mhoyeMay 23

I have a couple of deeply held beliefs that make me sound like a lunatic shouting from a streetcorner whenever I raise them but this is my corner so you can listen to me: we are collectively blind to what computers and code actually means and what they are for.

We have metis and techne without episteme, without gnosis.

I am exactly correct about that but you can see what I mean about sounding like a lunatic.

https://cosocial.ca/@mhoye/116623958785080607

Show threadmhoyeMay 23
Computation is at its most base, most crassly uninteresting, in its detail of cleverly solving narrow problems, and yet somehow that is what is so thoroughly valorized that churning out these vast quantities of microstatements has become indistinguishable from a fulfillment of larger ambition. A truckload of nails is not a single girder or a yard of cable. A thousand truck loads of nails is not a girder or cable, a million of them will not build a bridge. This is not why we are here.
Show threadmhoye
Computation in its techne, the deep understanding of a space that is math given verbs, somehow both utterly imaginary and the foundational underpinning of everything that is. Computation in its metis and the knowledge that can only come from a step beyond sight, earned in hours of hands on the machine. Me standing in a room with a thousand first-year CS students, saying, this together is the path to your episteme. For the gnosis you will need, look left, look right. See who is with you, but see.
May 23 at 1:24pmWeb
Show threadmhoyeMay 23

The gnostic why of computing supersedes all of that; it is growing and evolving communities of people and practice, creating a shared understanding of the complexities of the universe around us. The hardware isn't just tools, and the code isn't just a set languages of convenience, but a co-evolved expression of the summand of that understanding.

Free, open software as a cultural articulation stumbled ass backwards into the fact of this once, and has fought it tooth and nail ever since.

Show threadmhoyeMay 23
But if you can see what I see, standing here yelling on the sidewalk at the corner of Silicon and Spinoza, then you can see the enclosing of that aspiration by people who want to sell a dripfeed of adulterated and corrupt techne back to us for who they are. You can know the people trying to lock the hours of metis behind pentalobe screws, paywalls and glass by what they're taking from you. You can name the theft and refuse to worship your own lonely, isolate, convenient one-click subjugation.
Show threadmhoyeMay 23
Anyway in conclusion computers are pretty great when people remember they're about people and when they're both sometimes difficult thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Show threadmhoyeMay 23

Please believe me when I say this:

Episteme is metis with a community.

Gnosis is techne with good documentation.

You are not part of the control group.

Show threadmhoyeMay 23
And if you’re wading through a tar pit already the worst thing you can do is kneel.
Show threadarclightMay 23
@mhoye I'm in it for the plumbing.
Show threadMichael NewtonMay 23
@[email protected] applause
mhoye (@[email protected])

4.32K Posts, 448 Following, 6.03K Followers · Envoy, arbiter, sysadmin.

CoSocial
Show threadmarcinkMay 23
@mhoye My little hill is Knuth’s “programming is the art of telling another human being what one wants the computer to do”. In my head the whole LLM push is based on (accidental or willful) misunderstanding of what programming and code are.
By people for people, a means of communication and knowledge transfer. But then again: we saw the same “misunderstanding” in the use of LLMs to extrude books or art so I guess it might be a difference of values rather than misunderstanding.
Show threadmhoyeMay 23
@marcink the values are common across the tools, and amount to resource extraction. If these companies could figure out how to drain your blood and sell it back to you the would.
Show threadmarcinkMay 23
@mhoye I am not talking about the values of corporations involved, most tech for-profits are long cons by design. It’s the change in communication with [a lot of] other people in tech that surprised me, LLMs suddenly brought into focus the sorry state of shared language on quality and communication around software. I can try talking about it all I want and all I get is sadness and the strong feeling of being gaslighted.