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Computing has such a bad challenge in general. We sell so much software by saying, gee it's a so hard, pick this tool & you'll never have to think about things

Computing has such a bad challenge in general. We sell so much software by saying, gee it's a so hard, pick this tool & you'll never have to think about things again, everything will be easy & amazing! It sells on fear. It sells on telling you things are hard. Engelbartian software defies this. It says, this isn't easy, but we can grasp it together. We can see & learn better. I can help you Augment Human Intellect so we all can gain real expertise. The industry has grown enormously selling tricycles and training wheels. It's changed the world. It's been amazing. But we really need to also be helping build better real bicycles for the mind, that we can push off under our own power with.

thadt 4y ago
It depends. In some cases, that can definitely be a problem. If I'm buying a product because 'X is hard and I don't want to have to think' then there are plenty of vendors that will sell me on an overcomplicated solution to X that induces so much parasitic draw on my system that it collapses, and I am enslaved to them because I have no idea how to cope without. In other cases, I might very well know how to do X - but someone else already has a fantastic solution that I can just buy, trading a significant portion of my time for a relatively small amount of money. Wisdom is knowing whether you're buying a bicycle - or a stationary bike.
- rektide 4y ago
  You're talking about specific cases, but I think the problem is cultural, has metastatized into a place where radical change in wide ways looms, has to blow away a corrupt fallen shitty & malignant way of thinking that has taken over & which poisons society at large. Consumerism lowers us. Finding higher paths is not going to be trivial, but there are promising signs we approach the local shitty maxima that consumeristic communicative-Capitalism has bound us inside of.
  - guhidalg 4y ago
    Look, you need to bring this discussion down to the ground. Can you talk about specific software that promotes your theory?
    - rektide 4y ago
      To all of you I'd ask, what do you think constitutes general systems research in this age? What are potentially transcendental pieces of computing, that can value all applications? What would making computing at large better? What paradigms, what information architectures, what systems architectures, what connectivities wouldn't specifically "ground down" enable, but what would rise up & be broadly different? What are the widely applicable techniques of computing? General systems research- aka making computers (not applications) better- only has teunous guesses right now. No one knows, or we'd already be winning greatly. We have to guess here, about what on the ground experiences of computing would be most portably useful across problems & concerns. What operating systems would better help us compute?
entrepy123 4y ago
>> But we really need to also be helping build better real bicycles for the mind, that we can push off under our own power with. Ok, suppose I have a nice, shiny real bicycle for the mind. Who or where are the potential buyers?
- rektide 4y ago
  Very real question, especially considering the two decades of trained helplessness that has been so successful. Most software is resistant to understanding. Most software obfuscates & conceals. Getting out of this trap requires more than business acumen & buyers. A sea change has to happen. We neglect the field, neglect our own involvement. Individual products can try to have healthier stances, but the system is diseased, the system enabled this rot. The remedy is more focus on General Systems Research, is on finding universal resonances & capabilities in computing & highlighting them & raising them up. Whats needed now is an appeal to cool, an appeal to being competent & capable. The alpha geeks need to lead again, need to show their prowess, in a way that makes the paths of ignorance & ease look stupid. The home cloud people are, in my mind, the furthest forward at making these routes. But I also think there's huge universes of possibility at higher levels, for node based/flow based systems to radically reempower folks. It's a hard ask. Building a healthy hopeful org can't happen in a vacuum, it has to be part of & parcel to already beneficial "open" currents. It's place by place, opportunity by opportunity figuring out how to play contribute without domineering, without consumerizing. There's no big playbool, but I think these ecosystems as they gain mass create buyers in volume, as participation & openness achieve critical mass.
JustLurking2022 4y ago
I'm sure there's some truth to this but, working at a particular FAANG that seems to embrace and reward complexity, that's a far worse situation. The tools are often infinitely capable with numerous configuration options but the only way you'll figure out how to make it do what you want is by doing a code review of it an the entire stack of things it's built on.

thadt 4y ago

It depends. In some cases, that can definitely be a problem. If I'm buying a product because 'X is hard and I don't want to have to think' then there are plenty of vendors that will sell me on an overcomplicated solution to X that induces so much parasitic draw on my system that it collapses, and I am enslaved to them because I have no idea how to cope without. In other cases, I might very well know how to do X - but someone else already has a fantastic solution that I can just buy, trading a significant portion of my time for a relatively small amount of money. Wisdom is knowing whether you're buying a bicycle - or a stationary bike.

rektide 4y ago
You're talking about specific cases, but I think the problem is cultural, has metastatized into a place where radical change in wide ways looms, has to blow away a corrupt fallen shitty & malignant way of thinking that has taken over & which poisons society at large. Consumerism lowers us. Finding higher paths is not going to be trivial, but there are promising signs we approach the local shitty maxima that consumeristic communicative-Capitalism has bound us inside of.
- guhidalg 4y ago
  Look, you need to bring this discussion down to the ground. Can you talk about specific software that promotes your theory?
  - rektide 4y ago
    To all of you I'd ask, what do you think constitutes general systems research in this age? What are potentially transcendental pieces of computing, that can value all applications? What would making computing at large better? What paradigms, what information architectures, what systems architectures, what connectivities wouldn't specifically "ground down" enable, but what would rise up & be broadly different? What are the widely applicable techniques of computing? General systems research- aka making computers (not applications) better- only has teunous guesses right now. No one knows, or we'd already be winning greatly. We have to guess here, about what on the ground experiences of computing would be most portably useful across problems & concerns. What operating systems would better help us compute?

entrepy123 4y ago

>> But we really need to also be helping build better real bicycles for the mind, that we can push off under our own power with. Ok, suppose I have a nice, shiny real bicycle for the mind. Who or where are the potential buyers?

rektide 4y ago
Very real question, especially considering the two decades of trained helplessness that has been so successful. Most software is resistant to understanding. Most software obfuscates & conceals. Getting out of this trap requires more than business acumen & buyers. A sea change has to happen. We neglect the field, neglect our own involvement. Individual products can try to have healthier stances, but the system is diseased, the system enabled this rot. The remedy is more focus on General Systems Research, is on finding universal resonances & capabilities in computing & highlighting them & raising them up. Whats needed now is an appeal to cool, an appeal to being competent & capable. The alpha geeks need to lead again, need to show their prowess, in a way that makes the paths of ignorance & ease look stupid. The home cloud people are, in my mind, the furthest forward at making these routes. But I also think there's huge universes of possibility at higher levels, for node based/flow based systems to radically reempower folks. It's a hard ask. Building a healthy hopeful org can't happen in a vacuum, it has to be part of & parcel to already beneficial "open" currents. It's place by place, opportunity by opportunity figuring out how to play contribute without domineering, without consumerizing. There's no big playbool, but I think these ecosystems as they gain mass create buyers in volume, as participation & openness achieve critical mass.

JustLurking2022 4y ago

I'm sure there's some truth to this but, working at a particular FAANG that seems to embrace and reward complexity, that's a far worse situation. The tools are often infinitely capable with numerous configuration options but the only way you'll figure out how to make it do what you want is by doing a code review of it an the entire stack of things it's built on.