@iris_meredith There are two fantasy tropes that I keep coming back to: the Horcrux (from Harry Potter) and Recission (from The Golden Compass).

Both involve a splitting of the soul. In the horcrux, the soul is split to hide part of it away, for survival. In recission, half the soul is destroyed. Both create monsters.

Long ago, I chose the path of the horcrux. I sent half my soul away to go live with the horses, because the other option was recission and soul death. I still remember doing it, too. Soul magic is weird. And I spent the next decade disconnected from myself.

But I'm thankful, too. Because that part of me managed to survive, even if hidden. And now that I've rediscovered it, I've found something else -- that part of me was my heart. Something I was sorely missing. And something that our industry seems to have forgotten.

I love living from my heart. I love feeling it in my chest. I love trusting that it knows what it wants. It's wonderful. ️

@iris_meredith This is brilliant, and very much gives voice to many issues I've been grappling with lately -- and connects them to larger trends in tech.

For me, the issue was not gender dysphoria (I'm fine with my original plumbing), but I still struggled with all the symptoms of dysphoria you mention -- feeling disconnected, not knowing what I wanted, alienation from my body, alienation from my work. Not feeling like *me*.

Turns out there was a critical part of me that I sent away long ago, because there simply wasn't a safe place for it in this world. For various complicated reasons, that part of me strongly identifies as a horse. (Yes, species dysphoria is a thing.) Which makes a lot of sense in your thesis -- horses are deeply embodied and sensous creatures, so it makes sense that part of my soul latched on to it.

The past few months have been all about connecting and celebrating that part of me. Alas, transitioning is off the table, but there are many other outlets that let it shine.

@anthracite @cstross But it's good to compare & contrast to @simon post today about fully automated coding at StrongDM:

https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon/116030108431644256

Their approach seems slightly more ... sane ... than Stevie's. And they are *making it work*.

Inefficient? Surely. Potentially error-prone? Yep. Deeply unsettling? Very much so.

But shit like this would have been considered *impossible* just six months ago. And the one of the first principles of software engineering is to get it working first, and worry about optimization later.

We dismiss these technologies at our own peril. This future is happening *now*, like it or not.

@cstross Reading through Stevie's article, I can't tell if this is brilliant genius, performance art that went off the rails, biting parody, or incipient schizophrenia. Maybe all of the above?

@alice Mansplaining is just what men do to other men ... all the time.