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God's Lonely Programmer

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Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#181

Post by Cogito »

ta75757 wrote: post #113
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all you have to say. "No, thank you. Please leave me alone." And then you're left alone. We live in a world where we help each other. Offering help isn't a bad thing. Some people aren't as strong as you.

In that case you have to say "no thank you" every time someone new comes along and they decide they need to be helpful without any indication from you. And that can get irritating really fast. Imagine how sick tall people must be of being asked their height. Now add to that pity and condescension.

As a tall person, I actually rather quite like it!

I think that life is more enjoyable when you adhere to some simulacrum of Postel's Law:

TCP implementations should follow a general principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.

That is, when I am conservative in how I interact with others, and assume others are trying to be the same with me, it is rare to experience any sort of personal friction with them.

I guess this also relates to my belief that I am primarily responsible for if I am happy or not.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#182

Post by Dylan16807 »

kstenerud wrote: post #163
davidw wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Unable to work, he collects Social Security disability He's doing ok because the 'collective' takes care of him.

You say it as though it were a bad thing. He has money coming in, has a roof over his head, does fulfilling work, and from his description is quite satisfied with his life. Where is the problem?

It means that he needs help, even if he doesn't need offers of help, even if he doesn't need more help.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#183

Post by tredontho »

blt wrote: post #46

I really like the "modern, souped-up, multi-tasking, cross between DOS and a Commodore 64" vision for TempleOS. The OS also has some innovative design choices like using the C compiler as the shell and compiling most programs on the fly. It reminds me of Lisp Machines in a way. A different vision of what computing could be like if closed-source binary-distributed software didn't exist. I wish the source code ( http:/…

He has a YouTube channel where he has some "5 Minute" code walkthroughs where he analyzes randomly selected code and its context, and tries to explain it. The few that I've watched had a fair amount of rambling, and since it's random, it's obviously not a structured overview... but still interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdX4uJUwSFwiY3XBvu-F_-Q

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#184

Post by gamegoblin »

RaleyField wrote: post #165
pluma wrote: post #142

"Weird guy makes an OS because God told him so" sounds less hilarious if you're aware of why the Perl programming language exists.

Go on.

The parent may be (I have no idea...) referencing a line from the (hilarious) "A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages" [1].

The entry for 1987 is:

"""

1987 - Larry Wall falls asleep and hits Larry Wall's forehead on the keyboard. Upon waking Larry Wall decides that the string of characters on Larry Wall's monitor isn't random but an example program in a programming language that God wants His prophet, Larry Wall, to design. Perl is born.

"""

[1] http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-m...

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#185

Post by andywood »

kristofferR wrote: post #162
andywood wrote: post #145

To anyone brandishing the word 'racist' here, can you point us to any instance where what Terry wrote was not merely a rambling screed with the n-word in it, but actually racist thought. Because to me, those are different things - the former likely an excusable symptom, and the latter, y'know, actual racism . Maybe you think it's the same. Maybe you're enforcing your zero-tolerance policy. If so, we disagree. To me i…

I could - but I don't see the point at all. Blaming him for being a racist is like blaming someone with alzheimer for being forgetful.

That's my only point: that there's correlation between his condition, and his rants, therefore we don't say, "That guy?? He 'espouses racist ideology'!!* Screw 'im!"

* (actual comment in this thread)

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#187

Post by anigbrowl »

fuligo wrote: post #129

I wonder if he would get this much positive attention if he wasn't a Christian extremist. Would the article have conveniently left out his racism if he was, say, a militant antisemite instead of being focused on black people as he is? Would people admire his worship of a random number generator if he used it to spit out slogans of a religious text that isn't as revered as the Bible? While his schizophrenia probably c…

He's 'high functioning' in the sense that he can produce elaborate computer software that runs fast, in other words he has impressive engineering skills. Socially he's pretty incapable. I think his offensive racist, homophobic and other offensive remarks are part and parcel of his condition because I've spent quite a lot of time reading his rants, and disagree with your claim that his use of slurs is not random and generic. It's not uncommon for him to claim that 'bill gAtes is an atheist nigger' and talk about hod God likes 'African musical rhythms and does not like white people so much' on the same day.

Yes, he does seem to use the epithet 'nigger' more than all other epithets combined, which is understandably alienating for many people. But I don't think this is ideologically rooted because it is so randomly and inconsistently applied in his writing (where it makes up a small fraction of the overall output, rather than the 99% you suggest).

Being an atheist, his output of random passages from the Bible is neither admirable nor otherwise to me - it's just statistically the most likely religious text for an American with a religious fixation to be fixated on. I've met mentally ill Asian Buddhists whose cognitive patterns are quite similar to Terry's even though the cultural referents are completely different. Extreme religiosity is very strongly correlated with some kinds of mental illness and I don't find it strange that Terry is fixated on Old Testament Bible stories where God puts in a lot of personal appearances. I could just as easily imagine him being obsessed with the Koran or some other religious text that's ubiquitous in some other part of the world.

I can't agree that he's an extremist - his (inoffensive) 'Guidelines for talking to God' [1]are pretty bland and heretodox as he eschews questions of salvation, morality etc., in favor of keeping God company (which makes sense since God is apparently a fixture in Terry's life). According to Terry, God dislikes classical music, Shakespeare, French people, and Terry's drumming while exhibiting an inordinate fondness for elephants, bears, and 1960s pop singers. You could work these elements into some sort of coherent ideological position just as you could characterize his relentless automated Biblical quotation as Christian extremism, but I don't think either position makes sense.

What's remarkable about him is not the endless stream of nonsense, much of which is offensive when it's even coherent; it's the fact that he manages to construct working things as part of his intellectual pursuits and carry on some kind of social life despite his mental circumstances.

1. http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/God/HSNotes.html#l1

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#188

Post by jessaustin »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87
kstenerud wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm barely able to contain my rage at this moment, so I'll make it short. The ONLY time you're allowed to intervene is when someone's life and self image is visibly deteriorating. If it's stable, leave it the fuck alone. I've gotten into the habit of hiding what I've got because of people like you, and judging by the downvotes I'm getting, you're not alone in perpetuating the stigma and condescension. Every single "o…

That's all you have to say. "No, thank you. Please leave me alone." And then you're left alone. We live in a world where we help each other. Offering help isn't a bad thing. Some people aren't as strong as you.

That's all you have to say. "No, thank you. Please leave me alone." And then you're left alone.

Perhaps it's sincere, but this sentiment reminded me of the recently-infamous catcalling video. If one random dude a week compliments a woman on her appearance, she can probably deal with it. At some higher frequency, however, the "compliments" become harassment. That may be how 'kstenerud feels about this.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#189

Post by meowface »

kstenerud wrote: post #110
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all you have to say. "No, thank you. Please leave me alone." And then you're left alone. We live in a world where we help each other. Offering help isn't a bad thing. Some people aren't as strong as you.

I wish I could impart upon you the disempowering effect of condescension. When you "offer help" to someone who is happy with where they're at, and not in distress, you're basically telling them that they probably can't make it without you stepping in to support them. You're telling them that they, the wretched ones, are dependent upon the real people, who come down from on high to help them sort their obviously broke…

Not all conditions are equal. Paranoid schizophrenia can be quite debilitating because it affects one of the most critical aspects of human living: the ability to determine what is real and what isn't.

I agree with the points you're making, but most people suffering from psychotic conditions tend to prefer being in a lucid, non-psychotic state. It can be like waking someone up from a dream, or more often, a nightmare. Unfortunately, this can often only be done with the use of anti-psychotics, which can sometimes cause horrible side effects; in some cases so horrible they affect someone's life more than the psychosis itself.

Regardless, I don't think concern about this man's condition is condescending.

Re: God's Lonely Programmer

#190

Post by OvidNaso »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87
kstenerud wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm barely able to contain my rage at this moment, so I'll make it short. The ONLY time you're allowed to intervene is when someone's life and self image is visibly deteriorating. If it's stable, leave it the fuck alone. I've gotten into the habit of hiding what I've got because of people like you, and judging by the downvotes I'm getting, you're not alone in perpetuating the stigma and condescension. Every single "o…

That's all you have to say. "No, thank you. Please leave me alone." And then you're left alone. We live in a world where we help each other. Offering help isn't a bad thing. Some people aren't as strong as you.

Actually there is currently a strong push in many places for involuntary hospitalization. We're slipping back to a grim time of incarceration for the mentally ill by family members who disapprove of their lifestyle. While modern facilities are not the horror they once were, make no mistake that they are not places of adequate treatment. This is going to keep people from seeking treatment in the first place knowing that once you get that label, you can be taken by force for no reason, predicated on the idea that the mentally ill have a slightly higher chance of commiting a mass shooting. Pre-crime. It is so stupid and backwards and scary. Not so easy as "Please leave me alone."

http://online.wsj.com/articles/los-angeles-county-approves-i...

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