When an open source software project adopts a “code of conduct” it slowly dies. Bugs don’t get fixed, new features break stuff, and it is unable to accommodate updates and changes in the environment. Over time, it gradually suffers bitrot – unchanging and unchangeable assumptions in a changing world, combined with “fixes” that introduce new bugs, and confusing new misfeatures that irritate old users, never quite work as they were supposed to, and are an obstacle to new users.
And now the eye of Soros has fallen on the Space X reusable rocket program, and “women in tech” will likely kill the re-usable earth to orbit second stage. We will still get something called the Falcon Heavy which will reach orbit, but chances are that the promised reusability is never going to arrive, that it will not be able to land back on earth, promptly refuel, and promptly go back to orbit again. And will therefore never be able to radically lower launch costs. And in a generation or so it will suffer the fate of the space shuttle. Too many disastrous accidents, costs keep growing without limit, eventually grounded for life. Similarly, the latest fighter planes have poorer performance than earlier generations of fighter planes, and much higher cost. People tell me that advances in missile technology and stealth make high performance fighters obsolete, and maybe that is true, but if performance is obsolete, why are fighters, like bridges that fall down, getting more expensive, rather than less? Looks to me that the government is buying all the performance it can afford – and all the performance it can afford is rather less than it used to be able to afford. Reminds me of the Obamacare website: No amount of money could get it up, until they gave up on political correctness, and went with a team of white males leavened with east Asian males – with white males on top.
Why is “inclusivity” so devastatingly lethal to tech? (more…)