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Techies Are the New Puritans

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Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#11

Post by potatolicious »

thenerdfiles wrote: post #9
thenerdfiles wrote: post #7

Do you think technology is going to take over the world? How do questions like this factor into this class warfare?

We already get the gist here. It has become imperative that we consciously strive to add "humanism" to our practices: human-centric this, human-readable that... Many of us have to be reminded to be nice — and there's a positive trend between circumstantial ethics and hours spent in front of the computer . Non-technologists fear that technologists have lost their humanity, and thus incur an air of arrogance. That's th…

> "Non-technologists fear that technologists have lost their humanity, and thus incur an air of arrogance."

From the general views commonly espoused on this forum and elsewhere, this seems like a legitimate fear. I do not believe it's fair to color these people as luddites or uninformed.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#12

Post by lbrandy »

mratzloff wrote: post #5

Techies like to think of themselves as different from the very wealthy, but many of our attitudes are very similar and most techies aspire to join their ranks. There's a persistent belief in common with the wealthy that we have earned, solely through our hard work and perseverance, our position in society. Never mind the advantages we had along the way.

Your comment is good and worth reading, but your opening line is unfortunate especially in light of what happened in the 15 minutes following. Just remove that line. I won't tell anyone.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#13

Post by aaronem »

DerpDerpDerp wrote: post #4
aaronem wrote: post #2

> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society. The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contr…

There's the problem of lock-out: how do you contribute usefully to society without some baseline to work from, and where your day-to-day activities are forced to be about the most basic level of survival?

Well, just off the top of my head, something like a new WPA seems like it'd be a decent start, considering the infrastructure maintenance problems I keep hearing about. Is that "workfare"? I've heard "workfare" is bad, although again I'm not really sure why.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#14

Post by gaius »

Conservatism? Reagan? Utter nonsense. Around the time of Reagan, the Soviet Empire was still shipping people like that to the gulags. North Korea still does, so Pyongyang can be pristine. It's "progressives", not right-wingers, who are the problem here.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#15

Post by thenerdfiles »

potatolicious wrote: post #11
thenerdfiles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already get the gist here. It has become imperative that we consciously strive to add "humanism" to our practices: human-centric this, human-readable that... Many of us have to be reminded to be nice — and there's a positive trend between circumstantial ethics and hours spent in front of the computer . Non-technologists fear that technologists have lost their humanity, and thus incur an air of arrogance. That's th…

> "Non-technologists fear that technologists have lost their humanity, and thus incur an air of arrogance." From the general views commonly espoused on this forum and elsewhere, this seems like a legitimate fear. I do not believe it's fair to color these people as luddites or uninformed.

I agree that it's not fair, in principle. However, we must mention that the quality of education in the U.S. implies that a non-negligible population is at least underinformed*.

We should not ignore the historical and political context here: Democracy as implemented by the U.S., given the motivations of market capitalism, has not been working; and this discussion may very well be the result of that failure.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#16

Post by aaronem »

benched wrote: post #8
aaronem wrote: post #2

> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society. The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contr…

Nobody contributes nothing to society. Even if nothing else, the wretched of the earth offer those better off an opportunity to practice not being fuckfaces. In many philosophical traditions, that's a pretty big deal.

Philosophical traditions, is it? How about "By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread"? And, while I'm at it, "The poor will always be with you"?

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#17

Post by Crito »

I suppose the elephant in the room is whether or not 'techies' are repulsed by the homeless because accusations like "...[they] spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy..." have a basis in reality.

I don't live in SF, so I can only go off what I hear (from the accused 'techies', so I'm only getting one side of the propaganda here..), but what I have heard is that 1) the homeless really seem to love SF, preferring it to perhaps any other city, and 2) there is at least a segment of the homeless population that engages in extremely anti-social behavior (specifically I have heard stories of BART escalators regularly being shut down because the homeless shit on them).

(For background: most of my experience with the homeless comes from my interactions with them while working at a soup kitchen in a small city in Pennsylvania (those interactions were universally pleasant), and my interactions with them in Philadelphia (where an aversion to the homeless and an aversion to being mugged have a very close relationship...))

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#18

Post by betterunix »

aaronem wrote: post #2

> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society. The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contr…

"I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contribute nothing to society, in such fashion as to provide an incentive to continue contributing nothing to society, is in any way a good idea."

That is the price of having a social safety net. You are not just subsidizing people who contribute nothing. Some day you might be in need of some help despite all your productivity.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#19

Post by mratzloff »

lbrandy wrote: post #12
mratzloff wrote: post #5

Techies like to think of themselves as different from the very wealthy, but many of our attitudes are very similar and most techies aspire to join their ranks. There's a persistent belief in common with the wealthy that we have earned, solely through our hard work and perseverance, our position in society. Never mind the advantages we had along the way.

Your comment is good and worth reading, but your opening line is unfortunate especially in light of what happened in the 15 minutes following. Just remove that line. I won't tell anyone.

Thanks. The thread got a lot more up votes after my comment. ;-)

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#20

Post by aaronem »

thenerdfiles wrote: post #9
thenerdfiles wrote: post #7

Do you think technology is going to take over the world? How do questions like this factor into this class warfare?

We already get the gist here. It has become imperative that we consciously strive to add "humanism" to our practices: human-centric this, human-readable that... Many of us have to be reminded to be nice — and there's a positive trend between circumstantial ethics and hours spent in front of the computer . Non-technologists fear that technologists have lost their humanity, and thus incur an air of arrogance. That's th…

Hey, while I'm throwing out nostrums that had earned their gray hairs long before any of us was a lustful sparkle in his daddy's eye, how about "Beggars can't be choosers"?
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