It’s a weird puppet-master or wolf > sheep feeling. Even in small doses it can go to your head. It also seems to scare people off. I’ve seen talented engineers back off from that feeling by dialing down either the exoticism, or the real-worldiness of what they’re doing.
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In part because when you see through the lens of exotic, but real and political consequential agency, that’s a kind of god-like/superhuman perspective. And if you tend to normalize yourself as “human” it induces the uncomfortable sense of seeing others as subhuman.
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There’s a stack of fulfillment/meaning types here, with each higher level being richer, but also requiring more imagination and nerve to reach and *tolerate*
Staying with non-exotic/real feels safe and offers a domestic kind of satisfaction many engineers don’t want to leave.
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OTOH exotic/non-real is safe in a different way: it is stimulating in a mentos-in-coke way but with no risk of disturbing the political peace with tech levers.
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Non-exotic, non-real: hobby crafts like model building. Relaxing and safe.
Exotic, non-real: geewhiz tech. Stimulating in a mid way, and politically safe.
Non-exotic, real: adult satisfaction, politically safe.
Exotic+real: god-feeling, politically destabilizing
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Most of the hatred in the tech backlash is due to techies wandering into the exotic+real quadrant and awakening new Promethean forces, but then being unwilling to exercise the political agency unleashed. Those who want the agency can’t exercise it, those who have it don’t want it
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As a result, the political agency gets downcycled to mere economic agency, often of a banal (eg advertising) or criminal variety.
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Not sure where I’m going with this, but something to do with the general air of NPCness around a lot of tech tinkering that feels consciously self-chosen. Which is funny because of the “doer” and “maker” self-images that go with it. Agency as a hobby that avoids turning real.
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To non-techies this seems like “not working on real problems”. Really they mean “real but not exotic so you help out in ways we want you to, but otherwise shut up and stay in your lane”
Try real+exotic and you’ve bought yourself a political fight whether you want one or not.
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This is partly why startup techies love “disruption” in a limited business sense. It’s a sort of deactivated political agency that disturbs just the economic peace and makes more money than power.
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But if business disruption is the limit of your political vision you’re still in hobby mode. A big, lucrative hobby but short of dent-in-the-universe ambitions you might pretend to. The most interesting techies embrace the political consequences of what they do.
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Which doesn’t mean turning into a politician formally or haunting DC. That’s just selling tech short for a shot at cronyism with existing political equilibrium. It means letting the tech find full expression and accepting the consequences, including any hate.
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It’s saying — this is a legit way of being human and the rest of you have to deal. Not apologizing for the impacts of tech or going through ritual contrition and penance. You moved the equation and created an imperative for others to either adapt or suffer being left behind.
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It feels cruel to say this, but if others don’t feel a responsibility to keep up, and try to impose on others the burden of maintaining a changeless state, you need feel no responsibility to bend over backwards maintaining an equilibrium you don’t need.
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Change is natural and inevitable, changeless stability is what takes unnatural force to maintain. A world that makes those who lean into change feel apologetic towards those who resist it is backwards.
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