Cat Hicks
A thread about tech power and tech identities that I really believe in, in reference to comments on the DOGE rewrite of SSA, unfolding in dialogue over on bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/grimalkina.bsky.social/post/3llh5fy4gx224
I'll copy it here for you friends
Cat Hicks
Of course, tech incompetence ALSO flows from draconian power ideas of tech, I believe that; I'm just saying we won't undo this by continuing to pray to the Almighty Altar of the Technical.
Cat Hicks
The exercise of Tech Knowledge and Tech Naivete go hand in hand in a way that I believe is somewhat intentionally paradoxical. If Tech Expertise is both all knowing and forever ignorant, it can play either side maintaining its structural power
Cat Hicks
It's also helpful to realize the execution of competence is NOT WHAT MATTERS with regard to a lot of tech power; every marginalized person in tech already knew this. It is the performance of speed, performance of genius, performance of renegade. These performances are rather impervious to reality
Cat Hicks
If we can let go of the techie nonsense for a moment to pay attention to what really matters, not the jargon & tech details, but the values of real experts who do civic tech--it all becomes clearer. Patience, dialogue, intentionality, service, transparent and shared reasoning vs draconian power
Cat Hicks
I understand that many engineers will recoil and say mournfully, the techie decisions ARE what's real and what matters, that's my scope and job. You are being had. Those are the things that matter if we exist in a social-structural situation with shared goals.
John Goerzen
@grimalkina @creachadair TIL you have a podcast! Subscribed. I've long appreciated your thoughtful commentary.
Cat Hicks
@creachadair completely! I think the centrality of this ingroup and outgroup sorting is why Ashley and I are both very interested in interrogating this on our podcast too
M. J. Fromberger
@grimalkina You are making a vital point: much of the obsession with "tech aptitude" and "technical competency" is a way to create, circumscribe, and defend an in-group. For a long time that was used to curate an idea of an elite, as a competitive measure in a vibrant economy; but it is also a way of kettling labour among a certain class of workers, as we have seen more recently.
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