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Unless you’re religious enough to find meaning in all things the following is true: all meaning, all utility, all purpose, and all value are subjective and are

Unless you’re religious enough to find meaning in all things the following is true: all meaning, all utility, all purpose, and all value are subjective and are assigned by humans. A computer, on its own, has zero meaning, zero utility, zero purpose, and zero value. Until one or more humans decide it has something, it is without any such attribute. People may decide that the ease a tool gives some task is a display of its purpose or its utility, but this matters and is true only to the humans involved. To another group of humans, this would be false. For example, a builder may find a large dually pickup truck perfect for hauling finished lumber in the USA, but a builder in Europe may find the same truck useless as it cannot make it down the streets to a build site. Utility, purpose, meaning, and value are assigned by people and not inherent to any given thing.

Victerius 4y ago
Even a tool as simple as a hammer or a knife would be useless to a fish or something without hands and the appropriate dexterity (e.g. an ape).
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  “Like a fish needs a bicycle” is an old saying
ethbr0 4y ago
That's where I thought author was going -- that computers by default have no values. That is, rather than being ruthless, their primary characteristic is ambivalence. They don't care about anything unless specifically programmed to care. And most of the worst features of computing in practice stem from this. The unresponsive GUI, because a background process has stalled it. The "end user shall have no ability to program except via Excel" corporate devices, because IT has only programmed in security values. The Windows update that forced a restart and closed without saving work in progress. (And yes, I'm ignoring the complexities of user-primacy on computing behavior to make a clearer point) And it feels like we're getting better at this and prioritizing user desire / action over other computing tasks. But article was an excellent reminder that there is no default compassion... save what we program in.

Victerius 4y ago

Even a tool as simple as a hammer or a knife would be useless to a fish or something without hands and the appropriate dexterity (e.g. an ape).

quickthrower2 4y ago
“Like a fish needs a bicycle” is an old saying

ethbr0 4y ago

That's where I thought author was going -- that computers by default have no values. That is, rather than being ruthless, their primary characteristic is ambivalence. They don't care about anything unless specifically programmed to care. And most of the worst features of computing in practice stem from this. The unresponsive GUI, because a background process has stalled it. The "end user shall have no ability to program except via Excel" corporate devices, because IT has only programmed in security values. The Windows update that forced a restart and closed without saving work in progress. (And yes, I'm ignoring the complexities of user-primacy on computing behavior to make a clearer point) And it feels like we're getting better at this and prioritizing user desire / action over other computing tasks. But article was an excellent reminder that there is no default compassion... save what we program in.