Human to human

gies—who are largely white, male, and able-bodied—-are lauded as benefactors who are making the world a better place. Such a typecasting denies true self-determination of disabled people because it contributes to a narrative that denies personhood (in favor of “problemhood”). This prevents a more nuanced exploration of the ways our constructed social environment can itself be disabling, oppressive, and exclusionary. It also prevents us from discussing how people’s access to assistive technologies, or the training and resources to use them effectively, are distributed differently based on race, class, nationality, and other factors. If only privileged families can use technology to guarantee better outcomes for their children, is that truly “social good”? Or is it oppression, in which power remains entrenched in the dominant strata of our society? (In this issue, Joslenne Pena explores this idea in the context of technology use in K-12 schools.) Broadly, our issue explores questions like: Of the opportunities digital technology presents for supporting positive expression, what groups of people are being afforded them? Who is being ignored, and who is being negatively impacted? Whose self-determination is conT here’s a myth in tech culture: A myth that technology can solve any problem, bridge any gap, and create something out of nothing. And, supposedly, it has no political allegiance or agenda. As students, it’s difficult to resist this allure—that we, as future programmers and technologists, are going to “make the world a better place.” HBO’s series “Silicon Valley” perfectly satirized this false promise, as fictitious TechCrunch Disrupt presenters proudly claimed they were “making the world a better place through scalable, fault tolerant distributed databases.” The show revealed not just how ridiculous and hilarious tech companies’ claims of social good can be, but also how we can be complicit in them. The ways we relate to each other and to ourselves are constrained by our environments—our peers, our culture, and artifacts in the world. Because of this, it’s indisputable that technology impacts intimacy, identity, and relationships. This issue explores that deeply, with the understanding that these impacts are determined by patterns of power and dominance. In other words, systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and other