I stopped reading Ars Technica when I reached the last 5 words:

The distinction between a program and an API makes intuitive sense to computer programmers who regularly use APIs (and write programs) in their daily work. But it’s far from obvious to Supreme Court justices, all of whom are lawyers over the age of 50.

Source: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google | Ars Technica

What does age have to do with this? What a stupid thing to write.

Update: I contacted the author of that and he responded that while some older people are tech savvy, most older people just are not tech savvy.

I noted I have a BS in computer science (1980), an MBA (2001), an MS in software engineering (2012, thesis on Android power management), two patents (one from two years ago), and have written a dozen tech books. I will not quote his private email directly but suffice to say, he argues that it is appropriate to assume that older people are not tech savvy.

Let’s rewrite that sentence to see the implicit bias of Ars Technica – for example, if written as “But it’s far from obvious…all of whom are lawyers who are women” or “But it’s far from obvious…all of whom are lawyers who are black“.

The bias and illogical argument in the use of age is obvious.

People who define others by group identity are practicing -isms. Using this one reporter as an example, should I write that all reporters are ageist? That is the logic this reporter is attempting to defend, so fair’s fair I suppose: All reporters are ageist, and by implication, racist and sexist too!

I’ve deleted all bookmarks to Ars Technica and will no longer be reading their garbage.

Coldstreams