Look at the other extreme: the idea that I might be discouraged (or disallowed) from bonding with my coworkers over shared interests sounds dystopian.

You might argue that workplaces shouldn't endorse one particular subculture over another: that's fine. But unless you take stern measures to ban fraternization, you're going to get coworkers forming friendships based on shared interests, and we're lying to ourselves if we think that interests of software people tend not to cluster around what we think of as "geek" culture.