Absolutely disgusted by people sitting around criticizing first responders for being on X/and whatever other platforms they damn well try/trying to reach people in the actual middle of disasters.
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Absolutely disgusted by people sitting around criticizing first responders for being on X/and whatever other platforms they damn well try/trying to reach people in the actual middle of disasters. Like THESE are the people we should blame for not like, having some kind of exalted philosophy and strategy around disinfo at scale. Literal! First responders!
The definition of reifying platforms and technologies over human beings and acting like you're the "human-centered" one
hashtag CARE ETHICS
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Walk through mud, chilled to the bone, carrying someone out of a flooded house with your back aching, juggling a million points of communication about where food and safety and transportation is, and thumb your goddamn phone open for a second to use an incredible, from-who-knows-where reserve of energy to also post information wherever you can, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR SOUL if that's the part you're focusing on
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it's possible for things to be bad, and people to be mean, and for some of us to STILL value connecting with ONE person in a shitty place over some abstract philosophical battle! Grow up! That's what life is! How dare we devalue the work that people are doing that is direct and immediate, just because we have uncomfy big feelings about things that *we* feel stressed about on our couches.
Warped, facile thinking. The arrogance of making tech trend topics "the battle."
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My aunt, working relentlessly & heroically after Lahaina was devastated, posted video after video on Facebook (figureheaded, of course, by someone who bought an enormous chunk of Hawai'i), bc that's where people were, and then posted an emotional thing about receiving support from Starlink, we all know who's the figurehead of THAT place, and the impact that receiving support to have internet again was enormous on the people grieving and their immediate emergency disaster life-or-death needs
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And not a single piece of this means that I don't *care* about the ways we've failed to invest in shared infrastructure, in collaborative support, in true community repair and recovery that exists separate from these powerful forces, but in what way are you not living on this planet if you can't understand that *trying to survive how it works right now and still care for others right next to us* is still an integral part of *building a better future* and who has the resources to fight where
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I am done with this certain segment of tech "future" commentary that proposes that those of us who center living & suffering people right now, relationships, and social problems are somehow ignorant, less pure, less exalted, less morally righteous, less strategic, stupider, having less of a world-changing impact. That technological hierarchy is rotten and it's got roots a hell of a lot deeper than some are willing to admit.
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@[email protected] god, this is so exactly the perfect way to phrase it. I feel like I see this attitude everywhere. There's a time and a place to discuss structural problems... and that time and place is not when people are in active need or distress. It comes off as callous at best.
I think that attitude extends well beyond techscolds, too; someone posting something that has upset them greatly, and someone comes in with their pet issue to make a 'correction' because their language or venue or whatever doesn't align with their values. It's blatant disregard for the person posting (and serves only to distract from the central issue). It often seems to center the person responding and not the person actually experiencing the negative things. -
@grimalkina There’s a brand of misanthropy that masks itself with the idea of progress. In that view, it’s us, the people, who get in the way of an inevitable utopia.
The idea of that utopia, without care for people, is obviously deeply ironic, contradictory, and hypocritical, but that never stood in the way of so-called deep thinkers.
