This is a post about socially-minded tech workers.

“Socially-minded” is a broad and intentionally vague term. What I want to describe are people who work in tech, but are conscious about the societal implications of their work in some way. I think of myself and a number of my peers as falling into this category, but our perspectives only make up a small fraction of all the viewpoints held there.

Before I dive much deeper, let me briefly digress and acknowledge that in using this term, I’m also making an implicit distinction between this subset of tech workers and the other, “non socially-minded” ones. On first read this is not a good thing, so let me clarify my meaning.

First, I’m not interested in making any claims about which of “social” or “non-social” is more ethical. There are lots of reasons why people might just focus on their careers, collect a paycheck, and not think too much about the greater meaning of their work. “Non-social” does not equal “greedy”. My focus is more: “given that you think of yourself as a socially-minded tech worker, here are some of my ideas for how you might approach that”.

Second, I’m not even interested in more clearly defining what qualifies someone to be a “social” vs. “non-social” tech worker. I don’t think you have to be a reader of Tristan Harris or be working on a product with an explicitly social purpose to still be thoughtful about your role and have impact outside the technical realm. Plus, if we want more people in tech to engage with the social implications of their work, then I think it’s important to be expansive in the definition of “social”.

OK, with all that said, I can finally make my claim: socially-minded tech workers should have a sense of pride in their industry. This is more or less a direct analogue of Richard Rorty’s belief that the American left needs to have some notion of national pride to achieve the country it hopes for. If tech workers want to see their industry live up to its idealistic visions, then, even through the periods which cause them to doubt their industry’s intentions, they should maintain a hope for what it can achieve.

However, just as an uncritical American pride quickly descends into chauvinism, having pride in the tech industry is not a simple issue. The most naive view is to think that tech in its current state, modulo some hiccups, is already on the right track: that efficiency, convenience, and access to data are unequivocally good things.

Under this view, to keep moving forward, we don’t need to rethink any of tech’s core values. We simply just need to keep engineering solutions. In reflecting on the mistakes that have happened, instead of thinking, “how can we actively do better”, our focus is more on “how can we avoid these one-off accidents”.

The other extreme is to be purely cynical about what direction tech is taking our world in. It may seem like an oxymoron to call a socially-minded tech worker cynical, but the two are actually tightly dependent. Cynicism comes out of disappointment, and if you don’t care about whether your work is socially beneficial to begin with, then you won’t have anything to be cynical about.

Only by being actuely aware of the social ills of tech, can you possibly come to the belief that tech companies simply want to make products that efficiently addict their users and then squeeze as much profit out of this addiction as possible. Extending the Rorty analogy, a cynical tech worker is the political equivalent of a leftist who scoffs at any progressive running for public office, for being so naive as to think that the government is of the people and not controlled by corporations.

If someone is truly convinced that the tech industry is beyond correction, then I don’t see how that person can sustain a career in tech for long, and I don’t think they should. The only reasonable motivation would be something along the lines of “I’m just going to make my money and not think about the consequences.” Sure, people need to make a living, but given tech’s generous salaries and the highly translatable nature of tech skills, it shouldn’t take long to find work better aligned with one’s conscience.

While a cynical tech worker might deserve some credit for not drinking all the corporate kool-aid (especially if the companies are as insidious as she thinks), I’m not even convinced that’s actually better. Because in knowingly doing work that is against one’s values, the cynic not only limits her ability to contribute positively (following Rorty’s thoughts), but also erodes the seriousness of commitment in our society. At least the naively hopeful tech worker, believing in a rosy tech future, dedicates themselves to advancing something they care about. It might be reasonable to think that if they just cared in a more thoughtful way, then they could dedicate the same energy to a better aim. I have a harder time having hope about the cynical tech worker. This is an idea I should write about in another post (or, really, just quote some of my favorite writings on the subject), but I really think that cynicism is self-encaging.

If I were a more diligent writer, I’d have done a broader survey of what others have said and possibly provide some real-ish instances of people in these two categories (using the “ish” since what I’ve sketched out are extremes, but I think there are people whose views approach both ends). Since this is just my blog, I can hope that if I come upon anything relevant in the future, I’ll come back and make note of it. But my aim is not to truly judge who between the naive and cynical tech worker wins the race to the bottom. While I could spend more energy digging into each of them, this post has gone long enough. My point is that neither is a very satisfactory answer to the question of what kind of pride a socially-minded tech worker should cultivate in their industry.

But with these extremes at least acknowledged, I can focus on the gray area in between them. This is the space where we will need both a serious reckoning of tech’s mistakes and a celebration of what it’s accomplished. The hope is that with enough time and thought, some common kernels of insight might emerge and grow into a vision of cautious pride for the future that tech could have in our world.