My programming language is better than yours
Realizing I prefer javascript (despite it being slow!) because it carries a "promethean fire" esthetic. It's designed to make it really easy for a beginner and then lack of a rich standard library encourages a "everybody build a piece" attitude.
This is a deep philosophical question: If we're improving every day, then Prometheus is a hero (but so is the snake), if we're degenerating (Plato, Bannon) then Promethius is a Sorcerers' Apprentice.
My programming language is better than yours
@cjd Unfortunately, people keep building the same pieces over and over. And they build tiny pieces, stick them into NPM, then use a weak password, get phished, sell their account, or get angry and delete their package, breaking everything else.
To say nothing of the joy of dependencies that suddenly develop conflicting dependencies.
My programming language is better than yours
@freakazoid
I get it, I personally really like libraries written in C because I know the programmer passed a minimum bar of entry... But without JavaScript the majority of js developers would not suddenly become excellent Haskell programmers, they would probably not be developers at all. So from the perspective of the whole industry (or society at large) I think more developers are better, even if they're worse 😉
My programming language is better than yours
@cjd @freakazoid
Only if those mediocre developers don't create negative externalities.
My programming language is better than yours
@Wolf480pl @freakazoid
That's basically the fundamental question. Prometheus stole fire from the gods to help humans, who certainly were worse at using it than the gods.
So is Prometheus a hero or a villain ?
If Prometheus is a hero, it's hard to avoid concluding that the snake in the genesis story is also the hero.
But if Prometheus is the villain then it's hard not to reason yourself into Anarcho-Primitivism.
My programming language is better than yours
@cjd @freakazoid
IMO, you're generalizing too much.
Each of those cases is different, and it might be quite possible that giving people fire is ok, but giving them asbestos isn't. Where does JS lie on the fire-asbestos spectrum?
My programming language is better than yours
@cjd @freakazoid
Also, I don't understand why you equate what the snake did with what Prometheus did.
The snake gave people freedom. It pushed them out of choicelessness. Made them realize that things don't have to be the way they are, and that everything has a reason. That it makes sense to ask "why".
The snake is clearly a hero (or a tool in God's hands, whichever you prefer).
Well ok, if you are an anarcho-primitivism you may argue that choicelessness is a good thing and the snake is a villain, but otherwise, I don't see why you couldn't have a choiceless fire-using society which worships Prometheus and hates Snake, or a society in systematic mode which doesn't use fire or any higher technology.
My programming language is better than yours
@Wolf480pl @freakazoid
Interesting take, I know so little about religion that I'm really out of my depth here, I just thought that the snake was typically considered evil, maybe @natecull can clarify.
I think it is fair though to equate technology to choice/freedom, after Prometheus people had the choice to use fire or not to, before that they didn't. Same as all the choice in NPM, much of which will get you burned :)
My programming language is better than yours
@Wolf480pl @freakazoid @natecull
If the snake is evil, then that has the distinctive smell of Plato's social degeneration philosophy which Karl Popper viciously attacked, with good reason IMO. There was also an article claiming this to be Bannon's philosophy, though I cannot find it now.
My programming language is better than yours
imo the jury's still out on whether what Prometheus gave humanity was a good thing or bad, at least until the climate change crisis is over. Lots of burned trees and extinct species sitting in the witness box...
But I do love Javascript for exactly the same reason Caleb does. It's just so much *fun* to use as personal local scripting engine. Feels like BASIC again.
My programming language is better than yours
@Wolf480pl @cjd @freakazoid @natecull
To go off on a side tangent, the snake is depicted as evil in part because the allegories are trying to explain all of the pain and suffering in the world.
If you view pain and suffering as separate from free will, then the snake is a hero. Or at least it could be one. But as far as I understand it the original idea was that the snake brought free will but also pain, death, and loss.
My programming language is better than yours
@mike @cjd @freakazoid @natecull
IOW, the snake allows you to shoot yourself in the foot?
And people are like "hey I don't want to be able to do that, why can't you take away my free will and then you'll be responsible to make sure everything ends well?"
My programming language is better than yours
@Wolf480pl @cjd @freakazoid @natecull
I think it's one thing to think that way if you live in a technologically advanced, low poverty area of the 21st century. I think it's something else to accept it when you live in a different time or even today under different economic conditions and watch your children die of malaria, or starvation.
Or even my cousin, who lost his four year old last year to a brain tumor.
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My programming language is better than yours
@cjd @freakazoid @natecull
Yeah, the Snake is traditionally depicted as evil, but that's IMO naive as fuck.
Every religion accumulates a lot of folklore around it that arises from misunderstanding of the religion and/or trying to use it as a vehicle for their own ideas. So when you're trying to get to the bottom of what some religion is really about, you should treat most folklore as bullshit, or at least as a very unreliable source.