KelsonV @KelsonV@wandering.shop

For future reference: Always turn off the MySQL query log before importing a giant DB from backup.

It was Animal Farm with computer users. Sure, we tried to throw off the corporate overlords who were dictating how people could use their computers. But some computer users were more equal than others.

Not that throwing off the corporate shackles worked out all that well. We have new mega-corps, we have surveillance capitalism, and we have computing devices that deliberately prevent "lusers" from tinkering with them and developing that technical competence.

The culture of "only the code matters" turned into a culture of tolerating assholes because they were good at their job. The ends justify the means.

From trying to enhance freedom, to embracing Machiavelli.

It certainly didn't help that 90s hacker culture had a significant BOFH element to it, with its built-in disdain for those with less technical knowledge.

The Free part tended to prioritize programmers and sysadmins over "lusers"

People have created marvels of engineering and art by or while abusing exploiting others. And people have created marvels of engineering and art while trying very hard *not* to abuse or exploit others.

The accomplishment doesn't erase the exploitation or abuse.

And if you can accomplish something incredible *without* abusing others, it obviously doesn't justify it.

If you violate ethics to make your "technically perfect" software, those ethics have still been violated.

And if you write technically perfect code but don't see the obvious abuse cases, because you drove away the people who would have pointed them out?

Guess what: Your "technically perfect" code is going to end up being used for abuse.

Once upon a time, the idea that "only the code mattered" was sold as a way to be inclusive. No one would be shut out if their code was good.

But building software is more than code. It's design. Planning. Discussion. It's figuring out use cases, misuse cases, and failure modes.

It's interacting with people.

And if you allow some people to treat others like crap because only the code matters, you end up causing harm and driving people away.

Which obviously isn't inclusive.

Grabbed a maple coffee drink on the way home from work. Inhaled a big gulp of it 2/3 of the way home. By some minor miracle, managed to suppress my cough reflex long enough to swallow the rest of the gulp and not spray it all over the inside of the car, but I've been coughing for the last half hour including 20 more minutes of the drive.

And now I'm hiccupping too.