I wonder if a lot of toxicity in tech culture is that it is billed as a lifestyle and identity more than just a job.
One of the big drivers for civil rights came from the experience in WWII. In war, there is an overarching purpose. You want to achieve your mission, and survive the war to make it home to your family. The identity of those who help you achieve those goals doesn't matter as much (very few people care about the skin color of someone who saves their life).
What if tech became less of an identity and more of just a job that you did with your co-workers not to "change to world", but just to make money?
What if tech became less of an identity and more of just a job that you did with your co-workers not to "change to world", but just to make money?
GREAT question.
I've often pondered this. Shooting from the hip I would wager this question is easier to answer if one considers the source of one's income.
I'm a political science graduate, who fell into tech early in his career. For me, tech is just a job that's paying for my continued studies. It's a means to an end. It's why I absolutely loathe talking about work when I'm not at work, and in general talking about what I do for a living. Not for a lack of pride, I am definitely proud of where I am and how I got here given the circumstances, it's just not my passion and no I'm sorry I don't want to troubleshoot your tech issues at 6:30 on a Thursday or any other time.
It's nothing personal, it's just I do this sometimes upwards of 60 hours a week and outside of those hours, I'd rather have a normal life where I can do things that appeal to me. No offers of buying me a six pack or a free dinner can really change that.
Different strokes for different folks, though --and that's perfectly OK if other folks DO want to live this way through their chosen professions.
The answer to your question is probably ultimately answered by YMMV.
“Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.”
--Solzhenitsyn
I think there's probably more to your observation than meets the eye. Specifically, there is a kind of dilemma that faces most workers these days. They can either A) get a nice, safe, "boring" career, or B) do something on their own (which is risky).
The people who choose A) are the kind of people who want stability and comfort while the people who choose B) typically do so because they have some kind of goal or motivation that they're willing to endure some resistance and risk to achieve. I personally suspect lots of programmers are joining startups expecting A, when the culture is closer to that of B (since the founders of any given startup have, almost by definition, chosen B.)
> The identity of those who help you achieve those goals doesn't matter as much (very few people care about the skin color of someone who saves their life).
This is not true. Color lines were reinforced in ww2. It didn't recede. Black soldiers were routinely attacked by white soldiers. And japanese american soldiers couldn't serve in the pacific for a variety of reasons ( including being killed by their fellow white american soldiers ) and in europe, japanese soldiers were essentially killed off by their own white commanders in suicide attacks. Feel free to look up the death rates of japanese american soldiers in europe. It's horrendous. Pretty much a war crime.
Race riots occurred between american white and black soldiers in australia, britain, etc. Feel free to google battle of bamber bridge or the battle of brisbane.
The civil rights movement happened because ww2 WORSENED race relations, not made it better. And with the advent of tremendous economic wealth, people were more willing to confront the race relations.
The civil rights movement was a result of more racism, not less and the wealthy post-ww2 country which provided the environment where people were willing to consider civil rights. You could argue that the post-ww2 economic prosperity had more to do with the civil rights movement than anything else.
>This is not true. Color lines were reinforced in ww2. It didn't recede. Black soldiers were routinely attacked by white soldiers. And japanese american soldiers couldn't serve in the pacific for a variety of reasons ( including being killed by their fellow white american soldiers ) and in europe, japanese soldiers were essentially killed off by their own white commanders in suicide attacks. Feel free to look up the death rates of japanese american soldiers in europe. It's horrendous. Pretty much a war crime.
Why is it that we forget the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Which cost 10-20mil+ Chinese civilian lives? Which was also an extremely grotesque human rights atrocity of an unbelievable magnitude.
One of the big drivers for civil rights came from the experience in WWII. In war, there is an overarching purpose. You want to achieve your mission, and survive the war to make it home to your family. The identity of those who help you achieve those goals doesn't matter as much (very few people care about the skin color of someone who saves their life).
What if tech became less of an identity and more of just a job that you did with your co-workers not to "change to world", but just to make money?