After I published the “r u tech scum” article, my cousin Peter Downs commented on Facebook:
“I think both you and Robles have some strong points but I also think the way you talk about programmers is unnecessarily demeaning and overall harmful to your argument. Labeling all the programmers as ‘tech boys’ or ‘sans personality’ is a pretty great way to ensure that they don’t listen to your arguments.”
Peter has a good point. (We’ve actually had a version of this discussion before; I probably should have learned my lesson then.) He’s right that using intentionally divisive terms like “tech scum” is shitty, and I shouldn’t have done that, even for the sake of an intriguing headline. As for the “sans personalities” quip, that was inspired by OkCupid dates I’ve been on with startup guys—but it was still definitely unfair.
Photos by torbakhopper, 1 & 2.
At this juncture, Broke-Ass Stuart needs to be quoted:
“I […] agree that the culture of the tech community seems to be one that is tone deaf to the [role] it has played in San Francisco’s gentrification, [but] the tech workers aren’t necessarily to blame for the city’s change. Yes, they are the ones moving into spaces previously inhabited by lower wage peoples. And yes, the unexamined sense of entitlement that seems to be part of it is frustrating to say the least […] but still, they aren’t the real bad guys.
The real villains in the San Francisco housing crisis are the real estate developers and realtors who are making obscene amounts of money off people’s sorrow. And of course the politicians who are in their pockets.” [Bold added; links in original.]
Basically, yeah. I do want to add something Ryan Holiday wrote about #GamerGate, which applies here if you mentally tweak it a bit:
“Just because you don’t personally condone the threats and attacks doesn’t mean your group isn’t responsible. In fact, one of the basic tenets of our legal system is essentially ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ when it comes to gangs, groups and conspiracies. This is especially true, I said, ‘with movements with vague, amorphous goals and little centralized leadership. It makes it hard (or rather easy) to say the good stuff is us, the bad stuff is not us. Conversely, it allows opponents to paint you as the opposite. It also creates an environment in which a lot of people are riled up and members who are loosely associated can do things that reflect poorly on everyone else.'” [Bold added; link in original.]
Here’s my point: there are things about tech/startup culture that suck—click the links in the Broke-Ass Stuart quote and Google “women in tech” for examples—and everyone who benefits from startup-driven displacement, racism, and misogyny bears responsibility to disavow what is done in their name.
Peter has done that, the disavowing, so he’s justified in being annoyed when I describe techies in a one-dimensional, derisive way. It’s important to acknowledge that a lot of people who work in tech are awesome and doing the best that they can like we all are, as we stumble through an economic/political system that makes it hard to move without stepping on someone else.
I will try not to be so reductive in the future, and I hope Peter will call me out again when I inevitably mess up. Hooray for discourse!