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The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

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Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#101

Post by pocksuppet »

WJW wrote: post #97
AlotOfReading wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common definition anthropologists use for magic is occult technology: a system of laws that can be manipulated to create desired changes. There's a lot of value in thinking of programming as a form of magic.

Can you expand on this? It has always seemed to me that while programming does indeed like to couch itself in magical terms ("he's a database wizard", "this compiler stuff is black magic", etc), it is fundamentally understandable and replicable. All layers of programming build on their lower layers and this stuff is understood well enough that you can go to university to learn about it in detail. Programming is techn…

Of course it's replicable to us high wizards who have studied it for most of our lives and now understand it in depth. So is the actual magic in many fictitious universes.

All technology is like this to some extent, but a lot of technology is grounded enough for the average person to see the rough operation of it. You look inside a washing machine, there's a part that spins around. Attached to it by a rubber belt is a smaller part that spins around, and has electric wires on the other end. Your explainer points to that and says "that's an electric motor - it converts electric power into spinning motion" and you say "ok".

How do you do that with code?

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#102

Post by observationist »

satvikpendem wrote: post #81
observationist wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can be a type of mind, though? It can also be a type of interface - a tap into a system not fully understood, controlling the perspective or view but not the process. The whole "mind of god" Deus/Devs, etc - I think it's left ambiguous on purpose for the hook but I always took it to be an AI flavored story at the core.

Maybe. The plot itself is based on a short story that Garland read, both the 2007 original [0] and its 2022 rewrite [1]. Qntm is great and their latest book, There Is No Antimemetics Division, recently was on HN as well [2]. [0] https://qntm.org/responsibility [1] https://qntm.org/responsibilit [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47660853

qntm has a wonderfully strange mind.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#104

Post by WJW »

pocksuppet wrote: post #101
WJW wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? It has always seemed to me that while programming does indeed like to couch itself in magical terms ("he's a database wizard", "this compiler stuff is black magic", etc), it is fundamentally understandable and replicable. All layers of programming build on their lower layers and this stuff is understood well enough that you can go to university to learn about it in detail. Programming is techn…

Of course it's replicable to us high wizards who have studied it for most of our lives and now understand it in depth. So is the actual magic in many fictitious universes. All technology is like this to some extent, but a lot of technology is grounded enough for the average person to see the rough operation of it. You look inside a washing machine, there's a part that spins around. Attached to it by a rubber belt is…

AFAIK learning to program these days is a fairly normalized process where people start with basic commands (ie hello world stuff), then move on to control flow (if/while/for) and eventually on to object oriented programming, higher order functions and all the rest. Some people even go on to do things like "craft your own interpreter" and "NAND to Tetris" to really round out their knowledge, but most do not and that's fine. I think that some of the simplest programs are just as "explainable" as your washing machine example. Conversely, there are plenty of machines complex enough that an average person has no idea how they work. A MRI machine for instance is just a collection of metals and hoses and most people would seriously struggle to point out which parts do what and why. It's still not magic though.

I guess the difference between magic and science to me is that "not everyone can learn magic", but the core bit that makes science work is that in principle everyone can learn it. In practice of course we cannot know everything and so have to rely on the expertise of others, but that is a limitation in the humans and not in the knowledge. Meanwhile for "magic" you have to be chosen by the gods/genetically gifted/cursed/whatever.

In a universe where magic is just another skill that anyone can learn, that reasoning goes right out the window of course.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#105

Post by throwanem »

dugidugout wrote: post #103
throwanem wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

Mhm.

Will you still think I'm fucking with you if I call your comparison a lot more insightful than I think you realize?

White nerdy kids have just been relatively less desperate up to now, socioeconomically speaking. You used to have to be a real hardcore loser, as a not otherwise messed up white boy, to embrace Crowley or hermeticism or any of that other shit that's only interesting to the poor kids and the crime kids and the kids from fucked-up families, who hang around smoking cigarettes together just off school property. (Hello.)

But now, as we exit the second "gilded age" for the second "great depression," the prospect of success in "straight" life, the white folks standard college/job/marry/kids/Epstein-client script, proves a mirage, and the same immiseration of opportunity comes for American whites that American blacks have always known. Thus proliferate get-rich-quick schemes among those certain they are deserving - i.e., con games among suckers, Crowley's native element. Given how much his speed habit led him to write, it's no surprise he comes roaring back. (He did have a sense of character and of history, hence making sure he left behind an appealing - as appalling! - set of lies.)

I have a lot more respect for B.I.G., who at least in my recollection never pretended he was other than one in a million. But when somebody like any of these guys starts saying he sees himself in you or vice versa, you had better keep your knees tightly together and a hand over your drink.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#106

Post by throwanem »

rdevilla wrote: post #45
throwanem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you called him on it he would say that was on purpose, then talk your ears off about how. He was a ferociously effective charlatan, which is why people still remember the name he made up for himself. (And even invented a rhyming couplet to prate as a pronunciation guide!)

[flagged]

From most this would be no compliment. Out of you I genuinely appreciate it. I don't think you could show me greater kindness if you were trying, and I want you to know it means a lot.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#107

Post by AlotOfReading »

WJW wrote: post #97
AlotOfReading wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common definition anthropologists use for magic is occult technology: a system of laws that can be manipulated to create desired changes. There's a lot of value in thinking of programming as a form of magic.

Can you expand on this? It has always seemed to me that while programming does indeed like to couch itself in magical terms ("he's a database wizard", "this compiler stuff is black magic", etc), it is fundamentally understandable and replicable. All layers of programming build on their lower layers and this stuff is understood well enough that you can go to university to learn about it in detail. Programming is techn…

You can go study religious spells in a school as well. There are catholic universities teaching exorcism, and buddhist schools teaching tantric magics that give you superpowers. The critical difference is that I don't believe in either of these things, so I've labeled them "occult". I believe in programming and I'm not calling it occult, but there's little to objectively distinguish it from those other practices.

This is simply a reflection of my beliefs though, not an objective reality of the world. I trust that the TRM for my chip accurately reflect the details I can't observe for myself. Many devs don't even go that far down and trust that their OS, or programming language to behave as they expect. We're all dealing with black boxes on some level.

To quote a reasonable definition from an actual scholar on this subject, Jesper Sorensen:

    Thus, magic is generally conceived of as referring to a
ritual practice aimed to produce a particular pragmatic and locally defined result by means of more or less opaque methods.

This pretty much perfectly describes how programming is perceived by normal people. I could also quote Malinowski, who argued that magic must have a kind of "strangeness" to differentiate it from non-ritual speech. And programmers regularly describe difficult bits of code as magical (e.g. magic constants, or fast inverse square root) even though these are easily explained in most cases.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#108

Post by AlotOfReading »

WJW wrote: post #104
pocksuppet wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's replicable to us high wizards who have studied it for most of our lives and now understand it in depth. So is the actual magic in many fictitious universes. All technology is like this to some extent, but a lot of technology is grounded enough for the average person to see the rough operation of it. You look inside a washing machine, there's a part that spins around. Attached to it by a rubber belt is…

AFAIK learning to program these days is a fairly normalized process where people start with basic commands (ie hello world stuff), then move on to control flow (if/while/for) and eventually on to object oriented programming, higher order functions and all the rest. Some people even go on to do things like "craft your own interpreter" and "NAND to Tetris" to really round out their knowledge, but most do not and that's…

A lot of other magic systems are in principle open for anyone to learn. I mentioned this a bit more in the other comment, but buddhist spells are open to everyone in principle. The chosen/gifted one is a feature of western magic systems because of our own cultural expectations.

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#109

Post by throwanem »

sunrunner wrote: post #59
notpachet wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pettifogging Off-topic but just wanted to thank you for teaching me a new word. I try to always reply to HN comments that expand my vocabulary.

Is pettifogging some kind of etymological parent of bikeshedding then?

They're etymologically unrelated, "bikeshedding" having been coined in our field and our lifetime, but semantically not too far apart. The main difference I see is that pettifogging connotes an ulterior motive which the described activity serves to conceal, while bikeshedding explicitly denotes the service of no purpose save the burnishment of the bikeshedder's ego.

(The term "bikeshedding" is insufficiently defined, in that it implicitly excludes the social reasons always underlying human behavior, which is why I these days prefer the word I used. Honestly, having been away from it now something over a year, even the simple jargon of the field begins to take on a queasy pseudocolor in my mind, the stinking sinus-stinging yellow-green of a revolted gut revolting. Thinking back over the rattle of acronyms and half-words that used to shape my days comes to be like thinking back over times I have been feverishly ill. Perhaps for once in my life I am on the leading edge of something.)

Re: The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture

#110

Post by dugidugout »

throwanem wrote: post #105
dugidugout wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mhm.

Will you still think I'm fucking with you if I call your comparison a lot more insightful than I think you realize? White nerdy kids have just been relatively less desperate up to now, socioeconomically speaking. You used to have to be a real hardcore loser, as a not otherwise messed up white boy, to embrace Crowley or hermeticism or any of that other shit that's only interesting to the poor kids and the crime kids a…

No this was much more substantial and I quite enjoyed it, I was thinking along these lines when offering the comparison, but you have a flowery way to put it.

That is to say, this is the first I'm hearing of this Crowley guy directly, but I have heard murmurs of "magick" down stream in video game culture. So while I agree with the broad social analysis, and have even brushed the aesthetic diffuse through culture, I don't really see any practitioners or other indicators to suggest this is being taken seriously.

Thank you for expanding on this!

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