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generator: pandoc
title: 'LISP: The Communist Programming Language'
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2020-02-26T02:28:10Z
I think I've entered a phase in my life where I am focusing more on tech
and programming instead of writing and evangelising philosophy and
libertarian communism.
That doesn't mean that I have given up my political commitments, but it
does make me a little sad that I'm not more of an activist.
Maybe it's because I am firm in my convictions now. I suppose a lot of
my writing and talking about philosophy was because I was uncertain and
still exploring the topic, and now I don't feel the need to ask as many
questions as before.
I think maybe it's also because I feel like revolution is going to be
further away than I realised, and I am a little less optimistic about
things kicking off sometime soon.
Also... philosophy is really arcane and quite atavistic. My
philosophical 'career' was marked by a lot of betrayal and dismissal,
and I turned away from it because I could not find enough people with
whom I could commune and struggle alongside.
It seems like the LISP community is kind of kicking off, though. Every
day I discover new people and new projects, and even when it comes to
just new operating systems written in rust it seems like there is a lot
of fervent activity in programming.
People seem excited about what they're doing, and they seem to believe
in something bigger than UNIX. The free software community is so much
more vibrant and supportive than the political and philosophical ones.
Is it because of VC and funding? Maybe it is. There sure as hell isn't a
connection to the means of production with philosophy nowadays, like
there was in the 20th century.
I don't know what to think. I do believe deep down that functional
programming is inherently communist. I don't know why, but when I study
LISP, I see a complete disregard for number crunching for the purpose of
maximising capitalist profit. I know this hasn't always been the case,
but I see something there.
I think it is probably because symbolic computation is fundamentally
concerned with language. There /is / liberation for humans and sentient
beings with this kind of computing. The more we are able to grasp the
structure of our world and our consciousness, I think the more we will
be able to use LISP as a weapon in the struggle for communism.
I think we are having a renaissance in computing. Pleroma and the
fediverse are proof of this.
What can I make of this? I have absolutely no idea at the moment.