Man built an exclusionary pseudo Linux distro instead of going to therapy

I avoid giving stage time to weird people (in the bad sense) here at the Manual. I’m making an exception to link to a July post by DHH, the Danish co-founder of 37Signals (the company behind Basecamp), creator of Omarchy, and author of a blog full of wrong ideas about immigrants and non-white people.

He became the “men do [stupid and/or difficult thing] instead of therapy” meme. I mean, literally. This man built an exclusionary pseudo Linux distro instead of going to therapy. And he’s proud of it! It’s right there on his blog:

Something many people will encounter at some point in their lives. Studies have shown that exercise, for example, is a more effective treatment than talk therapy (and pharmaceuticals!) when dealing with such episodes. But I’m just as interested in the role building competence can have in warding off the demons.

And partly because of this meme.

I’ve talked about it before, but I keep coming back to the fact that it’s exactly backwards. That signing up for an educational quest into Linux, history, or motorcycle repair actually is an incredibly effective alternative to therapy

Congrats on the discovery, DHH, keep it up. Clearly it’s working.

DHH is back in the spotlight after raising USD 12 million from other tech bigwigs for a somewhat shady foundation built around Omarchy, which sparked backlash from employees and customers of the companies involved, like 1Password.