Tech Is Not Neutral
When decisions are driven by profit, infrastructure breaks—and people pay the price.
On the eve of Election Night, I was thinking about gaff tape. Not because I missed the acting world, but because we had to scramble to wire an entire floor with ethernet so the Analytics Team could do their jobs without the Wi-Fi cutting out. Over a hundred desks, patched together from wall ports we hoped were live, with miles of gaff tape securing cables to furniture and floors —to prevent anyone from tripping and crashing the network during a live data transfer. It wasn’t pretty.
It wasn’t pretty. It was a spaghetti monster of wires — a veritable leviathan of data and exhaustion. I shuddered at the monstrosity, but it worked. And that’s what mattered.
That floor wasn’t built with this kind of work in mind. It was a carpeted office, not a command center. The Battleground and States teams had managed fine with Wi-Fi. But on Election Night, everything changed. Analytics moved in—and suddenly, ‘good enough’ wasn’t good enough.
We hacked it together with spare switches, last-minute purchases, and grit. No rest. No backups. Just a few of us doing whatever it took to keep the system and each other from collapsing.
The system wasn’t built to handle what was coming, and we couldn’t afford to let anyone down.
Because tech is not neutral.
“Every script, every setting reflects a choice — about who gets ease and who gets friction.”
At one job, I pushed for a new MDM—lightweight, patch-capable, way better than the bloated system we had. The CFO nearly killed it because our old vendor came back with a cheaper deal. Not better—just cheaper. No tool is neutral.
Not long after, I was out. Maybe it started in that leadership meeting, when I questioned the language we used during layoffs. “Committed to profitability” doesn’t land softly when people are being shown the door.
It wasn’t meant to be sharp—just honest. But sometimes, honesty has a cost. Still, I don’t regret it.
Because infrastructure doesn’t collapse on its own. People let it rot.
Infrastructure decisions aren’t always about efficiency or safety. Sometimes, they’re about silence—making sure no one asks questions, no one interrupts the narrative that everything is fine, even as the cracks widen and the foundation rots.
Just look at the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Slashing Medicaid and SNAP with punitive work requirements. Forcing low-income families to navigate new re-enrollment hoops every six months. Gutting funding for rural hospitals and community clinics. Cutting NIH budgets meaning cancer research stalls.
Also buried in over 1,000 pages of legislation? A ten-year federal ban on enforcing any state or local laws that regulate AI—including how it’s used in political campaigns and elections.
Read that again. A decade-long ban on democratic oversight. No guardrails. No accountability. No protection against deep fakes, disinformation, microtargeting, or algorithmic manipulation in our elections.
If there’s one thing they want more than profit, it’s power—and AI is a tool to get it. This isn’t about efficiency. It’s control. Cementing a system where the few decide what truth is, when it is heard, and who disappears from the feed entirely.
Infrastructure is more than roads and routers. It’s the blueprint beneath our lives—scaffolding that holds society together. But the system is brittle—built on legacy code and nostalgia goggles for a yesteryear that never really existed.
Potholes get airtime in sitcoms and mayoral campaigns because they’re visible—the punchline of government neglect. The real holes don’t come with laugh tracks. Just a sudden crunch — and the whistle of air as you brace for impact.
The system wasn’t built for us. It was built to run smoothly for the people at the top
And when systems fail? The shit doesn’t just hit the fan. It rolls downhill and lands on the people who can least afford it.
Infrastructure isn’t just cables, roads, and code.
It’s choices and power.
Who gets protected— who gets left behind.
Those of us who want to make the system work for everyone will plug our nose and show up armed with gaff tape and coffee to make it work.
Not because the system was built for us
Because people are counting on us in spite of it.
Tech is not neutral and neither are we.
---
📬 If this hit home, subscribe for more like it.**
🧵 If it sparked something, share it. These conversations deserve daylight.
*Furious applause
Absolutely crushing it, Lauren. Every choice made is a reflection of one's values and it's crystal clear that the only thing the establishment values is how much more money they can squeeze out of every moment of our lives. The shit rolls downhill and they're here to make sure we drown in it.