Programmers Show No Empathy

I will prove here that programmers have all of the expressed empathy of the typical serial killer and psychotic mass murderer. This will be remarkably simple since programmers consistently misrepresent everything in the real world in the way that most blatantly benefits themselves.

To programmers, colour isn't what you see when you turn your head 30 degrees to the side of your monitor. Or 15 minutes after you leave your computer. Rather, colour is light values of phosphors in CRTs.

To programmers, a document isn't an ordered sequence of paragraphs with annotations, titles and owners as almost-perfectly exemplified by this online magazine. Rather, to programmers, a document is a sequence of ASCII characters as in notepad.

(Do check out the magazine linked to above if only to behold the magnificence of paragraph numbering. At last someone of minimal intelligence replaced the ridiculous 20-year obsolete concept of "pages" for online documents. Check out also ... sidenotes! Unfortunately fixed-length but hey show me another site that has them. And you can also change the font size without a fugly dropdown menu or modal << >> buttons.)

To programmers, music isn't a smorgasbord of sound produced by skilled artists conveying their emotions and telling a story. Rather, music is an ordered sequence of 1/8th notes from disconnected recordings as in MIDI.

To programmers, sheet music isn't a means of reminding a skilled artist what to play in a concise, elegant, visually pleasing, and easy (non-busy and non-boring) manner. Rather, sheet music is an ordered sequence of 1/8th notes on a staff.

To programmers, a date and time isn't a plethora of different measures in all sorts of different calendars tied to the rotations and revolutions of various astrophysical objects. Rather, date and time are the integer number of elapsed seconds since Jan 1st 1970.

To programmers, a timezone isn't a consensual and variable means of synchronizing arbitrary clocks to solar days observed at specific geographical locations. Rather, a timezone is a one digit offset from GMT.

To programmers, money isn't tokens of economic exchange taking different forms in different countries, exchangeable between each other according to dynamically varying ratios. Rather, money is an integer number prepended by a $ sign. And ratios between forms of money are always unitary and symmetric (ie, currency controls do not exist).

To programmers, languages isn't something people know one or more of, in order of preference, from a space of possibilities weighed by global popularity and grouped by geographical commonality. Rather, languages is a flat unstructured one-dimensional list organized alphabetically from which you are munificently allowed ONE option. The list is written in English using ASCII of course.

To programmers, an architectural object such as a pipe isn't something with mass, composition (including but not limited to strength and durability), maybe even price and availability. Rather, it's a bunch of lines and planes in a CAD program, and this has been so for nearly 50 years until the very recent emergence of object-oriented architectural modeling software.

To programmers, the terms 'geek' and 'nerd' don't refer to self-obsessed idiots too mentally deficient and deranged to be able to relate to any person different from themselves. Relating to entirely different people the way a real intellectual must. No, a 'geek' or 'nerd' is a sort of champion of what being a programmer is all about and is supposedly intellectually superior.

To programmers, being called a geek or nerd isn't a source of shame that programmers are second only to psychopaths in the category of worst dregs of humanity. And then only because it's difficult to beat American executives and serial killers using the measure of 'worthless scum inimical to humanity'. Rather, being called a geek or nerd is a source of chest-thumping pride.

I leave it as an open question whether programmers fail to express any empathy due to debilitating mental deficiency or because they actually are psychopaths. I personally extend them the benefit of the doubt that they need not all be put to death to safeguard humanity as would be the case if they actually were psychopaths.

Some people may not believe it but I scrupulously extend people the benefit of the doubt. The problem is that there's so little doubt from which any of you monsters can benefit from.