2 ms·

All culture is shared ignorance. These comparisons to religion are inverted. Religion was born out of cultures needing to herd their people. You're right that

All culture is shared ignorance. These comparisons to religion are inverted. Religion was born out of cultures needing to herd their people. You're right that the debate about plastics is mostly meaningless noise by people who don't really care. Taking advantage of uncertainty while it still exists is a lucrative game. None of this is comparable to software. Writing software is a choice and the users don't have to care beyond the UI. It's apathy, not ignorance, that holds software back. Text editors and programming languages are not usually the highest priority choice to make. The majority of software tends to be specialized one-off solutions. We don't exactly have chemists cooking up their own kitchenware materials on the weekend.

Apocryphon 3mo ago
Software development creates subcultures, just like any other occupation, craft, human activity. Tech holy wars is a thing, and I'm sure a lot of it dealt with articles of faith just like any other source of controversy. https://gwern.net/holy-war https://gwern.net/holy-war https://wiki.c2.com/?HolyWar https://wiki.c2.com/?HolyWar I brought them up to illustrate that any endeavor will end up pockets of irrationality as part of the general culture. Doubtless in academia, scientific research, other forms of engineering, etc. there are little superstitions as part of the subculture. That said, sure; the movement against microplastics is a pop health fad, which is different because it's a consumer-oriented activity whose actual effects are probably impossible to quantify. (As pointed out in a different comment in this discussion thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48836691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48836691) Building software produces tangible, measurable outcomes. Though likely far less measurable compared to other forms of engineering! > It's apathy, not ignorance, that holds software back. That's somewhat debatable, in that compared to the physical sciences, it sure seems like software engineering involves a fair amount of following traditions of preexisting practices and there's a lot of cargo culting that ends up happening. More of a craft than a science. But that's tangential to this discussion.
- sublinear 3mo ago
  > is different because it's a consumer-oriented activity whose actual effects are probably impossible to quantify Your perspective on software is that of a consumer, so you're not necessarily wrong. You're in the majority of people using software along with all those people having their "holy wars". I'm just saying it's not intrinsic to software. The majority of people who write software for a living are silent about this because it's completely irrelevant to their lives. It's like this with all other creative work too. As they say "a poor craftsman blames his tools", but more generally improvisation is expected when you're supposed to know what you're doing. Professionals can't afford to be helpless. In fact, that's why we have so many competing standards in technology to begin with. Constant reinvention is the most boneheaded way to progress, but my point is that this is in direct opposition to everything you're saying. You seem to be insisting that there's ignorance where there is just apathy. For every one person whining, the internet has a chorus of hundreds. On the other side of the fence, there are dozens of people who could fix it in their sleep just ignoring it because it doesn't bother them that bad. That's what makes software so different from manufacturing plastic doodads at scale. You at least don't need a factory, but there are probably countless other reasons.
  - Apocryphon 3mo ago
    Was this LLM-generated? Because the intent is garbled, each sentence going in a different direction from the previous. (So perhaps not LLM after all.)
    - sublinear 3mo ago
      > Was this LLM-generated? Because the intent is garbled, each sentence going in a different direction from the previous. (So perhaps not LLM after all.) Quoting the entirety of your comment verbatim in case you edit it. It's poor form to overplay your hand and troll instead of discuss. I flagged your reply, and I suggest anyone reading these should do the same. HN is really going off the rails allowing this, but I know it's hard to rein it all in. At the risk of becoming even more of a hive mind, I think we need users to pitch in some more.
      - 3mo ago

Apocryphon 3mo ago

Software development creates subcultures, just like any other occupation, craft, human activity. Tech holy wars is a thing, and I'm sure a lot of it dealt with articles of faith just like any other source of controversy. https://gwern.net/holy-war https://gwern.net/holy-war https://wiki.c2.com/?HolyWar https://wiki.c2.com/?HolyWar I brought them up to illustrate that any endeavor will end up pockets of irrationality as part of the general culture. Doubtless in academia, scientific research, other forms of engineering, etc. there are little superstitions as part of the subculture. That said, sure; the movement against microplastics is a pop health fad, which is different because it's a consumer-oriented activity whose actual effects are probably impossible to quantify. (As pointed out in a different comment in this discussion thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48836691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48836691) Building software produces tangible, measurable outcomes. Though likely far less measurable compared to other forms of engineering! > It's apathy, not ignorance, that holds software back. That's somewhat debatable, in that compared to the physical sciences, it sure seems like software engineering involves a fair amount of following traditions of preexisting practices and there's a lot of cargo culting that ends up happening. More of a craft than a science. But that's tangential to this discussion.

sublinear 3mo ago
> is different because it's a consumer-oriented activity whose actual effects are probably impossible to quantify Your perspective on software is that of a consumer, so you're not necessarily wrong. You're in the majority of people using software along with all those people having their "holy wars". I'm just saying it's not intrinsic to software. The majority of people who write software for a living are silent about this because it's completely irrelevant to their lives. It's like this with all other creative work too. As they say "a poor craftsman blames his tools", but more generally improvisation is expected when you're supposed to know what you're doing. Professionals can't afford to be helpless. In fact, that's why we have so many competing standards in technology to begin with. Constant reinvention is the most boneheaded way to progress, but my point is that this is in direct opposition to everything you're saying. You seem to be insisting that there's ignorance where there is just apathy. For every one person whining, the internet has a chorus of hundreds. On the other side of the fence, there are dozens of people who could fix it in their sleep just ignoring it because it doesn't bother them that bad. That's what makes software so different from manufacturing plastic doodads at scale. You at least don't need a factory, but there are probably countless other reasons.
- Apocryphon 3mo ago
  Was this LLM-generated? Because the intent is garbled, each sentence going in a different direction from the previous. (So perhaps not LLM after all.)
  - sublinear 3mo ago
    > Was this LLM-generated? Because the intent is garbled, each sentence going in a different direction from the previous. (So perhaps not LLM after all.) Quoting the entirety of your comment verbatim in case you edit it. It's poor form to overplay your hand and troll instead of discuss. I flagged your reply, and I suggest anyone reading these should do the same. HN is really going off the rails allowing this, but I know it's hard to rein it all in. At the risk of becoming even more of a hive mind, I think we need users to pitch in some more.
    - 3mo ago