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Two wrongs don’t make a right.
This thread is using “techbro” to refer to workers way too much, there’s an upvoted post on here about how to take away the average working class tech worker’s job. You guys really think OpenAI is going to outsource to the gig economy? Uber for tech is only going to punish the least well paid devs, the generic webdevs just making websites for a small business. OpenAI isn’t going to let randos fuck around in their codebase.
A lot of software devs and tech workers are marginalised, neurodivergent or otherwise socially disadvantaged. Too many people in this thread are completely ignoring any kind of intersectionality just because they’re men.
Elon Musk isn’t a tech worker, he’s a tech CEO. Sam Altman isn’t a tech work, he’s a tech CEO. Sundar Pichai, Susan Wojcicki, Jen-Hsun Huang. All CEOs not tech workers.
The real “techbros” are all business people in an actual position of power, not the introverted QA tester just trying to get through the day. It’s disheartening to see so much class division, when your local tech worker is more likely to be an ally than a “techbro”.
In fact Software Devs are overwhelmingly Democrat (83.9%), it’s up there with Artists (85.9%) and Scientists (88.4%) https://www.zippia.com/advice/democratic-vs-republican-jobs/
that’s great and not in any way what this is about, but thanks for your driveby
intersectionality is when you carry water for paul fucking graham and get pissed when the name techbro applies just as well to your shitheaded engineering coworker who HR can’t seem to fire as it does to your failson of a CEO who claims to be an expert programmer and has personally caused a significant amount of production downtime in his attempts to prove it
this kind of cognitive dissonance only happens when you’re on the verge of realizing that you are, in fact, the shitheaded techbro, and you have to do what it takes to pretend the label only applies to billionaires
smol bean uwu defense contractor detection
Daihatsu Kissmate
there’s an upvoted post on here about how to take away the average working class tech worker’s job
Are you talking about mine? The point of the post was that techbros and tech industry workers are not the same thing, and that actually the tech workers whose valor those CEOs are stealing are vulnerable to the same tactics techbro startups have used to fuck over workers in other sectors.
A lot of software devs and tech workers are marginalised, neurodivergent or otherwise socially disadvantaged. Too many people in this thread are completely ignoring any kind of intersectionality just because they’re men.
A lot of people in every industry are marginalized, neurodivergent or otherwise socially disadvantaged.
I am a queer, neurodivergent, left wing tech worker myself. Most of the regulars here are probably at least two or three of those things as well. I know lots of tech workers who are in no way techbros, but I’ve also met some of the least class conscious, most obliviously racist and misogynist opportunist motherfuckers who would lick the boots of every billionaire on earth for a chance to join their ranks. This is about the latter.
The real “techbros” are all business people in an actual position of power, not the introverted QA tester just trying to get through the day.
If the QA tester goes home and checks his Raspberry Pi dogecoin mining rig, and is saving up for a Cybertruck, he’s probably a tech bro, if only a larval one.
Think you slightly misinterpreted the tone here and missed that people are mostly agreeing with you re what the term tech bros means. (A tech bro can still be a worker of course, workers can also be bad people. Anyway there are various different groups all sides muddle together (see how the OP tweet muddles ‘people who rule tech’ with nerds with tech bros with tech workers and finance people etc.
And you are imho doing the same here, with the ‘real techbros are’ part, as that is imho the ‘the nerds who have taken over the world’ part. While in this thread the tendency is to use techbro as a term for toxic masculine man who works for a tech company/related company who makes the environment harder for minorities/women/ND people. That most of people in tech are democrats (which is quite useless as an indicator as our local sneerclub posting shows (see how many people defended SSC Scott by calling him a democrat), both parties in the USA allow for a lot of rightwingers and shitty people) is not that relevant. Anyway, if the old reddit sneerclub regulars who now also post in techtakes are any indication this place is a little bit further left than you thought.
Which isn’t to say I disagree with the idea of your post that we should be careful not to shoot too broadly, but I don’t think that is really happening here, a post basically agreeing with you is at almost 60 upvotes right now (which for techtakes is quite a high amount). So yeah I think your heart is in the right place but you have seemed to have misread the tone of this place a bit.
“A lot of software devs and tech workers are marginalised, neurodivergent or otherwise socially disadvantaged. Too many people in this thread are completely ignoring any kind of intersectionality just because they’re men.”
Even though this person’s recent posting history really does make me assume good faith, the particular flavor of misreading the conversation really does provoke a “ooh, paul graham, zat you?” response.
what does the dystopia maker peddle these days now that the nfts and crypto are failing?
Has he done anything but blog, microblog and lispturbate since he sold his E Commerce site?
oh, i was thinking about that suzuha person, i remember remarkably unpleasant interactions with that account when i still used twitter.
Somehow comforting to know I wasn’t the only one
AI mostly now. Also was big into the superconductor mania.
Shit like this is why I hate nerds. (Note: am nerd, by any sensible measure.)
It’s like being a Radiohead fan post-OK Computer
As a Radiohead fan post-OKC that’s apt
Imagine being richer than god and still being mad about how nerds were treated in 80s teen movies.
Paul never evolved beyond that blog post he wrote about the poor nerds sadly. And the the whole nerd/jock thing has not really been relevant for ages anyway, superman plays warhammer ffs.
I at least appreciate that he points out that he’s describing American schools; my experiences of British schools doesn’t tally with his, but I assume from all the media’s portrayals that his memories match the common US experience.
Someone warn those men never to interact with anime profile pics.
Its almost as if a guy in STEM and a techbro are not synonymous
Techbro was originally used to describe the type of men who made it difficult for women in tech, then somewhere along the line the general public realized the same dudes were also making it difficult for lots if people in lots of places.
If tech folks never actually acted like frat bros, the bro appellation never would have happened. I’ve worked in offices with Kegs cor crissakes.
I’ve worked in offices with booze, ping pong, and arcade games!
but not for us. it’s used as a hiring incentive and plonked into the middle of the office, but any use of those things at work will quickly result in a PIP. the booze, ping pong, and arcade games are for techbros only — the founders and their nepotism hires, specifically. any engineer caught using any of those things clearly isn’t working hard enough, because they haven’t converted their entire body and mind into a machine for writing shit code for shit capitalists.
@self @Evinceo I worked in an office where there was a beer fridge, & ping-pong-and-beer o’clock started at 4, directly next to my desk. When I told my manager that I felt uncomfortable around drunk male coworkers, and I was going to call it a day anytime the ping pong by my desk started, guess who was the problem?
Oddly enough, one of the tech offices I worked in with hot and cold running booze also had a sexual assault problem. But yeah, “tech bro” is just a way to hate on nerds.
Who could’ve possibly seen that coming? Oh right, literally any woman in the field.
I don’t want alcohol and work to mix. At best I’m drinking with coworkers at work which is just sad, and the sort of people who want alcohol at work much less a level of booze infrastructure needed to have it on tap aren’t the sort of person I want to be drunk with.
100%. In the US, it’s also a Catch-22 legal issue. It’s an ADA violation to have a workplace that’s full of constant alcohol & required boozy work events if anyone around is an alcoholic, but the only way you can invoke the legal issue here is by having somebody tell their workplace that they have an alcoholism problem, which is incredibly risky. Like astronomically beyond risky.
tl;dr, anyone who prevents paulg from making an unsafe workplace for women is probably just some kind of misandrist.
That’s a great point. I hadn’t even considered the alcoholics who are in recovery or attempting to abstain.
Like, I don’t think anyone but active alcoholics or people with serious work life balance issues would want booze on tap at work. As someone who works to have a healthy relationship with alcohol I generally don’t drink at all on work nights (maybe a low or medium abv beer or a glass of wine, but I’m not opening a bottle of wine on a work night for sure).
Like yeah, college sure was fun getting drunk on a Tuesday night, but I couldn’t afford to get that drunk, I was drinking with friends, and I was 21 and didn’t get hangovers unless I was dangerously drunk. I’m a grown ass woman with a wife and career now and my body doesn’t handle booze the way it used to. If my job gave me booze I’d want something like a bottle or 6-pack of something decent to enjoy with my wife on a Friday evening, but even then I wouldn’t want alcoholics to feel tempted or left out. In general the less time I spend with coworkers instead of my wife the happier I am.
But these concerns must just mean I hate men and fun
By the beer standard the most tech-bro-y place I’ve worked was Swiss Bank Corp / O’Connor in Chicago, a software focused trading shop. In 1994. NeXT machines and Symbolics LISP machines on the private trading floor kind of place, with refrigerators kept stocked with free sodas and beer. Beer was for after 5, except on St Patrick’s day, when coolers of beer came out at about noon. Also, Nerf guns on the trading floor.
And yet, at least for the people I know best from there, they didn’t turn out to be tech bros. Perhaps there’s a generational aspect.
“What would the reaction be?” It would be different. It would be far more negative. Do you know why it would be more negative? Because women in tech do not hold power in tech. They do not hold power in the world. A misogynistic name for that category of people would be punching down.
By contrast, “techbro” is acceptable because we know who’s in power right now, and it’s punching up.
HTH
As one insider told me (who is not me): ‘imagine an equally sexist name was given to, say, female pundits and journalists’ … what would the reaction be?’
With the amount of misandry omnipresent in mainstream media. I’m starting to question which way is up and which is down.
you rn
no u
Haha “as one insider told me (who is not me)”
Jason is isn’t even a tech bro, he’s just a weird rich dork
I didn’t have much respect for him before, but seeing him absolutely lose his shit and scream for the feds to save Silicon Valley Bank instead of manning up like Rockefeller and getting his rich friends together to bail them out without government help shredded whatever little respect I did have.
Anyway if any of you actually do hate techbros for being nerds and wanna give a fuck you to computer geeks in general and tech enterpreneurs in particular, I have an evil plan for you.
Found the Uber for software development. Create an app to connect customers with freelance developers (particularly in lower income countries) and crucially, make sure the developers are responsible for their own infrastructure. Have the devs shoulder the ever-growing burden of cloud bills and server maintenance, minimize your own role except as a middleman and encourage a race to the bottom between the people doing the actual work. Use your VC money on lawyers, manipulative user interface development, marketing and sabotaging your competition.
Congratulations, you will have accelerated the inevitable devaluation of the computer programming profession and stripped it of its perceived prestige. You will have fucked over the majority of software developers and IT operations people. You might even break the pretension that finance bros owe their wealth to their skill with computing technology. You will hoist some “disruptors” by their own petard, hit a bunch of people for collateral damage and probably make a lot of money for bigger fish capitalists.
Do not actually do this, or I hope one day you will be treated like the pestilent leech you are. Consider becoming a communist instead.
Unfortunately, this already exists
Upwork (previously e-Lance) has a massive systemic lowest-bid-wins downpressure dynamic already, favouring labour from extremely low-cost markets and rushthrough result output. It is occasionally possible to find a good/decent bit of work on there, but largely I t’s a shitshow across multiple dimensions. (There’s more I could say here but it probably deserves its own post somewhere)
And then there’s fucking Turing, a newer entrant to the market labour arbitrage space (because, really, that’s what these are). Turing is a Startup. They explicitly search out developers from developing/third-world nations, mail them (e.g. I got on mail they could only have gotten from scraped commits), and then pitch them on a number that is “better than what they may get locally” but still far below whatever it is that Turing itself bills to end customer. And they called it fucking Turing.
Yes, I know gig economy for programmers already exists, but to really make it the UberBnB for Upwork, the idea is to push the CAPEX to the workers themselves.
Uber became the world’s biggest taxi company while owning no cars. Airbnb became the world’s biggest hotel chain while owning no hotels. Imagine being the world’s biggest cloud while owning no servers.
ah right, soz, I meant to address that too but was typing from phone and fucked that bit up
more than a few of the projects/things on these sites tend to be in a shape of “programmer provides all facilities”, be it dev tooling or “before launch” site hosting etc. but in favour of your point, it’s still definitely incidental instead of structural/built into the system foundations
might not swing that way either, because it places a lot of leverage on the dev’s side (and in an exploitative economy, the money doesn’t like going for that)
Sounds like they called it “Turing” in the midcentury law enforcement sense.
I’m glad Alan Turing never met the modern techbros
<Captioned image of Miyazaki: Computer was a mistake – Alan Turing>
So are techbros just software devs? I’m unsure what it means now. I thought it referred to the bitcoin/venture capitalist types
No, that is not what I meant. Not all software devs are techbros at all. Techbros are people characterized by their romanticization of computing history viewed through a corporatist lens; an obsession with IT and Fintech megacorps and trend-du-jour bandwagons like blockchains or AI; a façade of laid back trendiness; business ideas based on rent-seeking and value extraction; or attempts to minimize, excuse and deny the deep-seated misogyny and racism within startup and tech corporate culture.
What I’m saying is that there is a certain prestige (albeit a steadily diminishing one) associated with the technical professions, paricularly software development, and the venture capital types are taking advantage of that fact by acting as if their wealth is built on their technical talents (e.g. Paul Graham appointing himself and his news site as champions of hacker culture or Elon Musk attempting his out-of-touch idea of code review).
The idea was that if you hated both techbros and actual computer nerds, you could help ruin that prestige by taking a page from the VCs themselves (Airbnb in particular being an Y Combinator startup). Make everyone an “independent contractor”, shift the ever-accumulating capital expenditure on them, make the crabs drag each other back into the bucket and position yourself as the purely extractive middle man. See how the techbros like it when you do it to their little sacred cow industry.
And as @froztbyte points out, some of this has already happened. I’m just trying to imagine the cognitive dissonance of pretending you’re a genius programmer while also believing (even celebrating) that LLMs will replace software developers.
The term includes those devs who carry water for the Silicon Valley vulture capitalist crowd as well.
Thank you, I feel that’s blurring the lines in a way I’m not happy with. But I appreciate your answer and the time you took to write it
What if we used different words in a different context? Wouldn’t the meaning change? Checkmate atheists
TPOT word chess, with the rules directly stolen from WW cribbed from WW^W inspired by LW
Ah, good old TPOT, and the teenage-wisdom “you just don’t like hearing the truth” takes. Such elevation, blessed be the fucking clowns.
(Extreme double-lol at paulie coming in hot there)
Image description: a series of three tweets by blue-checks.
Tweet from suzuha:
“techbro” is just the reemergence of thinking it’s cool to hate nerds, mixed in with a bunch of resentment from watching the last 20 years of nerds taking over the world
Reply by Paul Graham:
It’s more a way to hate men.
Reply by jason:
As one insider told me (who is not me): ‘imagine an equally sexist name was given to, say, female pundits and journalists’ … what would the reaction be?’
these people are obsessed with their 80s teenager level understanding of nerds vs popular kids. paul graham wrote an essay in his late 30s or something about how the only reason he wasn’t popular in high school was that he was too busy being smart.
so you can at once insult nerds, men, and fascists, what’s not to love
