Do techies lean Liberal or Conservative?
28th
July 2025, 18:51
Since the day I became aware of the Culture Wars over in the good old US of A, there's been a nagging question in the back of my mind. What side do techies really stand on? I'd like to think that we aren't a slave to any ideology - especially coming from Singapore, we're a pragmatic people who believe in whatever works in the most efficient way possible.
Silicon Valley does appear largely Liberal, or at least, that's what they would have us think. Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror, founder of Stack Overflow, actually jumped onto the anti-Trump bandwagon. However, after the recent electoral victory by the Republicans on the 5th of November last year, Big Tech has quite handily changed their tune. As I've often suspected, that's not the tech part speaking; that's the business part. That the appearance of Liberal domination in Silicon Valley was a veneer, and ran no deeper than that.
And thus the question was begged. The answer, of course, that software developers, like many people, identify with both. They have some positions that are Liberal, and some that are Conservative.
The funny thing is that I identified three positions that could be considered both Liberal or Conservative, depending on one's perspective.
In fact, one of the most baffling (and frankly insulting) things I have heard as a developer is being told that I should be better at the job because I'm a man. What, and my years of hard work count for nothing? I'm naturally supposed to be better at it because God made boys engineers by default? Well, that's not what this tech thinks, and any male tech who tells himself that kind of rubbish, does himself (or anyone) no favors.
Innovation versus tradition. Don't get me wrong, we do have our traditions. But technology itself is a result of innovation and experimentation; daring to try new things. Thus, you will never hear a software developer saying that we should do something this way just because that's how we've always done it. That kind of argument holds no water for us. It runs counter to everything that drives a techie.
We may respect tradition, but we are not slaves to it. There are no sacred cows. Tradition has its place, but tradition should also know its place.
We have tech innovations today precisely because we dared to go against tradition. We dared to challenge the pre-existing ideas of what was possible, or acceptable. What separates us from the herd is the willingness to ruthlessly drop tried and tested methods in favor of demonstrably better methods.
The collective versus the individual. Skillset-wise, you will never see a more diverse group. That's because in the tech landscape where there are very frequent changes and new things to learn, people end up learning across different (but often related) tech disciplines or going deeper into existing ones.
There are no unifying standards as to what makes a techie, though there's been no shortage of would-be gatekeepers trying to keep things neatly classified. It's a lost cause.
Take any two developers, even from a broad collection of, say, back-end developers, and you may end up with one mostly trained in Java and one trained in Python. Take your two developers from a less broad group of Python developers, and you might get one who's more of a web scraper and one who's more of a data analyst.
Yes, tech itself is a huge domain, and evolving as I write this. Consequently, its practitioners are similarly varied.
Now, sure, I know Silicon Valley has DEI programs in place. I promise you, those are most assuredly implemented by HR, or Management who want to appease some Liberal demographic. The average techie, however, simply does not give a flying fuck.
You ask any techie, and their first question is more likely to be "what's your tech stack?" rather than "what are your pronouns?"
Innovation versus tradition. Now, earlier when I said that techies prefer innovation over tradition, that was true. It may also have given you the impression that techies are risk-taking swashbucklers, which, to be honest, makes us sound more awesome than we probably deserve.
The truth is, techies are boring and consistent to a fault. We like things to be neat and make sense. If we did things a certain way, in the past, we are likely to do so again unless there are good reasons against it. We obey coding styles and naming conventions and follow software patterns because doing so makes it easy to troubleshoot when things go wrong.
One of our greatest frustrations is when people do things willy-nilly and just "wing it" because this is messy and asking for trouble down the road. We don't do things one way because we suddenly feel like doing so - we do them a certain way because it's worked for us in the past, but we are open to changing it if there's good reason to do so. Again, this is consistent with the previous, seemingly Liberal, position.
The collective versus the individual. This next point is more true now than it was when I first started out.
Developers accomplish things in teams. Software development is a team sport. There is really no way around it in this day and age. Tech has evolved so much that there is zero chance of one person knowing everything - now this knowledge requires a team.
Remember I said that developers are a diverse lot? It is precisely this diversity that lends itself to building effective multi-disciplinary teams. And in this way, it is often the collective that trumps the individual.
Americans on Social Media now squabble over the dumbest shit imaginable. Recently, I had the pleasure of watching Superman, and went on Facebook to check out some reviews and see how other moviegoers found the film. Imagine my surprise when I found people embroiled in intense arguments over whether Superman was an illegal immigrant. I suppose technically, he is, but don't these nerds have better things to talk about?
Apparently not! I soon came to the realization that this was bigger than I initially thought. It had stemmed from the director and producer, James Gunn, making a remark about how Superman was an immigrant. The Liberals began drawing parallels to recent treatment of immigrants in the USA. And then people were in each other's faces about how they didn't understand Superman and weren't real Superman fans if they preferred/didn't prefer this Superman.
I mean, attempting to gatekeep who is and isn't a fan of a fictional superhero character? Tell me you're a loser without telling me you're a loser.
I'd initially thought this argument was basically a bunch of loser nerds obsessing over obscure details. It turned out to be way more ridiculous than that - it was a mob of wankers on the internet all trying desperately to justify feeling morally superior to the other side. Conservatives such as Ben Shapiro started trashing Superman as "woke garbage" and bitching in bizarre fashion about how the character wasn't American enough. One Susan Sarandon went onto Instagram to make it all about Israel and Palestine.
True, being good and kind does not require athleticism or talent. Any idiot is capable of kindness, and I would have it no other way. On the other hand, it just feels like a whole bunch of untalented schmucks just decided to overcompensate for their lack of talent and real-world achievement by blowing their trumpets about "kindness and empathy" just so they could feel accomplished, or something.
And as for people like Shapiro and Sarandon... massive cringe, man. People need to understand when they've taken things far enough and it's getting absurd. It's come to a point where people can't sit down and watch a decent superhero movie without trying to score political points.
Dysfunction, thy name is America.
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See also
Silicon Valley does appear largely Liberal, or at least, that's what they would have us think. Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror, founder of Stack Overflow, actually jumped onto the anti-Trump bandwagon. However, after the recent electoral victory by the Republicans on the 5th of November last year, Big Tech has quite handily changed their tune. As I've often suspected, that's not the tech part speaking; that's the business part. That the appearance of Liberal domination in Silicon Valley was a veneer, and ran no deeper than that.
Nothing deeper than that!
And thus the question was begged. The answer, of course, that software developers, like many people, identify with both. They have some positions that are Liberal, and some that are Conservative.
The funny thing is that I identified three positions that could be considered both Liberal or Conservative, depending on one's perspective.
How Software Developers are Liberal
Identity does not matter. Software development is a field where logic reigns supreme. At some levels, it does not even require a particularly high I.Q, just the ability to do basic math and thick logically. Gender, race and sexual orientation don't determine an individual's ability to do math, and as such, are irrelevant when it comes to the ability to code, test and deploy software. A software developer is not going to automatically think that another software developer is competent based on identity.Software
development isn't
just mens' work.
In fact, one of the most baffling (and frankly insulting) things I have heard as a developer is being told that I should be better at the job because I'm a man. What, and my years of hard work count for nothing? I'm naturally supposed to be better at it because God made boys engineers by default? Well, that's not what this tech thinks, and any male tech who tells himself that kind of rubbish, does himself (or anyone) no favors.
Innovation versus tradition. Don't get me wrong, we do have our traditions. But technology itself is a result of innovation and experimentation; daring to try new things. Thus, you will never hear a software developer saying that we should do something this way just because that's how we've always done it. That kind of argument holds no water for us. It runs counter to everything that drives a techie.
Tradition has its
charm.
We may respect tradition, but we are not slaves to it. There are no sacred cows. Tradition has its place, but tradition should also know its place.
We have tech innovations today precisely because we dared to go against tradition. We dared to challenge the pre-existing ideas of what was possible, or acceptable. What separates us from the herd is the willingness to ruthlessly drop tried and tested methods in favor of demonstrably better methods.
The collective versus the individual. Skillset-wise, you will never see a more diverse group. That's because in the tech landscape where there are very frequent changes and new things to learn, people end up learning across different (but often related) tech disciplines or going deeper into existing ones.
Tech skillsets come in all
shapes, sizes and colors.
There are no unifying standards as to what makes a techie, though there's been no shortage of would-be gatekeepers trying to keep things neatly classified. It's a lost cause.
Take any two developers, even from a broad collection of, say, back-end developers, and you may end up with one mostly trained in Java and one trained in Python. Take your two developers from a less broad group of Python developers, and you might get one who's more of a web scraper and one who's more of a data analyst.
Yes, tech itself is a huge domain, and evolving as I write this. Consequently, its practitioners are similarly varied.
How Software Developers are Conservative
Identity does not matter. This principle applies both ways. The same way we wouldn't discriminate on basis of race or gender or what-have-you, we also would not use it as a criteria of preference. You may claim this is contradictory, and you'd be wrong. This is entirely consistent with our worldview. Only the tech matters.TThis isn't important, or
even relevant.
Now, sure, I know Silicon Valley has DEI programs in place. I promise you, those are most assuredly implemented by HR, or Management who want to appease some Liberal demographic. The average techie, however, simply does not give a flying fuck.
You ask any techie, and their first question is more likely to be "what's your tech stack?" rather than "what are your pronouns?"
Innovation versus tradition. Now, earlier when I said that techies prefer innovation over tradition, that was true. It may also have given you the impression that techies are risk-taking swashbucklers, which, to be honest, makes us sound more awesome than we probably deserve.
The truth is, techies are boring and consistent to a fault. We like things to be neat and make sense. If we did things a certain way, in the past, we are likely to do so again unless there are good reasons against it. We obey coding styles and naming conventions and follow software patterns because doing so makes it easy to troubleshoot when things go wrong.
Things are done a certain
way, for good reason.
One of our greatest frustrations is when people do things willy-nilly and just "wing it" because this is messy and asking for trouble down the road. We don't do things one way because we suddenly feel like doing so - we do them a certain way because it's worked for us in the past, but we are open to changing it if there's good reason to do so. Again, this is consistent with the previous, seemingly Liberal, position.
The collective versus the individual. This next point is more true now than it was when I first started out.
Developers accomplish things in teams. Software development is a team sport. There is really no way around it in this day and age. Tech has evolved so much that there is zero chance of one person knowing everything - now this knowledge requires a team.
Functioning as a unit.
Remember I said that developers are a diverse lot? It is precisely this diversity that lends itself to building effective multi-disciplinary teams. And in this way, it is often the collective that trumps the individual.
Some parting thoughts on the Culture Wars
Even similar positions can take on a Liberal or Conservative lens depending on how one views it. This shows me that both sides actually have a lot in common, Culture Wars be damned. And this perspective today is perhaps more relevant than ever now that the Culture Wars have arrived at what I can only describe as a very odd place.Americans on Social Media now squabble over the dumbest shit imaginable. Recently, I had the pleasure of watching Superman, and went on Facebook to check out some reviews and see how other moviegoers found the film. Imagine my surprise when I found people embroiled in intense arguments over whether Superman was an illegal immigrant. I suppose technically, he is, but don't these nerds have better things to talk about?
Apparently not! I soon came to the realization that this was bigger than I initially thought. It had stemmed from the director and producer, James Gunn, making a remark about how Superman was an immigrant. The Liberals began drawing parallels to recent treatment of immigrants in the USA. And then people were in each other's faces about how they didn't understand Superman and weren't real Superman fans if they preferred/didn't prefer this Superman.
I mean, attempting to gatekeep who is and isn't a fan of a fictional superhero character? Tell me you're a loser without telling me you're a loser.
I'd initially thought this argument was basically a bunch of loser nerds obsessing over obscure details. It turned out to be way more ridiculous than that - it was a mob of wankers on the internet all trying desperately to justify feeling morally superior to the other side. Conservatives such as Ben Shapiro started trashing Superman as "woke garbage" and bitching in bizarre fashion about how the character wasn't American enough. One Susan Sarandon went onto Instagram to make it all about Israel and Palestine.
True, being good and kind does not require athleticism or talent. Any idiot is capable of kindness, and I would have it no other way. On the other hand, it just feels like a whole bunch of untalented schmucks just decided to overcompensate for their lack of talent and real-world achievement by blowing their trumpets about "kindness and empathy" just so they could feel accomplished, or something.
And as for people like Shapiro and Sarandon... massive cringe, man. People need to understand when they've taken things far enough and it's getting absurd. It's come to a point where people can't sit down and watch a decent superhero movie without trying to score political points.
Dysfunction, thy name is America.
Your cultured programmer,
