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Comment by mistakoala | Hacker News Reader

I groaned at what sounded like another SJW article on 'teh evil patriarchy of technology'.

I'm glad I read on for an interesting and original viewpoint.

More Susan Sons' and fewer Adria Richards', please. The former have meaningful and constructive contributions to make while the latter just make political hay for their own self-interest. As a learner, the perception of an increased emphasis on identity politics is off-putting to me. Not because I secretly want to have a career and interest in tech to further my patriarchal tendencies, but because it's shifting attention away from the interesting stuff - the stuff that makes tech fun and interesting in the first place.

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While I don't agree 100% with what you say here, you more or less drive at why I posted it. There are some conversations about gender and tech that, while useful in their own right, also become exclusionary of other possible framing and interpretation of issues and events at hand.

"SJW", while neither an apt nor particularly nice monicker, does (to some) refer to a practicing particular brands of off-putting rhetoric that are uncompromising to a fault. I see people largely in agreement talk past each other because one person's mind is already made up in a way incompatible with someone else's experiences.

A HN commenter once suggested that agreement has become a form of social signaling. I don't know if I believe that, but it would be dangerous and counterproductive because arguments need iteration. If you can't make your case in a way that convinces people with your same goals, you're not going to convince people that don't yet share your goals.

I recognise that tech has its politics and is rooted in it to an extent (Cypherpunks etc). I'm not particularly against that or blind to it.

What I dislike is the braiding of tech with identity politics issues by people who are unaccommodating, and hostile in their language and behaviour, if not their motives. Here, I feel that SJW is an apt description for people whose interests are primarily identity politics. It's not a term that I apply universally.

Sons made her point in a thoughtful way. She was not hostile (explicitly or implicitly). If there are issues regarding identity politics and tech, I'd rather hear about it from people like her. The pity is (in an awkwardly expressed way), because of her position, she doesn't necessarily want a platform from which to say things on these matters because she doesn't frame her experience in terms of gender (and that seems to carry through into the comments).

"...increased emphasis on identity politics is off-putting to me...because it's shifting attention away from the interesting stuff - the stuff that makes tech fun and interesting in the first place."

This. This. A thousand times this.

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