[emjr]

"It is also true that these visible, physical qualities have created barriers in the tech industry."

I think it is rather clear that fixing the quoted issue is a far higher priority than minimizing the suffering of those who suffer the least of any of us. It is a roughly utilitarian ethical position to take, and a fairly reasonable one, I think. Is there a particular reason that prioritization of efforts must never occur? Why must we, at all times, be wary never to harm the status quo, while at the same time accepting that the status quo is unacceptable?

[escape_goat]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, my concern was with the nature of the parent comment's argument, rather than with the ideas he was seeking to defend. A utilitarian position is of course quite defensible; one could even argue for a sort of triage.

What I was interested in, however, was how facile and insufficient his counter-arguments actually were, and how scant the consideration of empathy actually was, even though he started by saying:

> All I long for is logical consistency and empathy...

I think my mini-essay would have been greatly improved if I had thought to address that directly.