> I wonder how much of this is intentional behavior by tech companies. They want to select for workers that will tolerate their bullshit and are willing to receive some level of abuse.

It is. That said, I don't think tech execs are sexist or racist so much as they are classist and money-obsessed. They don't necessarily want a crappy culture; they just don't care.

> Or are we really to believe that all these huge corporations full of incredibly brilliant and skilled individuals are somehow too dumb and ignorant to figure out how to fix these problems?

The huge corporations may be "full of" brilliant people, but the people at the top are the same schmoozing or generationally-connected mediocrities that have always run things, and they're the only ones whose input matters. Having a team of people in your basement with a 150 average IQ doesn't mean you're magically going to make better decisions, not if you never listen to them.

> I'm increasingly cynical that it's ever possible to meaningfully improve human systems or that it's even worth trying.

It clearly is possible, because human systems do get better or worse over time, both on the small scale and the large. Scandinavian countries have better societies than the U.S.; the U.S. is still miles ahead, in this regard, of true autocracies (e.g. Putin's Russia). The vast differences in quality of human systems make it very clear that they can be improved (or degraded). It's just incredibly difficult.

I think of it like voting. Even when everything works and elections are fair, voting isn't really about making the decision. That's not why you do it, because mathematically, you probably won't cast a deciding vote ever in your life. Voting is about holding accountable those who do make the decisions, and at that, it often works very well--black neighborhoods saw improvements in public services after civil rights legislation made it easier for them to vote. Ultimately, of course, you're right: it's still up to forces out of your control whether you win or lose.

I imagine the above is why, although it certainly doesn't require a Western theocentric faith, religiosity (note that I make no claims about whether religion is or is not true) is associated with well-adjustment: it's one of the only ways we have come up with to hold an internal locus of control in a world where, quite frankly, almost everything that happens to us in the objective material world is out of our control.

The truth is that corporate capitalism wasn't built for people like us, people of conscience. It was built by obscenely wealthy ghouls to direct all of society's resources toward themselves. That's it. They will allow technical progress if they believe they stand to benefit; they will oppose it if they think they'll lose. "Meritocracy" is a sham, and corporations aren't built to last... they're built to extract wealth and then wither as invested resources are reallocated. A private company will never be a utopia because it's literally designed to be the opposite (perhaps not a "dystopia" in the classic sense, but one in the realistic sense whereby every dystopia is someone's utopia).

Trying to build a "good" company within corporate capitalism is like building a house on sand. It's not impossible, but it's extremely difficult. You're going to be competing with ruthless bastards and gargantuan institutions that could destroy you just for fun. You're playing a game where evil people win because it's designed that way. The only long-term solution is to destroy corporate capitalism forever.