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Comment on The New Legislators of Silicon Valley

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The evidence isn’t merely anecdotal. A comprehensive 2023 study tracking political donations of 200,000 employees across 18 industries revealed tech workers as uniquely anti-establishment—and trailing only the bohemians of arts and entertainment in their liberal fervor. The source of this radicalism lies precisely where Gouldner placed his faith: in what he called the “culture of critical discourse” embedded in technical work itself. Thus, the researchers discovered that non-technical employees within the same tech companies showed none of this rebellious disposition, confirming that coding itself, not mere proximity to ping pong tables, contributes to their dissenting mindset.

Thankfully not all tech workers suffer from this disease.

Sounds to me like you're a technical person who's uncomfortable discussing their work in a “culture of critical discourse”.

I am comfortable discussing my work in any context, provided my peers can understand it, at least roughly.

I am more favourable to OP. Taking a starting point that "everything I don't understand, and haven't been able to verify, is suspect" is pathological.

Please point us where you have seen such a starting point, or why else are you bringing it up?

confirming that coding itself, not mere proximity to ping pong tables, contributes to their dissenting mindset

It might even be that the highly regarded and remunerated job of coding is what gives the people the mindset that they can afford dissent. Those people may thing not only that they're more entitled to have a dissenting opinion but more importantly feel safer expressing it.

The disease of wanting to change the society?

Not all changes are good.

But some change is needed as other things change.

This type of answer is called "strawman argument" - when one refutes an argument which was not presented at all. Let's try again.

How is that a straw man? What's the statement argument you see implied in the statement "not all change is good"?

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