this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
1819 points (99.0% liked)

Programmer Humor

19557 readers
460 users here now

Welcome to Programmer Humor!

This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!

For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.

Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] jadero@programming.dev 19 points 1 year ago

Maybe I read things too literally, but I thought "Fahrenheit 451" was about a governing class controlling the masses by limiting which ideas, emotions, and information were available.

"Brave New World" struck me as also about controlling the masses through control of emotions, ideas, and information (and strict limits on social mobility).

It's been too long since I read "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", but I thought of it as a celebration of human ingenuity, with maybe a tinge of warning about powerful tools and the responsibility to use them wisely.

I don't see a lot of altruistic behaviour from those introducing new technologies. Yes, there is definitely some, but most of it strikes me as "neutral" demand creation for profit or extractive and exploitive in nature.