So, since the IT sector in Australia is congratulating itself into suckering the NSW government into a "rules as code" project, I'll tell you what I think, unfiltered by any IT role:

The people who want to camp themselves at the centre of your democracy practice the same discipline as those who give us a continual stream of "AI did this!" papers that would perpetuate racism and marginalisation.

The same discipline gave the world surveillance capitalism.

And the World's Worst Critical Infrastructure: the Border Gateway Protocol.

Oh, and the 737 Max 8.

And they rented themselves to literally create gig economy, a regulatory arbitrage scheme to let rich people pay less to poor people.

These people, who assume the title "engineer" with neither the educational nor professional discipline of the title, want themselves at the centre of your institutions. Fuck. Right. Off.

Also, dismissing the hard stuff is absolutely 100% distilled essence of utopian geek. For a trade that grew out if philosophy, it's sad.

See, even before the hilarious "Cluetrain Manifesto", geek exceptionalism had them holding all the imaginary levers: how we voted, how we spent, how we interacted.

I don't *trust* software enthusiasts to interpret laws to me.

Even less to be in charge of the next step: to tell lawmakers they should accept the geek's rules about what laws they make, or how they draft laws. See: Robodebt.

Not to mention that if the politicians decide they like it, congratulations "tech evangelists", you worked for scale to give IBM its next eternal rent. Eat that in your retirement.

Enthusiasts my *whole life* thought they had the elixir that would kill Big Tech, and ended up working for them.

Surely if recent politics teaches anything, it's that *your* - specifically you, whomever you are - your exceptionalism is absolutely toxic and corrosive. I don't "respect" your achievements or efforts or manifestos or code if you don't respect my rights.

Fuck I'm sick of this. I've seen tech exceptionalism close up since 1987 and it's always been a fucking bonfire of smart people who hold everyone who isn't *their* kind of smart in contempt.

This thread isn't written for The IT Crowd. Most of them believe, the rest won't swim against the tide.

I'm telling the *rest* of you that literally the same industry that Facebooked your democracy, thinks it has the *right* to be a democratic gatekeeper.