Shift In Focus

Over the years, this blog has been somewhat of a scattershot of topics. Initially, it had a very political/civil liberties focus, but that branched into more theoretical topics, such as ethics and philosophy. As I moved into web development, and WordPress, those became topics of greater frequency. And scattered throughout have been posts on music, humor, and even poetry I've written.

You may have noticed that I haven't posted much about politics for some time, and the reason is that politics has become increasingly depressing to me. We live in a society which increasingly embraces constant surveillance, in which we daren't videotape a police officer out of fear of retribution. A society in which we can be sent to prison for shooting a home intruder who invades without a warrant or even warning, just because they happen to have a badge and made a mistake on the address. There are some bright spots. Marriage equality has won. The falling tree may not have hit the ground, but gravity took over years ago and the conclusion is foregone. But in almost all areas, the world has become a scarier and more depressing place.

I also don't write about civil liberties as much, because I have grown increasingly disillusioned and fed up with all sides. It is absolutely wrong to judge someone for the color of their skin, or for the person they love. But that cuts both ways, and as someone who has been judged for being a white male by my supposed allies, my willingness to get involved has decreased over time. Yes, I understand that I have white privilege, and any automatic judgement I get for my skin is nothing compared to the judgement that a transgender person of color gets. But time and time again I see a level of automatic hate coming from the non-cisgendered community that almost approaches the level of hate (that I've fought against) from the fundamentalist religious faction.

Which brings me to my final point. What I HAVE been writing more about recently is code. The beauty of PHP, of HTML, of CSS ... is that they are languages of utter and complete honesty, and logic. If you write something, it's either correct or incorrect. There's no debate, there's no hatred. Certainly people might have differences of opinion on best practices, or what browser to use, but in general it's a much more pleasant area to spend my time in. Additionally, the communities are some of the least judgmental communities that exist. No one cares about who you are or what you look like. If you can write good code, or design great UX, or even just come up with good ideas ... that is all that matters. WordPress contributors are from all around the world, and almost no one brings their societal/cultural baggage with them. Code is king, and I like code.