"What a shithole." Comments, questions, and feedback (and my responses) from the 48 hours since we launched New Athens
It's been a wild couple days.
Hey folks. I’m compiling here some notable comments, questions, and feedback on the launch of New Athens.
The vast majority of feedback has been positive, in the “Looks cool!” and “Nice work!” vein. I’ll never turn that down, but a handful of comments went deeper or were constructively critical.
I have every reason to consider every reaction I can get my hands on, even from trolls. Reactions are gifts, at least in this early stage of the game. I’m also keen to grapple openly with what I hear. That’s how problems get solved—so we’ll just start doing that today.
If I responded meaningfully to the original comment I’ve included that here, too.
Last bit: If a comment was relayed to me privately, I’ve removed identifying information. I’ve also fixed the especially gut-wrenching spelling and grammatical errors. —JCS
“Smartphone-free utopia? Take my money.”
From a woman who has worked in tech for the last 15 years.
“I don’t know how I feel about no smartphones. I have family overseas and I don’t think they’d be happy if they couldn’t reach me quickly.”
From a graduate student.
“I changed to black and white for a while on my phone. I want those lawsuits showing how addictive social media and cell phones are to make some kind of difference, but I’m not sure what will happen.”
From a mom who moved from California to the Midwest to be closer to family and childcare.
“Does new Athens have a health commissioner yet??”
From a public health research scientist. Edging for the job right off the bat. Nice.
“What a shithole.”
From a thread on Hacker News, a forum popular in the Bay Area tech community.
My response: “It might be. Or it might not be.
I mean this in all sincerity, if you’re having that reaction, I invite you to join the waitlist to move to the city.
I’ve come to believe that people are mean and dismissive online (as you just were) not because they, and you, are mean and dismissive people, but because at a fundamental level there’s nothing to do on the internet. The few things we manage to do, or build, or change online are a whiff of shit on the breeze compared to the adventure, meaning, and risk of interacting with real people in physical reality.
You will benefit from moving to the city because building something in the real world with people you depend on, and who depend on you, will make you a better, happier human. Please consider it.
The waitlist form is here: https://newathens.fillout.com/waitlist
“This attempts to formalise a role for church/faith based enterprises in the welfare state. That’s political.”
From the aforementioned forum thread.
My response: “Yes, you’re right: it’s political. The whole thing is deeply political. I worked in tech in SF from 2010–2020 and one of the big mistakes of the era, IMO, was pretending that certain topics weren’t political. Or that they were no longer political because of “progress.”
In 2020 my wife and I moved to rural Appalachia, where her parents live, because they were excited to help with childcare. Without getting into the pros and cons of city vs. rural living, or blue vs. red culture, I can confidently report that many (most?) topics tech people consider non-political are all people here want to talk about—because here those topics are considered THE MOST IMPORTANT political questions of our times.
I don’t think I’m saying anything you don’t know. I guess I’ll just reiterate: You’re right, it’s political. And I’ll add: As it’s always been.
FWIW, my hope with New Athens is to strike a new balance that’s wild enough to cause hard-core partisans to pause and think, get everyone thinking from first principals again about big issues that got stuck in the culture war trap, and, at the very least, be transparent about what we’re doing so that people can self-select in or out in good faith.
“Many people with deep pockets have tried to do this and failed, from Sidewalk Labs to YC new cities to California Forever. Worth talking to all of them to figure out how you’ll best the odds and potential landmines along the way. Rooting for you!”
From an investor based in San Francisco. This last comment came my way pre-launch, but it’s good so I’m including it here.
My response: “My strategy is to start by building massive traction with boring, normal middle class Americans and use that as leverage to get over political and regulatory hurdles. No fancy renderings, no billionaire backers (yet), no promises of Smart City Utopia or not having to pay taxes or any of that. AND you’re right that I need to talk to others.