this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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Chapotraphouse
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No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
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Eh, the last few decades of UI development has all been in obscuring as much of the actual workings of a computer as possible. Throw that in with pop culture that treats the computational theory of mind as de facto truth, rather than just one of many possible explanations and... it's unfortunate, but understandable.
I kinda think about it like cars. So, like, I know fuck all about how an engine actually works. The nice thing is I don't need to know that, even though I use and interact with them every day. But even in that ignorance, the way a car is set up and functions communicates certain realities about it. I'm not mystified by it. I know it's just a machine, that there are certain limitations; spaces it cannot navigate or that it can't just Go forever without maintenance or fuel.
Now, imagine a world where as much of the car is being hidden as possible. People still use them, depend on them just as much as they do in our real world. But the way it functions is hidden in the design. Imagine if owners couldn't pop the hood and see the engine. If refueling was behind closed (garage) doors. Hell, if the wheels themselves were completely hidden. It's all still there, but you wouldn't even know to look for it if it wasn't your job, if you weren't a trained specialist. All the general public really knows is that you get in and Transportation happens. It'd be understandable if they start getting funny ideas about how it works and whats even possible from cars.
I know that's something of a clunky metaphor, but it's pretty much where we're at with computers
I mean in my thought-experiment car world, it would be in mechanics and dealership sales guy's short-term interest to stoke some of that magical thinking.
The really weird ones are the people who write code and ostensibly understand computers, yet still end up thinking they're having a conversation with something on the other side of the screen. Few and far between, but they're out there.
You overestimate the abilities of programmers. Most of these labor aristocrats are paid to enact the will of their bosses and do not think of much else. There is little to no materialist thought in this field dominated by venture capital and military weapons contracts and that's by design.
My intro to computer science course in undergrad had zero discussions, zero readings, zero writings about the position of computers in society, it was basically a shitty coding job training course and related very, very little to actual intellectual thought outside of being able to write a specific type of computer document (python) in a very limited capacity. My professor also unironically believes in Chinese slave labor death camps in 2025 when I innocently mentioned studying in China post-undergrad, go figure.
the 1 mandatory writing course for engineers? How to write your resume.
The people reading up on machine learning are the ones who want to exploit it for personal gain which leads to them absorbing the perspective of capitalists. People don't go into CS for their love of lambda calculus, they go into it because the West's austerity neoliberal hell has destroyed all other career paths. The US has made this explicit with DOGE but this is the pattern in all western countries and in the global south.
The CS track at my uni is far, far easier and less demanding than most other majors including ones like psychology. My humanities professors (I'm doing a double major) complain that the CS program is so railroaded that students are being exposed to the liberal arts less and less each year. Like, the resume course I mentioned counts for your core communication requirement for every student when in the past that was reserved for a mandatory foreign language track that all students had to take. They made this change and then lied to all the liberal arts departments that it wouldn't affect them when the reality is that far less students are choosing the humanities and thus the admin sees this as a justification to defund the liberal arts school even further.
Capitalists do not want smart, dedicated and innovative computer scientists they want the next prole they can overwork so they can build their new scam to destroy more of the real economy. Most "computer scientists" are like western economists who cheerlead for capital.
Person with a CS undergrad degree and about to graduate with a CS masters degree. Can confirm comp sci courses, even at the graduate level, are easy as shit and take minimal skill to do well in.
I should reword what I mean: I mean that most programmers do not think using a materialist philosophy. Their decision making is delegated to the decisions of capital and liberal idealism of solving capitalism through technological superiority.
A majority of programmers in the West do not want to admit that their field is and has always been predicated on the wholesale suffering of the most vulnerable. That a majority of the innovation in the field is hoarded by oligarchs or that the real economies of their countries are barely holding onto to support them. These conversations are entirely absent in favor of profit margins and finance capital (because CS has been instrumental in coordinating and providing a space for finance capital to thrive)
bro, what if we just made the Chinese Room bigger? and like had a bigger rulebook?
Functionalism and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
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A natural progression of Tesla's and John Deer's business strategy.