Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

I think I've worked out what's been bothering me about the "malleable computing" scene: it's mainly white dudes and the conversation mainly revolves around making things more hackable for nerds.

There's no consideration in there of empowerment for marginalized folks specifically, or consent. It's only addressing half of the problem that it claims to address - for the other half, it sort of implicitly assumes that you're in a demographic where you're not at risk of your consent being violated, for example.

None of this is really *obvious* - on the face of it, the goals of malleable computing sound laudable. But as you read through it more and more, and look at what people are actually discussing, after a while it becomes apparent that diverse perspectives are sorely missing.

I don't think the goals of "malleable computing" are *bad*, per se. But I don't think it's anywhere near as socially revolutionary as it positions itself, and there is a lot of room for it to amplify existing power differentials, even if that was not the original intention.

Once again I want to warn people about the ADHD/autism "coaches" that have been popping up all over social media over the past few years, posting relatable memes and such.

Please don't boost their posts, they are a marketing campaign.

There are a lot of problems with this 'coaching' model - all too often it boils down to some well-off dude doing 'consulting sessions' that are only accessible to other well-off dudes, and that do nothing to systemically improve the situation for ND folks.

And just like with any other systemic problem: you should not expect good advice from someone who does not acknowledge the source of the problem, and tries to "solve" it only on an individual level - certainly not if their only qualification is "I'm getting paid to talk to you".

On top of all that, these dudes *overwhelmingly* fail vibe checks once you look a bit deeper into their behaviour and interactions with people. There are often associations with hate organizations like Autism Speaks, transphobic organizations, and so on.

Note that this is only about the "coaching" industry - there are plenty of people who genuinely try to help others navigate neurodiversity and the oppression that comes with it. But those people generally don't make it Their Brand, they're generally not white dudes, and they generally don't charge fixed high sums of money.

(This toot inspired by the "autistic coach" who just ended up on Fediblock for shitty behaviour, but it's far from the first incident, and I've been noticing these people for years now not just on fedi, but also on Twitter before that)

And the broken tech hits just keep coming https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/244486

I would like a day of computer use where shit *doesn't* constantly break from under my feet, thank you

When someone or a corporation is called out for something shitty, and then there's people actively defending them by going "I'm sure they have a good reason for it" while completely trivializing the criticism and making no attempt to discover or explain what that reason might be

If you're tempted to reply to this post to "correct" me on what an OS is, like one dude just did, then you very clearly do not understand the purpose of this post, and you should think long and hard about whether you might be a replyguy

I grow so tired of FOSSbros

Idle hypothesis on how Tech CEOs become Like They Are (aside from nepotism): the way you become a 'successful' tech CEO is by taking risky gambles and winning them, which people mistake for skill and business acumen

But you usually only win those gambles, and continuing to gamble *will* result in losses