4 ms·

"I also think part of the reason" I think you missed me saying this? Also are you suggesting that many people in tech weren't heavily inspired by the scifi th

"I also think part of the reason" I think you missed me saying this? Also are you suggesting that many people in tech weren't heavily inspired by the scifi they experienced growing up? That seems like a pretty absurd claim.

michaelmrose 4y ago
I think it's a shallow analysis of science fiction which in fact has a lot of depth as anyone who has read any substantial subset ought to be able to attest. I also think that there is no connection between fiction that opts to focus on technology as opposed to people and the characteristics that one would call toxic. Both chemistry and code are about technology more than people but neither staring at test tubes nor code makes you an asshole. What normally makes people an assholes is either damage or social intellectual and cultural structures that explain ignore or justify immoral behavior and we pick that up not from science fiction which tends towards idealism but from dysfunctional cultures especially family and other groups wherein we are part of the in group and that group promotes this dysfunction. You have noted that toxic tech bros tend to like science fiction and have other cultural characteristics often common in white middle class+ America and have decided this must be causative instead of correlated. If you have an older relation from the era that believed rock music was destroying our morality buy them a beer or coffee and commiserate over the fact that some errors are universal and eternal.
- dumpsterlid 4y ago
  You can't be both condescending towards me for not providing hard evidence of my conjecture and then simultaneously make conjectures yourself without any evidence. You gotta pick one.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    Your conjecture isn't bad merely for lack of evidence its bad because its wrong. In brief what does it mean to be toxic? To be toxic is to have internalized and act out norms and behaviors that predictably do individual or systemic harm to other with which you interact contingent on the system. Lying to and about your coworkers and eating their lunches in secret is a toxic behavior that will damage the trust of your fellows. Toxic is culturally defined in terms of what behaviors are damaging and indeed may often be under-specified. A culture that is dominated by individuals that are misogynists or racists may actually treat tolerance as toxic and bigotry as normal even if they are on average very damaging. This behavior always has an origin story. The classic one being in group has most of the money and power and uses it to advantage members. Members justify this advantage by imagining that they are inherently superior rather than the benefactors of corruption and teach their children this fictional superiority at their knee. Source: The entity of human civilization An adult asking another adult to prove that is akin to asking someone to prove that 2 + 2 = 4 prior to discussing an advance in mathematics. Unlike racism and other forms of in group out group bigotry science fiction as a culturally corrupting influence doesn't have thousands of years of history in which all humanity has as part of its common heritage. It needs therefore additional justification. On average science fiction favors oft oversimplified idealistic values. It's hard to see how you could find that culturally it is the source of toxic tech bros rather than a past time. You might as well blame beer and Apple computers.

michaelmrose 4y ago

I think it's a shallow analysis of science fiction which in fact has a lot of depth as anyone who has read any substantial subset ought to be able to attest. I also think that there is no connection between fiction that opts to focus on technology as opposed to people and the characteristics that one would call toxic. Both chemistry and code are about technology more than people but neither staring at test tubes nor code makes you an asshole. What normally makes people an assholes is either damage or social intellectual and cultural structures that explain ignore or justify immoral behavior and we pick that up not from science fiction which tends towards idealism but from dysfunctional cultures especially family and other groups wherein we are part of the in group and that group promotes this dysfunction. You have noted that toxic tech bros tend to like science fiction and have other cultural characteristics often common in white middle class+ America and have decided this must be causative instead of correlated. If you have an older relation from the era that believed rock music was destroying our morality buy them a beer or coffee and commiserate over the fact that some errors are universal and eternal.

dumpsterlid 4y ago
You can't be both condescending towards me for not providing hard evidence of my conjecture and then simultaneously make conjectures yourself without any evidence. You gotta pick one.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Your conjecture isn't bad merely for lack of evidence its bad because its wrong. In brief what does it mean to be toxic? To be toxic is to have internalized and act out norms and behaviors that predictably do individual or systemic harm to other with which you interact contingent on the system. Lying to and about your coworkers and eating their lunches in secret is a toxic behavior that will damage the trust of your fellows. Toxic is culturally defined in terms of what behaviors are damaging and indeed may often be under-specified. A culture that is dominated by individuals that are misogynists or racists may actually treat tolerance as toxic and bigotry as normal even if they are on average very damaging. This behavior always has an origin story. The classic one being in group has most of the money and power and uses it to advantage members. Members justify this advantage by imagining that they are inherently superior rather than the benefactors of corruption and teach their children this fictional superiority at their knee. Source: The entity of human civilization An adult asking another adult to prove that is akin to asking someone to prove that 2 + 2 = 4 prior to discussing an advance in mathematics. Unlike racism and other forms of in group out group bigotry science fiction as a culturally corrupting influence doesn't have thousands of years of history in which all humanity has as part of its common heritage. It needs therefore additional justification. On average science fiction favors oft oversimplified idealistic values. It's hard to see how you could find that culturally it is the source of toxic tech bros rather than a past time. You might as well blame beer and Apple computers.