Computer elitism annoys me. Everyone has some skill they could choose to lord over other people. But electricians and plumbers don’t have this going on. Maybe auto mechanics do a little bit. But no other technical service worker can match an IT worker’s clichéd arrogance. It’s a stereotype that’s quickly grown up around the field and for the most part it’s accurate.
Within the more arcane areas of computer work (those areas set aside for people with Computer Science degrees instead of Computer Information Systems or what have you) the elitism is even more rampant. Collectively, we don’t just look down on the rest of the world for their technical infancy, we look down on the other computer people, too.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had in college with a fellow Comp Sci. He was telling me about how he was taking a VB class in the CIS department just for elective credit and giggles. “They don’t even know how to write a recursive function!” he told me. Now, it’s true, every programmer should be able to wield recursion with the finesse of a fencer with his foil. But recursion isn’t an intuitive technique; it’s as if the fencer were using his left hand. Mastery of recursion actually takes quite a bit of Zen meditation. Eventually you can levitate four, even five feet off the ground while working out the base case of the function. But I digress.
My driving passions in computing are quite different from those of most other computer people I’ve met. If I were going to go to grad school, I’d specialize in either Artificial Intelligence or user interface design. For me, their applications are two sides of the same coin: removing communicative barriers between the brain of a human and the brain of a computer.
I want to be the Prometheus of computing, defiantly giving the proverbial gift of fire to the mortal people of the world, much to the elitist chagrin of my peers. Were I a more career-oriented individual, I’d strive to reshape the direction of computing development so that everyone can have the confidence and power over computers that a (highly metaphorical) Titan like me already has.
This is exactly why I use a Mac: both the hardware and software design have the fewest communicative barriers between my thoughts and the electronic bits. I can make it do exactly what I want a computer to do with minimal extraneous thought. In a small way, it’s the closest I can get to having true telekinesis.
The irony is that I do sometimes take elitist pleasure in my Mac use. I think most of us have probably met those over-zealous Mac users of the world. My zeal has calmed but, not-so-secretly, I still don’t understand why anyone without a hole in the head would deliberately use a Windows system.
The further irony is the implicit elitism in the Prometheus analogy: in order to deliver the power of the gods to humanity, I must consider myself a god to begin with.
So in conclusion, you peons, don’t get in my way or you shall be totally pwned by my l337 hax0ring.
