Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 491 posts

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

#331

Post by AnthonyMouse »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #248
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing projects and government cheese aren't terrible because they're inexpensive . The government spends a ridiculous amount of money on them. They're terrible because the buyer is the bureaucracy instead of the consumer. Which is a thing the UBI fixes. If you have a UBI then you don't have to buy cheese. You can buy beans, pasta, carrots, potatoes, rice, bananas, it's your choice.

You're presenting everything as ideal case. $12k a year means $1k a month to live. You'll be buying lots of cheap carrots and potatoes and rice because that's all you'll have money for. You won't have a choice. Go break down the budget at $1k a month. You'll find that people on government welfare often already live better than that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/12/... ...earning $10,000 a…

> You'll be buying lots of cheap carrots and potatoes and rice because that's all you'll have money for. You won't have a choice.

You won't have a choice between all the different things you have to choose from?

> Go break down the budget at $1k a month. You'll find that people on government welfare often already live better than that.

And the same people are completely screwed if they want to do one dollar better than that because as soon as they get a job most of the benefits evaporate. Which is why they stay unemployed.

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

#332

Post by jasonthevillain »

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…

Be careful. A little backlash has been brewing all over the place. Some of it's about privacy. Some of it's about power and influence. Some is about addictiveness. It's not much today, but the gap between a little backlash and a popular one is smaller than we're inclined to think.

This thread is full of comments making wild assumptions about cities they've never visited.

Uber and Lyft made the same assumption about Austin--that they could get away with anything because people love their product. They lost.

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

#333

Post by Apocryphon »

jeffdavis wrote: post #309
southphillyman wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bodegas traditionally are run by Puerto Ricans and Dominicians in the NE (Not Mexicans). Taken into a NY-centric context it's easier to understand the backlash in a rapidly gentrifying and appropriating atmosphere.

I still don't get it. Cultural appropriation is everywhere, and the inevitable and obvious result of cultural mixing. What makes this different? Maybe it has more to do with economic competition than cultural sensitivities?

It is a Xoogler-founded startup called Bodega offering a product that would compete with, and potentially replace, real-world working-class owned bodegas.

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

#334

Post by Apocryphon »

have_faith wrote: post #152

Silicon Valley isn't a brand. People don't fall out of love with London or New York when some stupid products fail there.

Pretty sure there is a lot of antipathy right now towards London as the centre of European finance. For NY, just replace it with Wall Street.

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

#335

Post by s73ver_ »

aylmao wrote: post #220
s73ver_ wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's basically consigning the bulk of humanity to the status of "surplus flesh."" It only does that if a recipient decides to do nothing but sit on their ass. Otherwise, it provides the opportunity to explore things that one wouldn't have the time to do if they were spending most of their day laboring to afford food and housing. "Options 3, 4, 5, and 6 would employ quite a few people." Would they? Or would robots be…

> It only does that if a recipient decides to do nothing but sit on their ass. Otherwise, it provides the opportunity to explore things that one wouldn't have the time to do if they were spending most of their day laboring to afford food and housing. Regardless of wether I do nothing or go out and explore, it would mean I'm not essential. Working is not only about the money; is about finding a place in a community an…

"Regardless of wether I do nothing or go out and explore, it would mean I'm not essential."

You never were. Neither am I.

"Working is not only about the money; is about finding a place in a community and having some sense of identity and purpose."

And now, since you're not forced to get a job to support yourself, you can go and find that identity and purpose with something you actually want to do, rather than something you must do to survive.

"Could be either, as necessary."

Doubtful. Most of those projects will largely be done by machines. So the jobs available will be small.

"Work on the projects he listed"

I mean work how, as in, most of the work on those projects won't be done by people. So how are most people going to work?

In much of the country, the number 1 job is truck driver. But we're working on driverless technology more and more, and eventually that will be phased out.

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

#336

Post by pnathan »

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 love using hammers for nails.

they don't love the maker of the hammer.

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

#337

Post by untog »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #66
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…

It's false loyalty. People put up with Facebook, Apple, Google, etc with their fake "we care about you" marketing (could apps stop literally telling me this? it's weird), overpriced, and walled garden megalomania because they are addicted and their other options are mediocre walled gardens (look around). People aren't stupid, they can sense when they are being used and those companies have treated their customers lik…

> People put up with Facebook

No, people love Facebook. But they love "Facebook", the utility that lets them connect with friends and family from afar, post photos and videos of loved ones and organise events. They do not love Facebook, the monolith company headed up by Mark Zuckerberg.

That's the important distinction here. People like the products they are given, but couldn't care less about how they are given them. By and large, that's fine, but it's highlighted when people assume that Uber customers care about how they were pioneers in innovation or whatever else SV applauds them for. Nope. They just want cheap car rides, please.

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

#338

Post by cirgue »

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.

People love some of the products that silicon valley produces. They definitely don't like the tech industry's staggering myopia, arrogance, and disdain for institutions and ideas that are not tech-centric (even if most people would never phrase it this way).

People hate on Juicero because Juicero's creators obviously had very little respect for their potential customers, but the engineers, designers, and backers of the venture did not seem to care.

> in order to be right funding Facebook

That Facebook is a net good is far from a universally held opinion, and the media is only now catching up to the fact that a significant portion of the population think that most social media platforms are pretty user-hostile.

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

#339

Post by AnthonyMouse »

aylmao wrote: post #299
bllguo wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, ideally everyone gets well-paid, fulfilling jobs... So, when do we start talking about practical solutions?

A reasonable minimum wage

What about the people whose labor is not worth your minimum wage?

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

#340

Post by catern »

unhinged_wanker wrote: post #303
api wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of the endless ghettoes of William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, etc.) where people are basically warehoused and left to jack into "simstim" and rot. In reality the pitchforks will come out as you say and this endless ghetto will be paired with a total surveillance police state to contain the angry aimless masses. Perhaps not coincidentally this is exactly what Silicon Valley seems to be buildin…

god what conservative bullshit. you must labor for others or else you are useless! just, no. >There's this idea that if you give everyone basic income they'll all turn into philosophers and artists and entrepreneurs, but it's not true No one says that you disingenuous weasel. Basic income is so that people can survive without being forced to hold a job. This is especially important for those that cannot hold a job -…

>Most people already work (95%+) and those that don't - children, elderly, sick, disabled - those people aren't ever joining your work programs. They make up a huge percentage of the total population and you just.. ignore them like they don't count.

I'm confused, what is the "95%+" then?

Post reply on HN