It kind of is? If you’ve ever built a computer game, even with a software that walks you through it, it is a completely different way of thinking. It’s very black and white, the switch is either on or off. Also, you follow a direct path while trying to keep your code “clean.” No emotions, just planning it out trying to get to your destination.
I don’t think anything is black or white in programming (except booleans). And I’d say it can be very much emotional, it just depends on your goal and how you reach it. For me, I’d say programming is like painting or wood carving. It’s a tool that can be used to create art.
You’re right, I can say that’s fair that it’s a tool. But there are craftsman that build something useful and artists that make worlds. While programming can be both types of artists, they lean heavily towards craftsman that have rules.
Been doing it for 3 decades now, I’m still a normal human being who hates fascism and billionaires bect both make a large group stuff just to make a tiny group feel special
This is the reality. Not these pseudo-psych takes. Learning to program made me more socialist, as I realised the entire internet, and success of modern computing and information systems, was mostly the result of FOSS (socialist) software. Walled gardens and proprietary software are now the bane of my existence.
If you look deeper into every tech billionaire/oligarch, most of them were already born into the richest 1%; all born on 3rd base and believing they hit a home run.
I am now nearly certain that extreme wealth and power create the mental illness of narcissism (or at least surfaces/activates these tendencies, suppresses empathy, etc). Add in the fact that capitalism actively rewards narcissistic and criminal actions, and you end up with nothing but criminally corrupt narcissists.
The problem is these people solved some novel problem in the world with their programming skills and it made them really rich. They have been lavished with praise, money, and attention their entire lives. They think they’re smart and that gives them license to invite themselves into other areas that they have no experience in. An example is obviously Elon Musk wading in to government, but even back during Covid he was making predictions about the spread of the disease, even when he had no background in medical science. His predictions were wildly wrong.
That’s not how this works. That dude basically stumbled into running a multi billion company when he was barely more than a kid. And quickly ran it into the ground, I might add. Yet he somehow thinks he is a genius and smarter than everyone else. Plus the isolation from the real world that being rich brings makes these people lose touch with reality.
This can be - and has been - generalized to all industrualization.
Tolkien wrote Isengard the way he did for a reason.
The history of Brutalist architecture is closely associated with fascism as it promotes societal ideals of a neatly segmented and ordered life.
Henry Ford. Just, Henry Ford.
Elon’s technocratic nazi grandfather.
I would also like to remind everyone that fascism is simultaneously extremely dangerous but doomed to fail. That obsession for finding rigid rules where there aren’t any, of constraining the real world to simplified models, makes fascists eventually lose touch with reality because they can’t account for the messiness and human factor. At first they destroy everything they touch, kill anyone that doesn’t fit the model. They then make fatal, obviously irrational mistakes like opening an Eastern front in Europe before tidying up the Western one because the Ideology says Bolsheviks are weak. Attacking the US in Hawaii. Not installing Lidar in supposedly self-driving cars. Invading Ukraine with an incompetent army and cardboard supplies against a dug-in western-supplied army.
It’s not particularly helpful to the tens of millions killed by fascism yet, but at least we can rest assured that the fascist technosolutionists will lose and that plants will grow out of their corpse.
You may be on to something an it kills me these asshats made all their money by taking from Government funded programs like Basic and from community free and open source projects.
Ok, that is a good point, I can absolutely see that I may be wrong to call is fascist, but it is definitely authoritarian, where the coders decide the rules and the program enforces them, I can see that applying a left/right political bias can be wrong.
Code is a language that can describe all sorts of systems, some of those systems have rigid hierarchies and some of those systems are distributed.
Software development teams also tend to work in collaborative ways, as much as Agile and Scrum development practices are bastardized in many large companies the core philosophies are very worker-empowering.
In the cases where companies use “waterfall” or misuse Agile the culprit seems to be managerial interference or very rigid and important requirements (e.g. a plane software system that must not fail)
I see your point, but per the above I would say it’s not universal and I would also counter that software architects have very open-ended solutions to choose from and are used to thinking about a system as a whole, which in my case at least leads me to questioning how our political and social systems can change for the better.
Some of us want to use technology to do all those nice lofty things like send cat memes and connect with our friends with only as much “administration” is necessary to protect it.
Also many techbros think they are incredibly intelligent and good at all the smart things when many are like the surgeon who is good at their specialty but are fucking morons in all other regards.
Programming has this crazy mystique of being something that only “smart” people do, but it’s not. Software development is much, much more like a more conventional ‘trades’ job. I’ve been writing software for 15 years, and I feel like I have more in common with plumbers and electricians than I do with doctors or engineers.
Technology generally does whatever you tell it to and the surveillance options are nuts. Any tech is gonna be used by shitbags if they can benefit from it. The problem is when someone is connected or has money they can be a literal sociopath and gain positions of power where they attempt to control people like they would devices, and sometimes no one stops them for a long time.
He’s not a tech nerd any more than Elon is. They’re just 80s business guys who are riding the tech wave instead of whatever the fuck the wave was in the 80s…so…cocaine?
Yet again another tech nerd turned fascist. I am beginning to think that learning computer programming is inherently damaging to the human brain.
programmers themselves usually aren’t fascist, it’s the billionaires… and none of them can code
It kind of is? If you’ve ever built a computer game, even with a software that walks you through it, it is a completely different way of thinking. It’s very black and white, the switch is either on or off. Also, you follow a direct path while trying to keep your code “clean.” No emotions, just planning it out trying to get to your destination.
I don’t think anything is black or white in programming (except booleans). And I’d say it can be very much emotional, it just depends on your goal and how you reach it. For me, I’d say programming is like painting or wood carving. It’s a tool that can be used to create art.
You’re right, I can say that’s fair that it’s a tool. But there are craftsman that build something useful and artists that make worlds. While programming can be both types of artists, they lean heavily towards craftsman that have rules.
if you dig deep into hardware you’ll learn that theres no such thing as a pure 1 or 0. check out an eye diagram of a bit error rate test.
Nah it’s not.
Been doing it for 3 decades now, I’m still a normal human being who hates fascism and billionaires bect both make a large group stuff just to make a tiny group feel special
And then a couple thousand years from now we have the butlerian jihad, thanks.
It’s not the programming. It’s the power and financial success. Back in the day it was the oil buisnessmen.
This is the reality. Not these pseudo-psych takes. Learning to program made me more socialist, as I realised the entire internet, and success of modern computing and information systems, was mostly the result of FOSS (socialist) software. Walled gardens and proprietary software are now the bane of my existence.
If you look deeper into every tech billionaire/oligarch, most of them were already born into the richest 1%; all born on 3rd base and believing they hit a home run.
I am now nearly certain that extreme wealth and power create the mental illness of narcissism (or at least surfaces/activates these tendencies, suppresses empathy, etc). Add in the fact that capitalism actively rewards narcissistic and criminal actions, and you end up with nothing but criminally corrupt narcissists.
Very well reasoned!
Broke: Capitalism made your iPhone!
Woke: Socialism made your iPhone
Social Darwinism is the term fo your concept!
The problem is these people solved some novel problem in the world with their programming skills and it made them really rich. They have been lavished with praise, money, and attention their entire lives. They think they’re smart and that gives them license to invite themselves into other areas that they have no experience in. An example is obviously Elon Musk wading in to government, but even back during Covid he was making predictions about the spread of the disease, even when he had no background in medical science. His predictions were wildly wrong.
That’s not how this works. That dude basically stumbled into running a multi billion company when he was barely more than a kid. And quickly ran it into the ground, I might add. Yet he somehow thinks he is a genius and smarter than everyone else. Plus the isolation from the real world that being rich brings makes these people lose touch with reality.
As an IT guy i think I may have a theory.
I would consider technology to be inheirantly fascist, everything is utilitarian, superflous data is bloat.
You have an admin class that set the rules for the programs to enforce for the user.
In a well organized system, everything is very neat and tidy, names/types that don’t fit are quickly and easily corrected.
This is why tech-bros go fascist, they are replicating the idea of computer order onto hummans, where is absolutely idiotc
This can be - and has been - generalized to all industrualization.
Tolkien wrote Isengard the way he did for a reason.
The history of Brutalist architecture is closely associated with fascism as it promotes societal ideals of a neatly segmented and ordered life.
Henry Ford. Just, Henry Ford.
Elon’s technocratic nazi grandfather.
I would also like to remind everyone that fascism is simultaneously extremely dangerous but doomed to fail. That obsession for finding rigid rules where there aren’t any, of constraining the real world to simplified models, makes fascists eventually lose touch with reality because they can’t account for the messiness and human factor. At first they destroy everything they touch, kill anyone that doesn’t fit the model. They then make fatal, obviously irrational mistakes like opening an Eastern front in Europe before tidying up the Western one because the Ideology says Bolsheviks are weak. Attacking the US in Hawaii. Not installing Lidar in supposedly self-driving cars. Invading Ukraine with an incompetent army and cardboard supplies against a dug-in western-supplied army.
It’s not particularly helpful to the tens of millions killed by fascism yet, but at least we can rest assured that the fascist technosolutionists will lose and that plants will grow out of their corpse.
You may be on to something an it kills me these asshats made all their money by taking from Government funded programs like Basic and from community free and open source projects.
Breathe. Punctuate.
I don’t like Nazi’s in my government nor in grammar.
Stallman was uhhh, correct, or something.
I think you’re overlooking all of the free and open source software and people like me who work in the industry and are radical leftists.
The more likely connection here is that these are all rich CEOs…
Self sorting?
Idealistic ones open source their software.
Greedy pigs try making billions.
Fair take, and applies in every industry. Basically what I’m trying to say is it’s all about capitalism baby. The shit floats
Ok, that is a good point, I can absolutely see that I may be wrong to call is fascist, but it is definitely authoritarian, where the coders decide the rules and the program enforces them, I can see that applying a left/right political bias can be wrong.
Code is a language that can describe all sorts of systems, some of those systems have rigid hierarchies and some of those systems are distributed.
Software development teams also tend to work in collaborative ways, as much as Agile and Scrum development practices are bastardized in many large companies the core philosophies are very worker-empowering.
In the cases where companies use “waterfall” or misuse Agile the culprit seems to be managerial interference or very rigid and important requirements (e.g. a plane software system that must not fail)
I see your point, but per the above I would say it’s not universal and I would also counter that software architects have very open-ended solutions to choose from and are used to thinking about a system as a whole, which in my case at least leads me to questioning how our political and social systems can change for the better.
Glad to see like-minded people here! I actually just finished a manifesto on this exact topic:
https://arendjr.nl/blog/2025/02/new-monarchy/
It’s quite the read, but I’d be happy to hear your feedback.
Not like minded… I’m not opposed to the principles you lay out in your abstract but the monarchy power structure isn’t what I’m interested in.
Socialism, communism, and ultimately anarchism are the way forward in my opinion.
Yep, this. Thanks for saying it!
Some of us want to use technology to do all those nice lofty things like send cat memes and connect with our friends with only as much “administration” is necessary to protect it.
Also many techbros think they are incredibly intelligent and good at all the smart things when many are like the surgeon who is good at their specialty but are fucking morons in all other regards.
Honestly, even that is being too generous.
Programming has this crazy mystique of being something that only “smart” people do, but it’s not. Software development is much, much more like a more conventional ‘trades’ job. I’ve been writing software for 15 years, and I feel like I have more in common with plumbers and electricians than I do with doctors or engineers.
If ben carson could read he would downvote this comment
You want to know what makes Elon so great? He can buy things.
He bought Tesla, he didn’t invent electric cars.
You and me can buy stock in companies like Tesla too. But we can’t buy a 50% stake.
He is also willing to take risks. But it is so much easier to take a 1 million dollar risk on a few start ups if you have 250 million.
These techbros may very well be competent at some things but their number one qualification is their immense wealth.
Technology generally does whatever you tell it to and the surveillance options are nuts. Any tech is gonna be used by shitbags if they can benefit from it. The problem is when someone is connected or has money they can be a literal sociopath and gain positions of power where they attempt to control people like they would devices, and sometimes no one stops them for a long time.
In my opinion, it’s mainly the money.
He’s not a tech nerd any more than Elon is. They’re just 80s business guys who are riding the tech wave instead of whatever the fuck the wave was in the 80s…so…cocaine?