“The Technical Irrational” frames Big Tech as communal and lonely, rational and mystical

Overview

A new series of short essays titled “The Technical Irrational” has been published on a personal blog and it has been reported that the pieces take cues from esoteric treatises to probe tech culture, philosophy, and the hidden rituals of engineers. The author paints Big Tech as a paradox: a hyper‑collective ant’s nest that nevertheless isolates the people who keep it humming. Expect sharp observations and a few barbed lines — this is part critique, part lament.

Community and rationalism

The essays argue that working in Big Tech is at once deeply communal and profoundly isolating — communal because of the emergent capacity of teams to create systems no one person fully understands; isolating because the work valorizes quantifiable results while outsourcing emotional labor. It has been reported that the piece leans on Dr. Cat Hicks’s critique, quoting her: “to be fully consistent and safely within the Technical they have to do it,” referring to a culture that frames emotion as a category error. The emotional payoff? Frustration. The tone: equal parts admiration and exasperation.

Magic and design

The author also riffs on rationalism versus what some call “magic.” Citing Dr. Angela Puca, the essays suggest that reductive science misses the holistic, cultural dimensions of practice — things that defy neat measurement but matter nonetheless. It has been reported that the writer worries the Technical impulse wants to strip spirit from infrastructure design, imagining systems as if people were replaceable parts. Is that realism, or hubris? You decide.

Why it matters

Why does any of this matter beyond academic hair‑splitting? Because infrastructure shapes daily life, and how we frame designers — as purely rational agents or as humans with messy needs — changes outcomes. The emotional core of the series is plain: technology can connect us and desert us at the same time. A useful provocation, then, and a reminder that engineering culture still has some soul‑searching to do.

Sources: blog.joinmeonmy.quest, Lobsters