But this is also the 'move fast break stuff' attitude, and kind of like the Prisoner's Dilemma tournaments, bands of 'move fast break stuff' can knock other people out of the environment through all being irresponsible together.

That's what I take out of the anecdotes. In a sense the guy's Dad was right: the people the guy was dealing with were in another class from him and to join that class required not giving a shit and signing away his life. If he was to question it, that defined him as a person who deserved to lose everything to lawsuits (or never get the opportunity). He'd have asked questions. Not asking questions put him in the company of those who moved fast and broke stuff and didn't ask questions, and he shared in the money and opportunity.

I have a counterexample: I do a Patreon business dedicated to audio software. I've got a couple intermediate goals in there: at $700 I begin releasing certain extra plugins off a list, and at $800 I begin opensourcing my stuff one plugin at a time, my pick (there's another goal where the community specifies what's to come next, and others to accelerate the whole process).

I was at around $720 and releasing the extra plugins as promised, when a single person jumped in with $80 a month (which may or may not have been even real, sometimes pledges are fake), putting it to $800 at a stroke. The risk there is that they'd progressively dial it back as that was their pet reward they wanted, causing all further pledges to feel like they had accomplished nothing. I didn't mention this but I did ask the person if they'd be OK with a pledge level that was less than 10% of my whole Patreon all by themselves (which is the more responsible approach: try to build off smaller stuff that is more predictable)

They were offended at the idea I'd even question their money whims and bailed off the site entirely, and then another person (possibly seeing how this went?) at a $30 level bailed too, dropping it down under the $700: goodbye, extra plugin off the list.

At the time I saw this as just evidence that courting rich people with completely disposable cash was dangerous: they can be totally fickle and turn on you without even being that mad at you. My progress over months got absolutely reversed at a stroke by two people. That's annoying.

Reading this article, I see another side to it. In so many ways, dealing with rich people is a matter of virtue signaling: you simply cannot join that class without internalizing their thinking. To question the contract implies you're not going to be so rich that you can weasel your way out of any problem that might arise. If you can't think in terms of that kind of extreme liquidity and freedom of action, you're potentially a danger, a person who'll make the wrong judgement call in a crisis and bring that reality principle in. To ascend you must be breathing helium and not air, and the effect can be heard in your voice and seen in your actions, and it quickly shows up in reality: breathe more helium, lift off, stop questioning and get rich along with the other rich helium-breathers.

Yes, I'm skeptical, hence the analogy. But I'm also openly wondering if I did the right thing. Perhaps rather than asking sensible questions of some rich person who might have not had my best interests at heart, I should have excitedly celebrated the 'good fortune' and attracted another rich person who'd pledge $100 and so on, or $1000: maybe I should have carried on until my world depended on continually finding a new person who'd pledge equal to all previous people. Sort of a fractal patronage, starkly counter to my plan of doing it through sheer numbers and having a stable, predictable patronage expressed in largely statistical terms.

The people do exist, for the 'fractal' type. There's a person out there who'd pledge $1000 without blinking, and one who'd pledge $2000, $8000 and so on, provided the dream is big enough.

I feel that all those people are increasingly liable to bail and vanish in the wind when you 'call in the lawyers' or start asking questions, because it's placing a burden on their whims, and you're stepping into a world of whims where you too are expected to think nothing of all this.

The startup environment breathes dreams, not air. It's a mechanism where you will do yourself tangible harm by slowing down or questioning anything, even by sensible questions. I feel I've had a hint of that already, and I'm still deciding what to do about it, and what kind of stand to take.

You see, part of my job is being able to jump out of the 'dream' and take a larger view. I'm doing so here. I'm puzzled and undecided, because I see how this works: I do see a moral problem with chasing the fractal patronage and hyping illusory dreams, but I also see that the dream is the product and there are those who are happy to buy it if you'll avoid popping their bubble.

And one of the conditions is: you're now part of the abundance, money means nothing, don't ask questions. Money, rules, laws become meaningless. What is your dream?

I don't know whether to step into that world. I know exactly how I can prevent it 100%: ask practical questions and care wrongly. Who cares if some pissant with 1$ feels let down if they pledge and the rich people adjust their pledges to optimize their return? I'm expected to not even blink at that because my goal is bringing in even larger pledges, and we know the drill. Move Fast Break Stuff, and it's easy to identify who's breathing the helium. And I know I can imagine stuff that's pure helium, if I try; I have notebooks full of it.

But I CAN'T stop asking questions and seeing the larger picture…