Comment by pmarreck | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmarreck | Hacker News Reader

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There should remain some cachet when it comes to actually working directly with code that directly impacts software functionality. I love it. Coder, programmer, electron magician, logic monkey, or perhaps my favorite, Techpriest, call it whatever you want... at the end of the day this is the only job where you get paid to build completely nonphysical machines. I press keys that go clack clack, logic gates go flip flop, the electrons go zoom zoom, and my bank account goes ding ding.

From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine.

Your kind cling to your flesh, as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass that you call a temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal…

...even in death I serve the Omnissiah.

> at the end of the day this is the only job where you get paid to build completely nonphysical machines. I press keys that go clack clack, logic gates go flip flop, the electrons go zoom zoom, and my bank account goes ding ding.

From this day, this is going to be my life motive. I've been reading philosophy since i was 18. Stoics were my favourites and helped me through hard years and situations. But now, everything makes sense.

lol, glad it was inspiring. honestly it's wizardry when you really think about it.

there's two roads that diverge in this wood, though. you can look at the nonphysicality of it and call it nothingness and become somewhat of a materialist nihilist. Or you can decide to do what I did and come to the conclusion that the physical that we think is real is in fact the unreal or at least the "less real" (since I want to dodge the issue of dualism for now), and that thought is the only thing that actually exists or matters- which would make programming (and arguably things like music production, digital art, etc.) the "most real" of the jobs. I mean... all human valuation is fundamentally irrational (and yet quite real... why, for example, from a purely rational basis and without asking a human, is Taylor Swift making such a gigantic amount of money? Why can the game "The Finals" be free, but charge money for skins, and people will actually pay money for them?)

> at the end of the day this is the only job where you get paid to build completely nonphysical machines. I press keys that go clack clack, logic gates go flip flop, the electrons go zoom zoom, and my bank account goes ding ding.

https://xkcd.com/722/

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