This is Why Programmers Suck

"There is a species of magical thinking practiced by geeks whose experience is computers and electronics—realms of infinite possibility that are purposely constrained from the messiness of the physical world—that is typical of Singularitarianism, mid-90s missives about the promise of virtual reality, and now, 3-D printing." I wanted to cheer when I read that; original article here.

Yes yes, if it weren't for programmers I couldn't be writing this and you couldn't be reading it. But you know what kind of programmer thinking I mean. Matter compilers and nanotechnology are the natural end result of overenthusiastic types who don't remember that code can be distinguished from reality because by definition, if something occurs in code, you understand it. It can't be there if you don't understand it in its entirety. Not everything in reality can be predicted from first principles, and this is true even in a rigorous sense.