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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: November 19th, 2023

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  • I’ve known a lot of math people, and /on average/ I think they’re more capable of programming useful code than the other college graduate groups I’ve spent a lot of time working with (psychology, economics, physics) /on average/.

    That said, the best mathematicians I’ve known were mostly rubbish at real programming, and the best programmers I’ve known have come out of computer engineering or computer science.

    If you need a correct, but otherwise useless implementation, a mathematician is a pretty good bet. If you need performance, readability, documentation, I’d look elsewhere most of the time.






  • In order to collectively own everything, you must have a mechanism to decide the use of the means of production. Some things can be produced, but should not be, and leaving it up to local decision making will produce imbalances, as things that are easier or more fun to produce are produced more often than required.

    You need a central nexus of control, and a person or group of people to be the final arbiter of decisions. Every time it’s been done in history, either the leaders of the revolution, or the people violent and powerful enough to stab them in the back and take control have landed in this position. Mysteriously, a small group of people controlling all production has only ever lead to tyranny.

    Any communism that begins in revolution will devolve into tyranny, and there’s no words a dictionary can string together that will change that. Voluntary communes also seem to have problems, but it’s more often splintering, which is significantly less harmful.