culture

At the same time, high-level former employees are publicly repenting or expressing remorse for their role in making these companies [Facebook, Twitter, et al.] so powerful. These former founders and designers have taken to apologizing in the pages of Forbes, The Guardian, and the Washington Post (to name just a few venues) in what I like to call the Oopsie Circuit.

Ostensibly, this Oopsie Circuit serves as a check to powerful institutions, from a credible source. But this apology tour serves the rich and remorseful former tech executives first by allowing them to repent and be forgiven for breaking the world, and second by reaffirming Silicon Valley’s all-powerful view of itself. It’s important to note, of course, that each apology tour begins much after the person apologizing has already become rich from the actions they regret.

Ashwin Rodrigues on the anti-whistleblowers of Silicon Valley.

See also: MCU!Iron Man, whose literal whole entire character arc is just propaganda for the real-world Oopsies…

[A]ny software that is intended to be used by humans is inevitably an expression of its programmers’ understanding of the software’s audience, and therefore the programmers’ beliefs about the nature of those humans’ lives and priorities and the value of their time and experiences. Consequently, larger a program is, the more likely it becomes that you can evaluate its merits purely on the politics of its developers.

mike hoye on context.

The world does not deserve [its women]. I thought back to every person who has ever asked me how to “fix” the gender problems in STEM, how to “get more girls” to join STEM programs. I thought about every time that someone has suggested “men are better at spatial thinking” and that “testosterone is linked to better performance in math”.

In my mind I look at all these people, a crowd that is gathered. And in my mind, I stand up and I scream at them. I would put my hands around their shoulders and shake sense into all of them, individually, if I had enough time and enough hands

The problems are so obvious.

There is nothing wrong with women. There is nothing wrong with girls in STEM. There are many women and many girls who, in spite of everything, love STEM-related disciplines. Some of them even go through 4-year bachelors degrees at MIT, maybe even 7 years of a PhD, and then begin questioning whether they should continue in these fields, because they are filled to the brim with so, so many shitty men.

Selam G. on the pipeline.

Content warning for the linked post, which deals with the conduct of various Shitty Men In Tech ranging from shitty comments to harassment to the explicit sex trafficking of minors… and to the other men who enable it all.

This is also, incidentally, the post that went viral and lead to Richard Stallman “resigning” from various positions, because I guess there’s only so many times you can defend pedophilia—and Stallman had a known history of it, to be clear—before consequences catch up.

(That being said, by the time this post gets off the post queue, if Stallman isn’t already on his “wah wah SJWs/cancel cancel culture comeback tour” I will eat my keyboard…)