On "nobody's stopping you"

Every single time I make any kind of intelligent criticism about software, I inevitably get "why don't you do it yourself" and/or "nobody's stopping you". You don't get that with dumb criticisms since those just get dismissed quietly. But make an intelligent criticism, and you get that as a knee-jerk reaction.

That kind of lying garbage just infuriates me. First, it's double-speak. Like Americans ritualistically saying "I don't agree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" when they mean "I respect your opinion like I do used toilet paper and declare this discussion closed". Second, it's not even remotely true.

As I point out in my last blog post on design principles vs engineering "principles", design is not engineering! Just because designers are capable of detecting engineering failures doesn't make them engineers. And like any good designer, I would rather slit my own throat than do engineering!

And just because I care to critique the shoddy engineering and mis-design of something doesn't mean that I want to design one myself. In the case of the Smalltalk programming language, I don't care to redesign it because I know it would end up like Klein. And I am a great designer, not some fucking hack who copies others' work!

Ultimately, what infuriates me most about suggestions that "nobody's stopping you" and "why don't you do it yourself" besides the blatant lying nature of the claim, is the fucking injustice of it all. When was the last time someone complained about a consumer product (say a brand of television or automobile) and was told "why don't you make one yourself?"

We live in a complex civilized society. And 'civilization' means 'city-builder' and the difference between 'city' and 'large village' is 'division of labour'. Look it up people, this is what these things mean to anthropologists and historians. You know, the people whose life's work is to analyze the difference between civilization and savagery.

So basically, these assholes are saying "why don't you act like a savage?' The only polite response to which is: what the fuck is your problem you crack-smoking punk?! Except I kinda know what their problem is already. They are too mentally handicapped to judge good and evil, so even though they've read everything I had to say, they still can't decide whether it's a good idea.

People who know some psychology tend to think it's because these morons have started identifying with whatever project and are feeling defensive. But that's bogus because it's impossible to react from your feelings alone unless your conscious mind is empty of thought. And in matters of good and evil, that happens when people are incapable of judgement.

And I'm not exaggerating. Asking "is design desirable?" and "what is design?" is a lot like "is goodness desirable?" and "what is good?". In other words, questions to which 90% of people are incapable of providing answers beyond what they've been indoctrinated by others to parrot. Questions to which 10% of the population thinks the answers are fucking obvious.

TOO obvious really. Only a special kind of person is capable of both independently providing the right answer to such questions and generating complete logically correct justifications for them. I've kinda got a track record of doing this now, what with 'what is life' 'why is pedophilia wrong' 'what is morality' 'what is moral theory' 'what is multi-leveling' 'what is intelligence' 'what is empathy' and 'what is design' now.