once upon a time i was part of a program at google and we were given the opportunity to make a shirt for our group
i (because i was the one leading this effort) decided on "computers were a mistake" with google's logo
and was very promptly shut down by our manager
anyway computers were a mistake
at my last job I was very well respected and had a habit of saying "computers were a mistake"
about two weeks in to moving to a new team my manager pulled me aside and was like "I need you to stop saying that around the junior engineers. it scares them."
no one in this industry wants you to acknowledge that we fuck up constantly and live on thrones of lies
because we learned that it was resulting in young queer people who admire us choosing to not learn more about computers
we intend the saying in a spirit of self-criticism, more an acknowledgement of our own failings than a condemnation of the technology
there are a lot of problems with computers but that only gets better when counterculture people engage with the problems and MAKE it better
it sure is an emotionally satisfying thing to say though
this is a good point. encouraging people to improve flawed systems rather than just ignoring/abandoning them is important!
computers are a mistake but we can fix it
