otakukeith replied to your post: the thing about talking shit about tec...
What are “tech dudes” and “tech bros”? Are they the kind of people who complain about “fake geek girls” and don’t want more women doing computer stuff?
fair question! important background to this issue and my frustration with the tech industry at large: i went to a college that is heavily involved in the tech industry and silicon valley bullshit, and therefore attended by a lot of people trying to get rich off the tech industry while simultaneously denigrating all other paths of study; and i live in san francisco, which is like ground zero of the tech-led gentrification of the bay area and it's awful.
so when i talk about tech bros/tech dudes (interchangeable terms) i'm talking about that group of people (not exclusively men, tbf) who treat the tech industry as infallible, superior, and an absolute good, when in fact the tech industry, tech employees, and the subsequent housing crisis caused by the tech boom are causing real harm to communities in san francisco and elsewhere by pricing out poor people, people of color, families who have been in the area for ages. yet many people at these companies -- and certainly the poster boy founders and CEOs -- do not seem to really care about the effect they are causing.
add to this the rampant sexism and racism in the industry . . . it's frustrating. and it's doubly frustrating because so many people i know from college, as well as so many people i meet (via okcupid or whatever else), are enthusiastically complicit in the evils of the tech industry.
tech isn't an absolute evil! of course it's not. and working in tech obviously does not make you a bad person. but i have met too many people who simply do not care what their companies are doing to the bay area, or refuse to acknowledge or mitigate the harm they're doing, and on top of it have the nerve to act as if they are actually a wonderful and precious gift to the community. companies like google hide beneath liberal politics while actually serving their own needs and ignoring the actual needs of the community -- using pride as a place to recruit employees, for example.
i also think there's just an unreal level of wealth and privilege associated with much of this tech stuff (e.g., someone i know got his failing startup acquired for $4 million) and of which i am just plain old distrustful and resentful. more than is necessary? perhaps. but i've met so many of these people and am so unconvinced that they are in any way interested in doing good and that scares me. they're being pegged as the leaders of tomorrow and all they care about is innovation, branding, and money.