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Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

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Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#271

Post by codingdave »

austenallred wrote: post #24

People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace. In fact, Silicon Valley has never been more influential. Ask people to go to a world without iPh…

I'm not sure that you are in touch with the average person if you truly believe that. Because I'm just not seeing the same thing.

The people I talk to (which admittedly are people 35+ or kids, just due to where I am in life) couldn't care less about iPhones, social media, or SV. They don't actively hate it either... they just don't care. They have their own lives, which mostly revolve around their own family, friends and work. And tech exists as tools, sometimes toys, but not the focus of our lives. You are right that we aren't out laughing at mistaken funding choices. Because we aren't noticing.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#272

Post by calebm »

calebm wrote: post #198

> "As evidenced by the major backlash over the recent launch of a company called Bodega — where the founders and investors genuinely didn’t understand why the name was problematic — you don’t always have the best handle on how your ideas will be received outside of the Silicon Valley bubble."" I find it ironic that the article claims that people in the "SV bubble" don't understand why "Bodega" is a bad name... if you…

"Thoughtfully, Fast Company asked McDonald about that. He replied, “We did surveys in the Latin American community to understand if they felt the name was a misappropriation of that term or had negative connotations, and 97% said ‘no’.”" (https://www.eater.com/2017/9/13/16302386/bodega-startup-corn...)

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#273

Post by eropple »

323454 wrote: post #156
eropple wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The oddest turn is that of blaming the global rise in income inequality on SV The rise in income inequality is tied pretty directly to pervasive automation. Economic efficiency is not always social progress, especially when coupled with retrograde politics and social policy. We're not having "more leisure" or whatever because of it, we're having people ground to dust in worthless jobs because the computers are doin…

Growing wealth inequality in the United States in the last twenty years was caused mostly by globalisation, the offshoring of jobs that left huge numbers of people out of work and broke while making the owners and investors multiple times wealthier. Automation has played its role in generating inequality at times in history, but the wave we are currently experiencing is not predominantly due to automation: it is inst…

> Growing wealth inequality in the United States in the last twenty years was caused mostly by globalisation

Which is caused by two major factors: easier shipping, easier communication--both of which the tech sector encourages, facilitates, and pushes forward. And yes, automation is a nontrivial part of wealth inequality's growth, especially over the last ten years rather than twenty--you don't move a secretary's job elsewhere, you destroy it. Capital requires fewer hands than ever before and enables further centralization of that capital--and this is direct fallout of automation making workers superfluous.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#274

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

leggomylibro wrote: post #260
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And anyways, dire imprecations of fire and brimstone if we don't do things your way is so 1700s. You think if the majority of people in this country continue to experience a declining quality of life, there won't be riots in the streets? This method of shifting blame from economic issues to social issues won't work forever. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain why? Am I wrong in some way?

That has nothing to do with Silicon Valley; don't conflate issues. The widening wealth inequality in this country is a product of much larger forces, don't blame people simply because they've happened to have found a modern-day trade which lets them eke out a middle-class lifestyle in the current economy. It seems like you're the one shifting blame, onto people who have no power to change the situation. How about tak…

> How about taking a look at DC, Virginia, and NYC, where the real power is?

Uh, SV is an area with a concentration of power, money, and influence as well. Think of the incredibly influential power a company like Google could have on a democracy. Think of how they are trying to shape popular culture to suit their needs. If you don't think it is powerful, then spend some time in rural Arkansas and see what a stark contrast there is.

If inequality triggers a war, then it will be a war against the rich. It wouldn't be a matter of creating change, it would be about getting screwed by the rich so they can make more money off of us.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#275

Post by bllguo »

aylmao wrote: post #237
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what a universal basic income does . It lets the person whose labor is only worth $3/hour take a $3/hour job and still not starve to death.

> It lets the person whose labor is only worth $3/hour take a $3/hour job and still not starve to death. You'd still know that your labor is worth only $3/hour, and if you're not starving to death it's because you're on this safety net. How is this feeling "you're serving a purpose" and that "there's value in what you do" as per my parent comment? Again, a job is about much more than the money, and "not starving to d…

Sure, ideally everyone gets well-paid, fulfilling jobs...

So, when do we start talking about practical solutions?

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#276

Post by richardknop »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #181
nsxwolf wrote: post #105

Middle America is not too keen on your "basic income" solution to all the problems you are creating. It brings to mind a future of living in a 300 square foot government apartment in some hideous Brutalist concrete block of a building, eating our daily Amazon rations, knowing that's just how life is going to be, forever, no need to have dreams anymore. There will be torches and pitchforks coming for you.

> Middle America is not too keen on your "basic income" solution to all the problems you are creating. It brings to mind a future of living in a 300 square foot government apartment in some hideous Brutalist concrete block of a building, eating our daily Amazon rations, knowing that's just how life is going to be, forever, no need to have dreams anymore. Except that all of those things are the exact opposite of what…

Instead of basic income wouldn't it make sense to have some sort of basic "lifestyle" provided by government. Out of the box you get a very small government built apartment (no rent or utility bills, all part of the package), vouchers for 3 meals per day (government run canteens in these government apartment buildings), free healthcare and education also provided by the government.

So you would get all these basic necessities as part of the basic government program. To actually make any money to buy nicer things (car, bigger apartment or house), you'd need to find a job.

This would make sense as the basic income would not work as free market would adjust and increase prices as reaction to the new source of free money to spend available every month for everybody.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#277

Post by cyphunk »

austenallred wrote: post #24

People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace. In fact, Silicon Valley has never been more influential. Ask people to go to a world without iPh…

> People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t.

Befuddled by the Pinocchio Press again!

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#278

Post by orangecat »

julianozen wrote: post #36

To you, in the words of one Silicon Valley investor, this seems like “the only logical conclusion.” To the average person, this seems like the height of arrogance. People are uncomfortable with universal basic income because you’re essentially saying their labor isn’t worth anything — but you don’t see it! I think this point is really missing from most UBI conversations that happen on HN. UBI is the answer when you b…

UBI is the answer when you believe that all economic productivity must come from the US coasts.

This is a failure of a common way presenting the UBI as "you should be able to have a comfortable life without working", which is both economically infeasible and not actually desirable. A UBI, at least in the form that I support, isn't something that you should be happy to live off of indefinitely, it's just better protection against homelessness and hunger than our current convoluted welfare systems. The expectation should still be that you'll find something productive to do, and a UBI incentivizes that because it avoids the welfare trap of losing a dollar in benefits for every dollar you earn.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#279

Post by Caveman_Coder »

bluetwo wrote: post #11
Caveman_Coder wrote: post #4

After living in SV for most of my life, I decided to move to the Southwest to work in an industry that, in my opinion, is actually a public good (utility industry). It's a bit slower paced, but the engineering problems are the same and the community is much better.

I'm curious about 'community is much better'... any more info? I don't live in SV.

Warning: totally subjective opinions to follow...

The PHX community is "much better" in my opinion because the people I meet at various Dev groups aren't doing it because they want to be "software-developer famous"...if you know what I mean. When I was in SV I went to tons of meetups where it seemed like the devs were just trying to create something to get themselves "likes/favs/PRs/followers/etc" on HN/GitHub/Twitter. It was a weird kind of in-group celebrity that I detest.

Here in PHX, I don't really see any of that. I went to a Linux Users Meetup and it was pretty chill, nobody was pushing their GitHub repo/blog/Twitter on the audience, it was just a laid back discussion on the latest happenings, but not the software-developer-gossip nonsense. When I go to a .NET developer group meetup, we discuss .NET Core and Azure...just the facts. We don't discuss the latest thing Scott Hanselman said on Twitter, or what so-and-so said about the latest . The discussion tend to be about the tech, how to use it, and what the new features allow us to do, that's it.

Some of us don't want to be famous for our GitHub, we want to work with nice teammates on cool engineering problems that matter. I found my current employment (working on electrical grid software for a major SW utility company) to fit perfectly with my interests and background.

Re: Dear Silicon Valley: America’s fallen out of love with you

#280

Post by AnthonyMouse »

aylmao wrote: post #237
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what a universal basic income does . It lets the person whose labor is only worth $3/hour take a $3/hour job and still not starve to death.

> It lets the person whose labor is only worth $3/hour take a $3/hour job and still not starve to death. You'd still know that your labor is worth only $3/hour, and if you're not starving to death it's because you're on this safety net. How is this feeling "you're serving a purpose" and that "there's value in what you do" as per my parent comment? Again, a job is about much more than the money, and "not starving to d…

> You'd still know that your labor is worth only $3/hour, and if you're not starving to death it's because you're on this safety net.

But your labor is worth only $3/hour. The only way to change that is for the person to improve their skillset, but if that was practical in a given case then it would happen regardless.

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