this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
225 points (99.6% liked)
Technology
37742 readers
493 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don’t listen to tech podcasts at all, but now that you mention it, the concept seems odd to me, too. Tech involves objective facts, scientific reasoning, and logic, which are three things I definitely don’t associate with modern conservatism.
Maybe the making of tech is, but its application and relevance in modern society is, at the end of the day, a sociological phenomenon.
Ooh, I didn’t consider that. Good point!
I think this is where "compartmentalization" comes in. Similar in concept to how you are forced to wall off sadness when a loved one dies so that you can continue to live your life, I think there are mentally competent right wingers, but they wall off the logic and reasoning so that it applies only to machines. They do this because if those ideas of logic and reason get beyond the wall/outside of the compartment, the meaning of their lives falls apart.
engineering types do seem to fall off the conservatism cliff more frequently than other science-adjacent professions. so do surgeons, for some reason? at least from what i've observed. i think something about high performance, high pay jobs that require specialized education can make a person more vulnerable to brain worms.
Tech involves a lot of do x, y, and z to get outcome a with no ambiguity. That appeals to a lot of the right wing.
Tech also involves corporate $$, “disruptive” (read: anti-worker) innovation, etc. the general skew of tech as an industry seems center-right to me plus lots of tech bros fully engaged (sometimes “ironically”) with the alt right.
At the local level, tech bros form natural partnerships with right wing interests around gentrification and policing.