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Comment by mrtesthah | Hacker News Reader

There's a certain class of nerd who becomes easily distracted by (and this is being generous) technological solutions that merely paper over the underlying social problems. E.g., "I love riding in Waymos because I can avoid lewd misogynistic harassment from Uber drivers."

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> There's a certain class of nerd who becomes easily distracted by (and this is being generous) technological solutions that merely paper over the underlying social problems.

Sometimes, technological solution to a given problem is much more effective and realistic that trying to fundamentally change human society.

Or maybe, and bear with me here, they recognize that they have zero ability to change the broader culture from being misogynistic and patriarchal, but they can take a Waymo and avoid being subject to it themselves.

I’m not saying that there is no gain here, I’m pointing out that the gain is relatively small and consists of escaping the problem.

It’s possible to both: celebrate the small victory and acknowledge that the larger problem still exists and affects the majority.

There is little more tiresome than having to caveat every single statement of appreciation or enjoyment with an acknowledgment of one’s privilege or the continued existence of bad things in the world, etc.

So no, just celebrate the personal victory, you don’t need to constantly be acknowledging the larger problem. The larger problems have always existed, and will always exist in one form or another.

I only worry that this may be short term. With no acknowledgement of the larger problem future AI medical gains may skew towards misoginistic or otherwise user hostile, as long as it's profitable.

At the same time, while I disagree that users are powerless, I can see that dealing with the larger problem is very much tiresome.

For sure, and my comment wasn’t aimed at you, it was aimed at the snide remark about nerds who dare enjoy taking a Waymo instead of fixing patriarchy.

>you don’t need to constantly be acknowledging the larger problem

When those larger social problems continue to exist and are ignored by a huge swath of society then constantly acknowledging them becomes a prerequisite to moving forward. Of course it's annoying--no one wants to have to do that; but collective action is the only way to solve collective problems. And it's more than annoying to people at the receiving end of those problems. Women risk life-changing outcomes in all of the scenarios implied throughout this discussion.

Yeah, that’s why they take a Waymo. And following a statement of excitement about Waymo with “of course, we shouldn’t have to need this, because blah blah blah” is performative virtue signaling bullshit that does nothing to actually address the very real issues you’re talking about. That’s all I’m saying.

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