> I think we should normalize saying that tech stack choices are subjective and preference-based. We're not robots. The social and aesthetic parts of a stack matter to people
I would just like to distinguish "subjective and preference-based" from "social and aesthetic" and also clarify some notions.
1. The social is objective. We are social animals. It is essential to what it means to be human. We need social relations to grow and develop and to become more human.
2. The aesthetic is objective. We confuse taste with beauty, and this is perhaps the legacy of influence of certain philosophical traditions on our thinking. Beauty has to do with the fullness with which some thing instantiates a form and realizes some end/good. So, when it comes to artifacts like programming languages, a beautiful language will satisfy some human purpose more perfectly than a less beautiful language. Taste is a matter of subjective disposition to beauty. Someone with bad or poor taste might prefer the inferior over the superior, for example, or fail to discern between the two.
We sort of create mystery about preference here, as if they were just arbitrary, immutable, inexplicable brute facts. But preferences can be more good or less good or even bad. Note the relation between preference and taste.
> We're not robots.
3. Typically - and I do not accuse you of this - this is meant to mean that what makes us human compared to robots is that we have emotions. But it isn't that. Many animals have emotions. What makes us distinct as human beings is the intellectual and the rational, which robots (as computational instruments) are not.
4. Post hoc rationalizations may not stand behind the actual motivations, but the content of the rationalization may remain true and valid nonetheless.
I’m sorry but there is no way you can demonstrate a universal aesthetic. Your opinion of other people’s tastes does not reflect on their taste — it reflects on yours.
> I’m sorry but there is no way you can demonstrate a universal aesthetic.
What do you mean by "aesthetic", because I've already made the distinction between objective beauty and subjective taste. If my explanation is true, then it follows that there is an objective ordering of beauty (of at least two kinds: with respect to the same form/end, and between forms and ends). Then, there's the question of how competent someone is at recognizing this order. And finally, there are contingent factors that will affect expressed volitional preference as a function of factors like attainability or character flaws or whatever.
Making beauty a matter of purely subjective response makes it more mysterious and nonsensical, not less.
> Your opinion of other people’s tastes does not reflect on their taste — it reflects on yours.
How do you know this? You haven't demonstrated this claim. I've at least explained the basis for mine.
I claim that on the contrary, yes I can. I can claim that someone who thinks rape or murder are beautiful has objectively deranged tastes, because these acts are intrinsically ugly.
I would just like to distinguish "subjective and preference-based" from "social and aesthetic" and also clarify some notions.
1. The social is objective. We are social animals. It is essential to what it means to be human. We need social relations to grow and develop and to become more human.
2. The aesthetic is objective. We confuse taste with beauty, and this is perhaps the legacy of influence of certain philosophical traditions on our thinking. Beauty has to do with the fullness with which some thing instantiates a form and realizes some end/good. So, when it comes to artifacts like programming languages, a beautiful language will satisfy some human purpose more perfectly than a less beautiful language. Taste is a matter of subjective disposition to beauty. Someone with bad or poor taste might prefer the inferior over the superior, for example, or fail to discern between the two.
We sort of create mystery about preference here, as if they were just arbitrary, immutable, inexplicable brute facts. But preferences can be more good or less good or even bad. Note the relation between preference and taste.
> We're not robots.
3. Typically - and I do not accuse you of this - this is meant to mean that what makes us human compared to robots is that we have emotions. But it isn't that. Many animals have emotions. What makes us distinct as human beings is the intellectual and the rational, which robots (as computational instruments) are not.
4. Post hoc rationalizations may not stand behind the actual motivations, but the content of the rationalization may remain true and valid nonetheless.