@bruces I suspect this is another case of software exceptionalism. We’re not uniquely bad, flatteringly romantic though that may be.

Maybe it’s just that we’re faster. Teat-stripping as a treatment for mastitis goes in and out of style (if I remember what my wife told me right), just at a slower pace.

Indeed, Collins’ /The Sociology of Philosophies/¹ shows a similar pattern of change, just at a generational timescale.

¹ https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674001879