The moment you hire a Rust developer to evaluate languages, you’ve already chosen Rust. You’ve just added a $2 million feasibility study to make the predetermined decision feel rational.

— Steve Francia, Why Engineers Can’t Be Rational About Programming Languages

A century ago, fast typists were jamming their keyboards, so engineers designed the QWERTY keyboard to slow them down. Computer keyboards don’t jam, but we’re still living with QWERTY today.

— Marianne Bellotti, Kill It With Fire

Stupidity always follows on the heels of smugness.

— Roman Gelperin, On Rotting Prison Straw

The battle to combat entropy by continually having to supply more energy for growth, innovation, maintenance, and repair, which becomes increasingly more challenging as the system ages, underlies any serious discussion of aging, mortality, resilience, and sustainability, whether for organisms, companies, or societies.

— Geoffrey West, Scale

…the higher up the chain of command you are, the more reason people have to hide things from you…

— David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs