There's a lot that can be unpacked here -- several accurate observations, but in my opinion the author stretches the metaphor too wide to accommodate a narrativ

There's a lot that can be unpacked here -- several accurate observations, but in my opinion the author stretches the metaphor too wide to accommodate a narrative, then offers an underwhelming conclusion in turn. They simply mean recipes, instructions, laws; anything that communicates instructions of desired behavior. Even they acknowledge that there's a wide spread of optionality, from good-faith advice to laws backed by the treat of state violence, but at this point the metaphor ceases to be useful. Humans have always been telling other humans what to do, but civilization is built from the combined survivors of thousands of years of experimentation, adaptation, governance, and passing down good advice. Saying it's built on 'code' is no more revealing than saying it's built on actions, or the shoulders of ancestors, or imitation, especially when you expand definition of code to encompass any sort of prescriptive (or descriptive!) record about behavior.