A favourite quote, that appears on my Github profile:
> Computing is pop culture. [...] Pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about identity and feeling like you're participating, It has nothing to do with cooperation, the past or the future—it's living in the present. I think the same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea where [their culture came from]. - Alan Kay
I particularly like how he had the insight of making the statement true only for "people who write code for money." Growing up in various computing "scenes" (open source, hacking, demoscene) in the 90's and 2000's, nobody did anything for money. And it seemed everybody had the utmost respect for the history of the scene. Demosceners were all about "old school" stuff and the old Amiga days. Hacking ezines and forums retold the tales of Captain Crunch and other legendary hackers from yore. And the open source community was still full of completely antiquated practices that some would have question but nobody would have dared to disrespect.
Only when I started programming as a job did I encounter people who, strangely, had no interest for such things. There was plenty of enthusiasm for new languages, but little for their genealogy. It really seemed odd to me and I think the lack of love for the "craft" and its history is ultimately what drove me out of industry and to academia.
To make new pop culture cooperation is necessary otherwise a culture stays niche. Diffusion of new culture works exactly as diffusion of technology from innovators to late adopters. The paradox with culture is that when an innovation is adopted in the mainstream late adopters do not perceive it as innovation because it is now the normal thing to do. Innovators do because brands validate new behavior, values and rituals that are contrarian to the status quo.
Nike & BLM, Tesla & global warming, Apple and computing without a 1000 page manual.
Nike validated Kaepernick at a moment for the first time that more kids of color are born than white.
The problem with this blanket rejection of "pop culture" as something lesser is that its almost always deployed by "young fogey" conservatives, harkening back to so golden imperial age.
And of course these sort of people don't actually have any in depth historical knowledge.
> Computing is pop culture. [...] Pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about identity and feeling like you're participating, It has nothing to do with cooperation, the past or the future—it's living in the present. I think the same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea where [their culture came from]. - Alan Kay
Changed how I think about my career.