descriptions of Demons and the arcane rituals required to banish them feverishly relayed by occultists in ghost/horror stories are a direct homomorphism to computers and actually how awful they are

sxan, 21 days ago

Your first example is more a symptom of bureaucracy, isn’t it? Most workplace processes of any age accrue tedious, overly complex steps and checks.

The second is… well, a little surprising. Someone got fired for not managing backups properly. But it’s no worse than 30 years ago when a single, relatively contained fire could destroy all of a company’s records.

Or is this a case of sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic? I’m sure it must seem like it from a non-technical person’s perspective. Heck, jet engines at magic, to me. The big space rockets, too - there’s so much more going on than just a long, controlled explosion, and I don’t understand most of it.

supersquirrel, 21 days ago

Or is this a case of sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic?

No this is a case of technology sufficiently broken and enshittified to the point that you can’t ever trust it to work right, simply or even logically if it was made by a large tech company.

Contramuffin, 22 days ago

I’m not sure I understand the analogy. A lot of annoyances that people regularly deal with on computers are either intended mechanisms to stop human bad actors or unintentional bugs passing off as features. You can’t really say the same about demons.

I suppose you might be talking about ritualization, or the idea that the people who build protocols are so removed from the people who follow them, that the people who follow the protocols don’t know why they do the things they do, but only know that bad things happen if they don’t follow the protocols.

But even then, the analogy seems somewhat strenuous, since the point of occultism is exactly to try to study demonology and understand how to work with demons - ie, to try to understand why the protocols are the way they are.

If you wanted to talk about ritualization, there are significantly more apt comparisons. Most examples of culture or religions could be argued to be practical protocols that ended up gaining momentum and becoming more spiritual than they initially were.

DieguiTux8623, 22 days ago

There are also analogies with maintaining legacy code bases as software developers:

https://feddit.it/pictrs/image/06fc0c32-907d-49d8-8a04-ce1e52aded1d.webp

Contramuffin, 21 days ago

Sure, I get that, which is why I make the point that the OP may be taking about ritualization. But that isn’t made clear in the original post, and especially with how the post is presented, the OP appears to be actively discouraging that notion. The last sentence is particularly confusing because it’s implying that most if not all company protocols are just as arbitrary and supernatural as attempting to summon a demon.

supersquirrel, 21 days ago

The last sentence is particularly confusing because it’s implying that most if not all company protocols are just as arbitrary and supernatural as attempting to summon a demon.

That is exactly what I am saying?

supersquirrel, 21 days ago

A lot of annoyances that people regularly deal with on computers are either intended mechanisms to stop human bad actors or unintentional bugs passing off as features. You can’t really say the same about demons.

…I am honestly kind of terrified if you think the current state of computers and software is fine, I really hope you dont work in software design for the sake of the rest of us.

Every broadly intelligent computer programmer I have talked to agrees, corporations dont build software like elegant well planned skyscrapers they build them as multistory slums each piece added on in a rush until the whole thing collapses.

Contramuffin, 21 days ago

Nowhere have I said that programs are perfectly fine. In that exact quote that you have quoted me on, I even said that unintuitive features may be bugs passing off as features.

I am making the claim that no matter how much technical debt there is in a code, it is not remotely comparable to occultism and demons. If you read and understand what I have said, I make clear that it is not even that programming and occultism are dissimilar, but more accurately that the two cannot even be categorically compared because there is nothing to compare. You are not comparing apples to oranges, you are comparing apples to chairs.

supersquirrel, 21 days ago

I am making the claim that no matter how much technical debt there is in a code, it is not remotely comparable to occultism and demons.

I mean I am all ears, convince me computers don’t have as much arbitrary bullshit and strict specific details to processes, beliefs and rituals that don’t correspond to any intuitive rationality?

distantsounds, 22 days ago

Reminds me of developing with time zone considerations 15-20years ago

lurch, 22 days ago (edited 22 days ago)

there’s an actual whole book about date and time in PHP: php|architect’s Guide to Date and Time Programming

I remember a video about the topic in general too, but don’t remember enough details to find it. It’s like nations have decided to mess up times and dates on purpose.

voracitude, 22 days ago

Oh, it’s still like that. Mexico just got rid of DST which resulted in some fun bugs at my workplace. And then there’s this Lunar Standard Time thing being proposed… why it can’t just use UTC, I’ll never understand…

lolola, 22 days ago

Do you suppose folks on the moon will shift the clocks by an hour twice a year as well? I don’t like the idea of moon kids having to walk to school in the dark during the winter.

But for real tho, maybe there are some tiny time dilation effects that require a separate time system for lunar missions. But I’m not sure, I’m not a physicist.