The world is an incredibly diverse place. Full of people, all with different experiences. I argue that the more all of those people get exposure to one another, the more we can all learn from one another.

And I don't mean in a "everyone has an interesting life story to tell" way. I mean that our experiences absolutely inform our thoughts and decisions. This is as true for thoughts on technology as it is for any others.

Everything that you (and by you, I mean all of us) have to say, everything that has shaped your outlook on the world (including but not limited to technology) is inexorably linked to the sum total of things which have happened to you.

And if I grew up somewhere else, or am of a different gender, or have a different religion, than that's less total perspective that I have to inform my decisions.

So I don't care what specifically a speaker looks like; but I do care that huge sections of the population are way less likely to be sharing their experiences.

And if you read the tweets which seemed to cause all of this, the overwhelming majority are people complaining about a lack of women, including numerous ones listing groups and people the con organizers could reach out to if they wanted help in trying to make the speakers more diverse (advice the organizers seemingly took to suggest that they should select some woman speakers to "balance out the male-heavy selection"; which isn't what was offered).

I can appreciate that you don't think every situation should be an excuse to rail against inequality, but I think it's important to be conscious of these things.