mean, is as often happens when someone comes in from the outside. I mean, I've been using Linux for two and a half years. That's not very long. Plenty of people in that community who's literally been running Linux since it was hard and difficult, and you had to walk uphill both direction against the wind in the snow barefoot. And I think there is a certain kind of nerd-... who's threatened when the community expands, and it suddenly allows more in. And do you know what? I actually... I can't begrudge that fully. I think it's fair for certain nerds to feel like, "That's my space." Like, now you're changing it into another space. I don't wanna do that. Like, I don't wanna change the Arch space at all. Like, I don't really think of Omarchy as being directly part of the same community. Because the people who were attracted to Arch in the first place were the ones who were attracted to building everything by hand themselves. Doing it the hard way because they like to do it hard, and I'm building the polar opposite of that. So I just wish that those people could go like, "Okay, well, this is not for me. I wanna build it the hard way. I wanna put in 500 hours to rising my own Arch distribution," and I think you should. I mean, actually, I said... I mean, I did it. This is what Omarchy is, me pouring in literally, at this point, I don't know, 3,000 hours into the, into this distro. You should do that if you're so inclined. I think it's wonderful.
But also do realize that we can share the same technical underpinnings and then operate two very separate-... Communities with very different aims, goals, aesthetics, morals even, and coexist, and it can be beautiful. And I mean, that's not always what I get. Sometimes I get the other thing. But at this point I've been in the game long enough to not just be at peace with it, but actually be welcoming of it. I take it as part of a barometer that things are working. When I'm working on something that works, I usually get some people like it, and then I get this balance of the universe that we talked about last time, where an equal but opposing force must be present on the other side of the scale to hate upon it. And therefore, I at this point just smile a little. Like, it's okay.
`3:55:08`
And do you know what's interesting about that is, like, this is the second attempt. So my first attempt was Omakub. And I was really happy with that, and I put it out there, and there it found a community of maybe a few thousand. Like, and that was that, and then it just sort of petered out because the level of ambition couldn't attract more. And then the second time, because I didn't fucking stop, right? Like, I just kept going. I just kept building. Then I put out Omarchy, the first version. Again, quite niche because it was this... It was like Git checkout. It was a little bit difficult. You had to set up Arch first. I was... Well, I would talk you through how to set up Arch, and then you could do the Omarchy thing, right? And then we got an ISO that meant you could just install the whole thing by yourself. And then we just fixed all the problems. This is the other thing. If you keep going, eventually the thing will just work. This was the charge against Linux itself for the longest time. Well, you install Linux and then this doesn't work, and my speakers don't work, and my, Trackpad doesn't work. Yeah, okay, but just leave Linus at it for like 30 years. He'll get to it. He'll get to all of it. And at this point I find hilarious that on, I would probably argue the majority of computers, it's wiped. You install Linux, all of it works. You install Windows, good luck hunting down the drivers you need to get that piece of hardware working.