I like this opinion. It bolsters how much power, we as software engineers, have on the world. This is our new democracy. How do we convince people that we can move the world in the right direction re: pollution, human trafficking, equal rights, etc if we join up collectively?
First step in convincing others would be to eliminate the elitist sentiment here. Implying that “we”, a tiny group of under-represented software engineers, are the new democracy?? Gimme a break.
Loved you first curious question about industry analysis.
With respect, less a fan of your second comment. Please know that I'm saying this with respect :)
> This is our new democracy.
I have a slight reaction to people talking about tech and "democracy". 4 people in SF can change some lines of code after a team meeting and tank a family business in mumbai. That feels to profoundly undemocratic on such a massive scale, that it hurts. (h/t recent Upstream podcast with "People's History of Silicon Valley" author, for the scenario)
Yes, we technologists sometimes feel our workplaces are more democratic compares to employers elsewhere, but outside that company, the spaces we live in our becoming less and less possible to scrutinize and speak up about.
I feel that maybe if we were running more worker co-ops in the tech industry, more ecologies in solidarity, more platform cooperatives -- then I might be able to bear using the word "democracy" to describe the things we're participating in...
> How do we convince people that we can move the world in the right direction re: pollution, human trafficking, equal rights, etc if we join up collectively?
Haven't we already shown them that we as technologists _can't_ lead that? We had a sandbox to prove something. It's San Francisco, and it's a dystopia for everyone but us. People rightfully are (and should be) very wary of trusting mainstream technologists and their worldview to solve much.
I would love to see us speak less of the power we have through occupying "structural holes" (positional power of gatekeeping a resource or skill or knowledge) and more about the power we have be being _support_ and by strengthening relationships around us. This feels important. But it also dissolves the power we know. (Lots of research suggests masculine minds ahve tactics that are more likely to seek out and occupy structural holes in social networks, whereas feminine minds wire up the network around them, you might say they "repair" the hole.)
Anyhow, I say all this with love. I appreciate you. I just get frustrated, because I largely see the landscape of technology as breaking things and weakening the important features of our network -- features that the current cohort of technologists (through self-selection biases toward abstract thinking) perhaps can't see and don't know how to value.
