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I hate to be a kill joy, but none of these are true examples of religion or mysticism. They are at best playful examples of hacker culture, and at worst example
by the_af 4y ago
I hate to be a kill joy, but none of these are true examples of religion or mysticism. They are at best playful examples of hacker culture, and at worst examples of arguments with opinions "strongly held"; i.e. flamewars. "Religious wars" in tech is not to be taken literally, nobody thinks these are spiritual in nature; it's an analogy to the fury of real world religious wars.
The Tao of Programming takes the trappings of Taoism but is not to be taken seriously as a religious or spiritual text.
When someone says a programming book is "the Bible of X" this is no more religious than when videogame creators refer to their documents collecting their fantasy world data as "their bible", as in "the Fallout bible". This is just borrowing the popular image of the Bible as the "authority" on something. It's common usage, not religious.
TempleOS is an outlier, and not a good example. Its author is arguably mentally ill. If I remember correctly he is also a bigot, and nobody would claim bigotry is an essential part of working with computers.
It's not true that most hackers are Buddhists, where's the evidence for that?
Folklore.org is about anecdotes about early Apple (I wouldn't discount some have religion as the background because I haven't read them all, but I can attest the vast majority are non spiritual in nature, and instead about nerds, tech and infighting). They are fascinating because Apple is a major player and its early history is full of quirky anecdotes. It's not folklore in the sense of gnomes and ghosts.
Stallman is an atheist; his "saintly" photo is a joke.
And so on, and so on. I know the author of TFA knows all this; I bet most readers of HN also do. So why am I such a bore?
Because someone will take this literally.
- kragen 4y agoterry's mental illness was not at all arguable and he has killed himself now
- m3047 4y agoThat may be the falsifier somebody is looking for: How much software lasts? How many programmers last? There may not be "illegal" people but there are people who gain entry by illegal means. There may not be "suicidal" software but there is software which is so recklessly constructed that it is bound to crash and burn regardless how brightly shines the gold it showers on its creators and acolytes. There is "original sin" in programming. There is a hell of a lot of venality. Most programmers don't last either; their lords and masters recognize this, just as lords and masters throughout history have tolerated religiosity in their serfs... up to a point.
- kyleyeats 4y agoYour argument is that, what, religions aren't real? Then you're saying that this stuff doesn't count because it's... also not real? What's the difference between a person being religious and a person acting religious? To a non-believer I mean.
- the_af 4y agoNo, my argument is that none of the examples given by the author are of people acting religious. The most obvious one is the photo of Stallman that opens the article, posing as "Saint Ignucious": that's a joke, and Stallman is a self-declared atheist. Likewise, "Folklore.org" is a website about the early history of Apple; anecdotes told by the people who were there; there's nothing spiritual or mystic about it. I also explained many of the rest of TFA's examples. The only exception is TempleOS, but that was the work of a schizophrenic and maybe not the best example of the hacker community at large. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from that particular example.
- kyleyeats 4y agoIf you can't make the distinction without an internal testament, then yeah that's a religious idea. It's the mark of a religious idea.
- the_af 4y agoI honestly don't understand what you mean. Can you challenge one of my assertions more directly, so that I can better understand? For example, do you believe Folklore.org is about what people commonly understand as "folklore"; or that Stallman believes himself a saint; or that programming "religious wars" (e.g. vim vs emacs, or Linux vs Windows) are truly religious in nature? Do you believe when people talk about the "Dragon Book" they revere it as a mystical book, or that someone believes the Tao of Programming is truly a religious text? Religion has permeated and shaped common language so that a lot of the expressions we use originally had a religious meaning but don't anymore. Others, like "crusade" or "religious wars", or even "evangelize" are not meant to be taken literally, they just evoke religious imagery but nowadays often mean something else.
- flir 4y agoProbably no religions, probably no philosophies, but maybe some mythologies? And at least a couple of shared cultures?
- the_af 4y agoI would say there's hacker culture, humor and tradition, yes. Even ideology (what is Free/Libre Sofware if not an ideology?). If that's what you mean. But religiosity or mysticism? Not in programming, though of course individual hackers probably run the gamut from religious to atheist, with all beliefs in between. TFA is a joke, by the way. The author obviously understands this. But I'm worried it will get interpreted literally. For example, by the person who submitted it to HN.
- flir 4y agoI think it gets interesting when you get to mythology, which is not necessarily meant to be taken literally. The founding myths of programming? Babbage and Lovelace. The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT. von Neumann and Turing.
- the_af 4y agoAgreed, and I like your take better than trying to pin this on mysticism :)