The tech world might not be as empathetic as some other human endeavors, but it has a unique approach.
We need to consider whether we should foster more empathy or simply adapt to the existing landscape. Being practical and discerning, sometimes to the point of discrimination, has proven effective in areas like space exploration, business, and even the natural process of evolution. And tech, too. Over the past 30 years, the tech industry has achieved remarkable feats, feats that would seem magical to people living a century ago. This success stems from swiftly testing new ideas and people, and discriminating between those who can deliver results and those who cannot.
However, such judgment or discrimination can pose problems. While it might be beneficial in natural systems, facilitating improvement, it isn't perceived positively in our society. We aim for fairness and equality for everyone. The term "discriminate", even though integral to nature and many productive systems, often carries a negative connotation in sociology. And indeed when we look at examples of unfairness and inequality in history, they are generally seen as immoral. But I wonder if that is because the inequality was often means to an end for someone else's decadence.
Here's a difficult question: should tech become more empathetic or continue to discriminate based on ability? If we become less judgmental of skills, we might not achieve as much. If we continue to be unempathetic, that will cause social friction. While I don't have a definitive answer, it's certainly worth considering.
In my tentative opinion (since I don't feel particularly adamant about it), we should continue assessing individuals based on their technical understanding in the tech realm, but within reason. We need to maintain humility, recognizing our limited knowledge and potential to misjudge others. Our critiques should be measured, and we should avoid letting our assessments of others' technical skills cloud our perception of their worth in other areas. After all, one can possess excellent personal attributes yet lack technical skills or be unfit for a specific tech project. In that sense, I lean more heavily towards the fundamentally non-empathetic approach. But that's just N=1. The important part of my message here is that we need to acknowledge the equity/empathy-effectiveness trade-off and be conscious of it.