I've just started working on NOVC, the "Normative Organization of Viable Cooperation." The core goal is to identify what can empower a healthier "tech" scene, down to the basic mechanics.

The reason to work on this is that some models are completely bonkers. The basic proposition of "tech" as a force for good is incorrect. The most successful businesses help to further entrench capital. The VC-backed smaller startups aim to do the same. Maybe there are exceptions, but in general, if you're in "tech" as it's regularly defined, you're in the reducing headcount or workforce casualisation business. Real jobs cost money, so reducing them is a significant driver of "disruption" that many companies enabling the "gig economy" pursue. I was disillusioned even before we saw the failure of social media/advertising companies inability to avoid destroying their hosts (journalism, political institutions, etc.), so now, I can't help but question the role of "progress" as defined by the goals of maximum cash and bandwidth.

It seems like greed defines the "tech industry," and some fly-on-the-wall situations I've had where investors categorized growth curves as "tech/finance/something else" combined with consumer products/services being "tech" not for a technological breakthrough, but a policy or marketing advantage confirm for me that venture capitalists agree with my analysis. We just disagree on whether reinforcing inequality, the status quo, wrecking the planet, or enabling global fascism are acceptable eggs to break in a sweet sweet money omelet.

It's not very hard to find a "negative spin" to tech companies (even without privacy breeches, harmful lobbying, monopolistic intent, terrible working conditions, and so on), but I know there are talented and genuinely caring people working at the giant companies.

Maybe they can justify their position as not so bad because they work on a relatively innocuous product, and in the scope of such a big company, what's the difference compared with being in the economy at all? Maybe they think they can change the course of the company from the inside? Maybe they feel personally responsible or helpful to their colleagues? Maybe they have aspects of their identity that help them serve as a role model, inspiring others to achieve great things too? Maybe they want to make as much money as possible in an effort to give as much as possible? Maybe despite high salaries, the lifestyle options are radically different for a city-centralized economy? Maybe they need to take care of their families?

None of these are bad instincts by any means, but some of them have been thrashed around enough to feel like willful ignorance at this point. And it's worth acknowledging that many people in tech really just want to make money regardless of the consequences.

What counts as "tech?"

Personally, I think it's a financial growth curve. It's a risk profile. But that's a definition we can challenge. I saw two twitter threads that seem remarkably similar. The first was something to the effect of "what good thing has tech produced in the last few years?" and the second was "what are the good virtues of men?"

Both of these questions are framing each thing (tech/masculinity) as inherently bad, which is fair to do given a lot of reasons. But I don't feel that they're exactly the same. In the latter, separating toxic masculinity from just plain old regular masculinity is an ongoing project. Maybe we'd find easier answers in a more equitable society, but even then, I don't think we can do this without adhering to essentialism and a a binary view that itself deserves much more interrogation.

The answer for tech is differently complicated. From a product/service/outcome perspective, tech is formless (is reducing headcount a technology?). From a process perspective, anything using technology, but not fitting the growth-curve becomes an appliance, a service. Once the claim has been mined the returns flatten.

It happens to, for the moment, involve computers and math, but this definition of tech is based on extraction and exploitation.

Back to the hunt for the good tech

The tech I fell in love with used computers and programming to solve problems quickly and connect people in the right ways. This never stopped, but it's harder to find in a world where "tech" defines itself by the harm it causes. That's an industry, and an outlook that we can and should challenge.

Some of the most inspiring tech I've seen recently includes things like bloggers removing comments sections to guard their time and health, or building an app to help people raise bail money. If these things don't register as "tech," it's worth wondering why that is the case for you. And if these things aren't "tech" to you, then what kind of "tech" are you interested in?

I hope you like the tools and not the industry. I hope you like the people who like the tools and not the people who like the industry.

I like being able to build things with computers and math. But I also like writing music, plays, and critical blog posts. The variety of things that can be made with computers is fascinating, but as an industry, "tech" means something else entirely. And it's a hard thing to like.

A better world is possible, and tech (as computers and math, not the predatory industry) will have to play a role as far as I can tell. We're going to need tech to let people know how to fight climate change. We're going to need tech to ensure voting rights are restored and given. We're going to need tech to distribute food, water, and medicine in natural disasters or in conditions we've created artificially. We're going to need tech to teach kids, but more importantly to learn from them how we can help make a world they want to live in.

But we'll definitely need to learn (or admit to) the difference between the "tech industry," and tools used in a kind and interesting way.