Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby Jastiv » 23 Aug 2019, 00:44

Traditionally, software developers just looked at logic and the code. Just ignore emotions, make everything compile and run and that fixes everything! Right? Wrong. When I look at the free software movement, ask myself where it is weak, and then ask myself where it could be stronger, I am left with the impression of people willfully blinding themselves to obvious truths in order to make themselves bow to authority figures.
Why do people become programmers in the first place? What motivates someone to spend massive amounts of time on something that could just easily described as “applied logic?” Are people who program just rational logical human beings who only care about logic, or is something else going on, is there some underlying reason for the focus on logic. Maybe the people so focused on logic are just trying to escape emotions (and for good reason).
Understanding Empath Sickness, why people have it, and what to do about it should be a major concern in getting communities of software developers to work together. Instead of ignoring it, and pretending it doesn’t exist, or worse yet putting useless labels on it that ignore what is actually going on, does not do people any favors. You can have faith in religious institutions or science and academia all you want, it won’t matter since you are wrong. Here is a blog essay about the topic that is spot on. I could write my own essay about it, or rather a book about it, but it won’t do any good if people don’t think that it exists in the first place and instead turn to their favorite preferred explanations from religion and science.
https://robjo.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/empath-sickness/
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby fluffrabbit » 23 Aug 2019, 02:58

I like these frank discussions we can have here. It's somehow relaxing to speak without the same presumed barriers of other forums such as TIG where my focus is on marketing.

My programming experience is mainly applied to games. In games, I think more about art, specifically the art of storytelling. The visual stuff is secondary. The code is tertiary. Recently I have gone deeper into low-level programming for various reasons including stabilizing my own code and presumably improving my hirability. But is it a waste of my time? Probably, as is that blog post.
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby Lyberta » 23 Aug 2019, 05:08

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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby Julius » 23 Aug 2019, 12:21

@Lyberta: already exists, it's called internet food delivery service. Other that that... well recipie books are basically programs for cooking, no?

@Jastiv: I fail to see the relation to the blog post linked. It seems to talk about emotionally hypersensitive people (strong mirror neurons?) that are having problems with this skill.

I don't think most programmers are emotionally hypersensitive. They usually get into "applied" logic because they are very solution oriented, and yes it is quite common for such people to bow to "authorities" that they percive as having a proven track-record of "getting sh*t done" (meriocracy). This in itself comes with its own set of problems, but it is not all bad.
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby drummyfish » 23 Aug 2019, 15:37

Article about magic, interesting.

I don't think emotional issues have anything to do at all with programming or logic. We need a serious scientific article showing a correlation, not magical explanations.

Programming isn't even any hard logic, I could probably teach my dog programming.
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby Lyberta » 24 Aug 2019, 02:20

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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby drummyfish » 24 Aug 2019, 11:56

Lyberta {l Wrote}:I'm thinking some kind of machine that cooks everything by itself.


I bet they have these in factories, but yeah, there's probably nothing like that for use at home by mere mortals.
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby fluffrabbit » 24 Aug 2019, 14:15

I believe a company in Japan was working on something like this a couple years ago. It was an upper torso with arms that was supposed to retail for about $10,000. Mainly for restaurants.
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby freemedia2018 » 24 Aug 2019, 19:28

I thought circular arguments that make themselves "immune" to logic by attacking the propensity for it were exclusive to modern feminism, I didn't know you could use them in this way as well.

The free software movement was started by a very passionate person, I guess pretending he's nothing more than an overly sensitive robot will never go out of style.

With that said, I liked the article just fine. I'm confused about what's being done with it here, only because it reminds me very much of things I've heard many times over-- typically from people who think suits and ties make you a better coder somehow, and who have found that meditation at your desk is a great way to fight the office blahs. Sorry, what?
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby Wuzzy » 13 Sep 2019, 01:48

Frankly, I think the concept of “empath sickness” is a bunch of BS.

The article just does not make any sense. They talk a lot about magic, as if it's a real thing. Lulwut?

It contains highlight such as
Energy is always around us doing things.

Different places have certain energies to them, and different cities have different energy themes.

(…) and now you’re expending energy and using magic to be a mundane person.

Pull energy into yourself, change it to another type of energy, and push it out. Pull energy into yourself and calm it, then push it out. You can pick up twenty different kinds of gemstones from any occult shop for $20.


It's a lot of claims that either are just outlandish or just don't make any logical sense, and there is zero evidence or references for anything they say. I think it's pretty safe to dismiss this as BS.
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby fluffrabbit » 13 Sep 2019, 02:17

Different places have certain energies to them, and different cities have different energy themes.

Sometimes, a place shines at you.
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby Julius » 13 Sep 2019, 06:49

Wuzzy {l Wrote}:It's a lot of claims that either are just outlandish or just don't make any logical sense, and there is zero evidence or references for anything they say. I think it's pretty safe to dismiss this as BS.


Life Pro Tip: it you come accross stuff that seems to make no sense at all and seems totally outlandish, then it is worth stepping back and analysing your own thought process. Other people are usually not completly bonkers, but rather have different definition of words, or a different cultural back-ground and things litterally get lost in "translation" even when speaking the same language.

Lets give a simple example... imaging yourself talking about the concept of electricity with someone else that might have only rudimentary understanding of the scientific concept (which might also not be known well to you either). It is not unlikely that this person would chose the term "magic" to describe electricity. But that doesn't mean its all BS, but rather that the explanation is likely inlegible to you especially if you have an overloaded definition of the word "magic" (conjuring mental images of wizards, elves and orcs etc.).

The above arcticle seems to be at least partially influenced by a train of thought that is about 150 years old (AFAIK related to the Freemasonry subculture), and which reappropriated various terms around magic (druids, mages etc.). Back then all the more recent pop-culture references, based on Lord of the Rings etc. didn't exist, so it made more sense to give new meaning to these words that had by then mostly lost all purpose. They used these words to describe concepts and techniques for influencing people, more akin to what we would call today charisma and psychology. The difference being that they thought/think of these more in applied terms, while today's mainstream culture thinks of charisma etc. more in terms of an inate phenomenon.
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby GunChleoc » 13 Sep 2019, 08:24

Good point, Julius. Scientifically speaking, maybe they're talking about people who have strong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby Wuzzy » 22 Sep 2019, 15:43

“seems to be”, “maybe they mean this or that”, … Yeah, maybe the author meant all that, or maybe not. We don't know.

Well, that's not very helpful. This article is just complete gibberish to me and the fact that there are zero sources does not make it any better. :(

Empath sickness is probably the most common problem found among practitioners of magic and naturally gifted psychic

I wonder how you are going to explain away the word “psychic”. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a psychics, it's all a big scam or people who don't know any better.

I also don't understand what this has to do with free software. o_O

There’s a problem in the magical community where a lot of people seem to think that shielding and banishing rituals are the best solution for every problem, regardless of what that problem is

Sorry, but I really do think the author means “magic” in the same sense as I think they do. Wtf is a “banishing ritual”?
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby freemedia2018 » 22 Sep 2019, 17:28

A banishing ritual is a magical ceremony designed to prevent any harmful impact from something.

https://stallman.org/rms.jpg
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Re: Empath Sickness and the Free Software movement

Postby Lyberta » 23 Sep 2019, 09:34

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