[chriskrycho]

> I suggest never beginning an introduction with "this is the best talk I've ever given".

Heh, this is fair, and I actually just edited the intro in response to that feedback. In my defense, the talk itself doesn’t start that way; that was how I introduced for the folks who read my blog via feed or email subscription. Might need to iterate on having ways to add “feed-only content” for that kind of thing, because I think it’s reasonable to say that in the context of folks who already follow your work, but you’re right that it’s weird at the start of a “regular” blog post for people coming to it fresh!

Sorry to hear the rest of it didn’t land for you. Can’t win them all!

[joe_the_user]

I hate being "mean" but I'll admit sometimes my frustrations get the better of me.

I am interested in efforts to connect the act of programming with the large issues of human existence. However, I tend to also be critical these approaches also have the danger of creating shallow, surface comparisons that don't actually provide much value.

In this case, I feel "high modernism" as a concept loses most of it's content if one removes all particular historical strands that made it. Applied in the abstract, it becomes "central control bad, M'kay".

The interesting thing is you describe a lot of programming programs reasonably but it seems obvious to me that the answer to them is ... centralization and control. The problem of many systems is that software gives the impression that everyone's needs can be accommodated simultaneously and so results in actually contradictory requirements - especially when there isn't central control of the requirements. I'm sure that could be spun as too much central control too but that spin just seems unnatural.