this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I'm an admirer of Louis Rossmann and his efforts. In my opinion, he doesn't deserve this criticism from Drew DeVault:

They (FUTO) push an open-washing narrative and they portray themselves as a grant-making institution when, in truth, they’re passing off a handful of small donations as if they were endorsements from dozens of respectable, high-profile open source projects, in an attempt to legitimize themselves, and, indirectly, legitimize people they platform like Curtis Yarvin.

I suppose Wolf and Rossmann are "no true leftists", but to tell the truth, I'd love to hear @FUTO@peertube.futo.org 's response to this. For added context, this is what Mr. DeVault claims to be Louis Rossmann's "milquetoast response" (his words, not mine) to Wolf inviting Rossmann to debate Yarvin:

10:30 and 16:30 25:52 and 37:35 were my points.

To answer some questions:

  1. 23:20: I had no idea what this was even about or who curtis was until I got on stage. He was supposed to debate destiny, who is a prominent progressive neo-liberal politics streamer, whose views are the antithesis of curtis yarvin's in almsot every way. I've spoken to destiny on youtube & in person before. he was supposed to debate yarvin(which is what was up on the screen). He didn't show up, so someone asked if I wanted to go on stage in his place. I had no idea who any of these people were or what the topic was until about 4 minutes into this.

  2. I believe at one point I had said that I believe that the concept of a monarchy makes no sense because government is a monopoly on force which is why it is NOT analagous to a corporate CEO, who only has a monopoly(until kicked out) on how the company runs. A corporate CEO or the director of a movie has no monopoly on force. I don't see that here. It also cuts off fairly suddenly & the link to the original is gone. I think the entire monarchy thing is ridiculous & stupid.

  3. I was there because the person who donated a million to my right to repair non-profit asked if I wanted to go to some messily organized event. I thought this was very stupid after seeing a trailor at PGwlAb-rUTE (youtube URL will be censored if I post it here, just put that in the search bar to find it), but showed up since I was asked by Eron. Eron will admit himself this was completely ridiculous.

  4. The person who arranged this entire event was on the left, you'd have to see the original video to get what I'm saying here; he seems like a very nice kind guy but who also seems like he melted his brain on psychedelics. This event was a representation of this. This event was an absolute ridiculous mess that I had no idea what the point even was for it. mutahar did a decent coverage of it with content from the original ridiculous video.

  5. this event had little to no food and mostly alcohol like some weird yuppie startup events, i hadn't eaten all day and was mostly excited to get out of there. you can probably tell by my foot tapping i was waiting for this to be over & gtfoh.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

I've been following this FUTO thing tangentially with no real understanding of where the drama is coming from and the players involved. I originally though maybe Rossman was the closet fascist that FUTO was funding, glad to find out it isn't. I don't have the fanboi cultist attitude I see surrounding Rossman all the time here, but I also like his stances on digital freedom that I have run across.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Drew seems like a shit-stirrer. Every post of his I've seen shared has been inflammatory agitprop. "Get angry because this person / org did something" Constantly on the look out for patterns of things he doesn't approve of.

Marvin might be a cunt, but I have yet to see Louis Rossman say anything terrible. He hates the fruit store with a passion, is against surveillance, finally stroking his cats and very anti-corporate in general.

Nuance just seems to be lost on people like Drew.

[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The "No True Scotsman", more technically known as an "Appeal to Purity", logical fallacy seems to pervade the entirety of political discourse these days.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This has been a common pattern in FUTO's PR history: Rossmann doing damage control for shitty stuff Eron Wolf did.

I get that he feels kinda obligated because of the funding from Wolf, but at some point he must realize that this is reputation washing and very damaging to himself as a public figure.

[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I disagree, based on Rossmann's own comments about Wolf through his YouTube Channel and watching his content for the better part of a decade.

I'm prepared to revise my stance on Louis, but I haven't seen any evidence for him "going to bat" for authoritarians and techno-feudalists in any tangible sense, ever.

It's always young people incapable of nuance who are largely unapologetic authoritarians in their own right presenting flimsy "gotchas" that have no ground under scrutiny, such as Louis' words above.

Simply put, for some people, it's never enough.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How is that a response to what I wrote? It literally has nothing to do with what I wrote 🤦

[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Responding to this part:

Rossmann doing damage control for shitty stuff Eron Wolf did.

I disagree that it's "damage control", or that Rossmann is an authoritarian or techno-feudalist apologist.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I never said the latter and how else would you describe him regularly doing YT videos partially walking back or trying to justify shitty things Eron Wolf has said or done?

[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The 2nd part is indeed what DeVault is claiming, to be clear.

"Regularly doing videos" is too strong; this video and 1 other are the only I've personally seen talking about Wolf. This one's in the comments section. The other one he did address, in video, Wolf's financial sourcing just before he moved from New York, I believe. Please post more if you know of anymore, but to me, it reads like you're grasping at anything to find reasons to justify your enmity towards Rossmann.

If you disagree, of course, that's fine. If you just don't like Rossmann, sure. We can leave it at that. But I don't think he's an "apologist" or "fascist adjacent", as DeVault describes him.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He also did several videos around licensing of FUTO that were very clearly damage control.

I don't think Rossmann is a fascist himself, but he clearly got in bed with people that are fascist adjacent and is struggling to clearly distance himself from that, which is not exactly a good look for him and allows others to continue to misuse his relatively good reputation.

[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Can you link them (if you have time)?

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

I watched the whole thing.

Perhaps in my ~~adult~~ addled old age, my comprehension and cognitive abilities have drastically diminished.

Which part is the part where Rossmann is "guilty" of what you and others who share your opinion are accusing him of?

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Eh? I guess you have some strawman in mind of what Rossmann is being accused of. All I am saying is that he is constantly doing PR damage control for Eron Wolf, and that video is a clear example of that. It is not realistic to believe the shitty license happened accidentially... Eron Wolf intentionally wanted it to be like that and only had to walk it back when there was a massive community backlash.

[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Well, based on what I saw and heard, I just don't think I can make the logical leap to where everyone else is at. There's also a large possibility that I'm not comprehending the subtlety involved in their messaging and language.

Overall, assuming I understand correctly, the argument is that Rossmann performs damage control for a fascist-adjacent millionaire who has a shitty software license for projects he funds.

I disagree with that take, and I suppose we just leave it there. Thanks for providing the link, at least.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Are these unapologetically authoritarian young people incapable of nuance in the room with us right now?

[–] entwine@programming.dev 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Holy shit. This just shattered one of my idols. I use and love Grayjay, have recommended it people, and even paid for it. If I had known they were associated with Yarvin I would have made sure I and everyone I know were to stay as far away from it as possible.

This story needs to blow up. FUTO, Wolf, and even Rossmann need to be revealed as the fascists they are. I support right to repair, but not at the expense of democracy. Fuck you, Louis.

EDIT: FUCK, I just realized that I also use and paid their fucking Android keyboard app.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Did you and I read the same article? In it, the author mildly rebukes Rossman for not arguing hard enough against this asshat Yarvin, and then even takes that back with saying Rossman pointedly disagrees with Yarvin later in the comments of the video. But you're ready to go full pitchfork on Rossman for being in the same room as the guy.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 1 points 3 hours ago

He's not just "in the same room", he's continuing to work with FUTO after this enormous red flag. You don't just accidentally stumble into a room with fucking moldbug of all people.

I don't consider myself a social justice warrior or anything, but I'm strongly against fascism, and am of the opinion that taking money from fascists, or engaging with them in any way (besides a fist to the face) makes you a collaborator, no matter what your personal opinions are. The "ends justify the means" thinking from the GOP is why we are where we are.

Does tech bro Erin Wolf care about right to repair? Or does he see it as a trojan horse for his fascist agenda? Idk, but it seems Rossmann is happy to play along as they pay him.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 days ago

Damn, I've had technological disagreements with Mr. DeVault in the past. Obviously, I did not assume those to mean I'd disagree with him on everything, but it still feels surreal to read an entire post where I'm fully on board with everything he writes (and appreciate all the info I did not know).

Cool to see that he's fighting the good fight.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 16 points 2 days ago

That Eron Wolf has questionable ideas was clear for some time, but somehow I missed the Moldbug connection 🫠 Seriously, those Silicon Vally millionairs all have brain worms 🤦

[–] kurcatovium@piefed.social -1 points 2 days ago (4 children)

And here we are again. Not that I want to defend those people, never heard about them before, but from the article they seem to be prime example of human trash. But the weird part is we're (some of us are) discussing this on lemmy, where lead dev and main instance admin is tankie to the bone. And we're here pretending it's somehow OK to spit on one side of trash pile while enjoying the other... Why? We should treat all extremist the same, no matter if they're to the right, to the left, if they're white, black, red, purple or green with magenta spots, it just doesn't matter - treat them all like they deserve.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While both groups have serious issues, I'd join tankies over fascists any time.

Tankies are sometimes misguided and heavily mob-minded, but at least they come from a decent premise.

Fascism is terrible start to end, I cannot think of a single thing they got right.

Also, depends on what you define as "left extremism". Far left simply advocates for human decency, mutual aid and solidarity.

[–] Kissaki@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago

One of the two associations is in power and actively dismantling society. The other develops a technical product and runs a Lemmy instance many people and other instances have blocked.

Handling or concluding them a bit differently seems quite fine to me.

That being said, I've seen plenty of Lemmy dev connection criticism on this platform. I can't say the same about FUTO.

[–] aichan@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Hi, I identify as extremely leftist, guess my opinion on that. I don't like tankies either, but well, I do believe it is ok to spit on fucking fascists, y'know

[–] kurcatovium@piefed.social 0 points 1 day ago

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for spitting on fascists too. But I'm also for spitting on tankies, 'cause in my eyes they represent the same kind of brainrot.

[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Their (tankie) downvotes mean nothing. We've seen what makes them cheer.