In accordance with Elbakyan, communism and technology share a mission that is common which she means as “scientific communism.”
It’s an idea she arrived to borrow through the 20th century United states sociologist Robert Merton, whom founded the sociology of technology, a report of science being a social training. (Merton coined influential terms such as “self-fulfilling prophecy,” “role model,” and “unintended consequences.”) Many influential to Elbakyan had been Merton’s “norms,” which had been just exactly what he regarded as being the defining traits of technology: universalism, disinterestedness, arranged doubt, and, of course, communism. (Throughout our meeting, she’s nevertheless quick to rattle down quotes from Merton, declaring, “The communism for the systematic ethos is incompatible because of the concept of technology as ‘private home’ in a capitalistic economy.”)