4 ms·

We All Live in Don DeLillo’s World

56 points by benbreen 6y ago

psalminen 6y ago
I've always liked Don DeLillo. I especially liked this quote from the article, "Whatever technology is capable of doing becomes what it must do." I feel like that is a great summation of the world in tech today.
- blacksmith_tb 6y ago
  It reminds me of Oppenheimer's quote, "When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb."[1] 1: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer
  - rektide 6y ago
    honestly it feels like a colossal amount of software development process is designed to prevent exactly this. put it on the backlog. we'll come back to it. i very much appreciate some of the sensibilities of trying to bring bring your team with you, but also i feel like 95% of the world outright fears & is desperate to wrench control (and a sense of purpose) from those who can & those who aspire. ultimately we are very very alone in many cases in what we make of our positions, and excellence & a mentality of chasing the unlimited & great is often quickly sacrificed to support a more manageable corporate existence. apologies. i am fairly blunt in first writings, it takes me time to refine, synthesize, be nice. this is many many sided; engineers so far to little to create inroads & expose their wonders, which is just one of innumerable problems in this tension. there's, in this case, some good recent writing on the topic on HN, huzzah. "We throw away our power as engineers working for other people."[1][2] the tension is real. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24773266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24773266 [2] https://medium.com/better-programming/we-throw-away-our-power-as-engineers-working-for-other-people-8aeb36fca691 https://medium.com/better-programming/we-throw-away-our-powe...
    - rektide 6y ago
      bad posting deserves this downvoting it has. but i think we are in denial too, i think we are too quiet, too unwilling to talk about & discuss the challenges & tensions that exist, around how & where we steer & how & where investment happens, about what disposition we set each other forth on when we go to work. most of us do bend very easily into conformity with our environment & job, work to accept "practical" as our tool for sensemaking. i for one think radical, extremist, uncompromising has a lot of unspoken role. that moderation is not due, is rarely rewarding. i don't know how to communicate this well, but this topic, of enabling powers within each of us, it fascinates me so.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jessaustin 6y ago
After 11/22/63 everybody began to think in terms of paranoia. Then it was gone. You think the culture has not become more paranoid? We could say that there was a conspiratorial element in the current situation in the pandemic but I’m not sure how seriously the commentators and students of this era take it. Otherwise, I think that sense of conspiracy is less prevalent now than it used to be. ... It's interesting to hear a longer-term perspective on this topic. It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. Still, it demands a resolution. If we can't save ourselves, we'll settle for talking about our doomed situation in a different way.

56 points by benbreen 6y ago

I've always liked Don DeLillo. I especially liked this quote from the article, "Whatever technology is capable of doing becomes what it must do." I feel like that is a great summation of the world in tech today.

blacksmith_tb 6y ago
It reminds me of Oppenheimer's quote, "When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb."[1] 1: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer
- rektide 6y ago
  honestly it feels like a colossal amount of software development process is designed to prevent exactly this. put it on the backlog. we'll come back to it. i very much appreciate some of the sensibilities of trying to bring bring your team with you, but also i feel like 95% of the world outright fears & is desperate to wrench control (and a sense of purpose) from those who can & those who aspire. ultimately we are very very alone in many cases in what we make of our positions, and excellence & a mentality of chasing the unlimited & great is often quickly sacrificed to support a more manageable corporate existence. apologies. i am fairly blunt in first writings, it takes me time to refine, synthesize, be nice. this is many many sided; engineers so far to little to create inroads & expose their wonders, which is just one of innumerable problems in this tension. there's, in this case, some good recent writing on the topic on HN, huzzah. "We throw away our power as engineers working for other people."[1][2] the tension is real. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24773266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24773266 [2] https://medium.com/better-programming/we-throw-away-our-power-as-engineers-working-for-other-people-8aeb36fca691 https://medium.com/better-programming/we-throw-away-our-powe...
  - rektide 6y ago
    bad posting deserves this downvoting it has. but i think we are in denial too, i think we are too quiet, too unwilling to talk about & discuss the challenges & tensions that exist, around how & where we steer & how & where investment happens, about what disposition we set each other forth on when we go to work. most of us do bend very easily into conformity with our environment & job, work to accept "practical" as our tool for sensemaking. i for one think radical, extremist, uncompromising has a lot of unspoken role. that moderation is not due, is rarely rewarding. i don't know how to communicate this well, but this topic, of enabling powers within each of us, it fascinates me so.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jessaustin 6y ago

After 11/22/63 everybody began to think in terms of paranoia. Then it was gone. You think the culture has not become more paranoid? We could say that there was a conspiratorial element in the current situation in the pandemic but I’m not sure how seriously the commentators and students of this era take it. Otherwise, I think that sense of conspiracy is less prevalent now than it used to be. ... It's interesting to hear a longer-term perspective on this topic. It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. Still, it demands a resolution. If we can't save ourselves, we'll settle for talking about our doomed situation in a different way.