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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

#371

Post by FireBeyond »

jwn wrote: post #95
Clubber wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem with them is that Juciero was an immensely dumb idea that was never checked or questioned and thereby wasted tons of money Like bottled water. The idea of people paying 1600x markup for something they got essentially free while creating massive amounts of waste when sports bottles already existed. When bottled water came out, I remember thinking, "that's a friggin' joke." It sure worked out though.

Unlike the Juicero, bottled water provides added value in that I can have access to suitable drinking water when I otherwise would be forced to drink tap water. Before someone replies that tap water is perfectly suitable for drinking: Sure it's safe, but I have never had municipal water that didn't taste bad. Never. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I have a well that provides tasteless water.

Melbourne Australia's water supply is of sufficient quality that they sell, successfully, bottled tap water.

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

#372

Post by Animats »

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…

The problem with Bodega is not the name. It's that it doesn't carry much of an inventory. It's just another box accessed with an app for in-plant vending. Byte Foods does that.[1] TechShop SF has one of those, as do many hospitals. The vending industry term is "micro-market".

Vending machine micro-markets are a standard item from Canteen Vending.[2] They have 4500 US locations. They're also found in Swiss train stations.

The really creepy player in this industry is Three Square. In their system, employees have implanted RFID tags which identify them to the vending machines. They're in River Falls, WI, not Silicon Valley.

[1] https://bytefoods.co/ [2] http://www.canteen.com/avenue-c/ [3] https://32market.com/public/

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

#373

Post by deadmetheny »

s73ver_ wrote: post #320
deadmetheny wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is remarkably tone-deaf. I also originally hailed from a small Midwestern town. The lack of available work is not a pretty sight, and suggesting that people should just uproot themselves and move somewhere else is not a solution for a number of reasons (family/friends, lack of money to move in the first place, etc). It's no small wonder that people voted for Trump - even though his promises were pretty obviously…

It's not tone deaf. It's tone deaf to not recognize that what these people want is a handout of it's own sort. They want to do the same stuff that they've been doing for the last 50 years. And it sucks for them, but that's just not feasible anymore. Jobs retraining programs have been available, but that's not what they want. They want the economy of the 50s, where they were able to do the same factory job for 30 year…

I don't disagree that the old timers want the old economy, but if they've been working that system their entire lives that's not exactly surprising. The younger folks, on the other hand, most of them just want something that provides a livable wage. I don't know how to fix that problem, but it's a problem, and every time I hear "lol move to the coasts there's jobs" it just tells me that whoever is saying that has some combination of lack of understanding that not all people are okay with abandoning their family (e.g. older relatives that may rely on them or they otherwise want to spend time with), that they can't afford that move in the first place, or otherwise have any true interest in even considering the problem at more than a superficial level.

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

#375

Post by AnthonyMouse »

aylmao wrote: post #308
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Value is not intrinsic to the object, but varies depending on the market and its rules. Go to another country and your labour might be worth more or less. So your labor is not worth $3/hour, it's worth $3/hour in this market. The approach I think would be better for everyone is designing the market so that your labor holds some value.

> Value is not intrinsic to the object, but varies depending on the market and its rules. Go to another country and your labour might be worth more or less.

Sure, but the issue is the relative difference between what your labor is worth and what your costs are. Automation reduces unskilled wages, meanwhile the worker's costs for necessities like housing have if anything gone up over time.

You could try to fix this by artificially raising wages for unskilled workers, but that's counterproductive. Increasing costs will increase prices workers pay when they buy things or drive people to substitute with alternatives that cause workers to lose their jobs. Exactly the opposite of the desired result.

What you really want is to reduce the cost of necessities so the wages they actually earn will go further. Doing so using government subsidies brings us right back to a UBI, and you seem to want something else.

The something else is basically changing the laws around housing and medicine to increase competition and drive down prices. Doing that is a good idea but good luck with that. The incumbents have a ton of lobbyists and a vested interest in staying fat.

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

#376

Post by Clubber »

soundwave106 wrote: post #350
Clubber wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You might have to pick up a laptop and learn to code. I'm sure you can't honestly believe this will work for the vast majority of people in the US. Either you don't value your trade, or you are simply unwilling to seriously discuss the issue.

Historically, that happened before. There was large amounts of net migration in the late 19th century - early 20th century from rural areas (where work increasingly wasn't due to agriculture automation) to urban areas. [1] As farms automated, it was often "flyover territories" that took the lead in creating the then-new high school movement. [2] Heck, for technologies that were increasingly becoming indispensable to…

>Historically, that happened before.

Yes, but the population was a lot smaller. Also they had jobs to go to. Even in coastal states, good entry level jobs are hard to come by, even with a college education.

Here's a population by state.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/

Think about getting everyone outside of a coastal state to move to a coastal state. What would that do to existing jobs in the coastal states? What would that do to land values in the coastal states? What would that do to land values in the non-coastal states? Think those people would be able to sell their old houses?

I mean "train and move," isn't really a solution. It makes a good sound bite, but once you think about the details, it kinda falls down when you are talking what? 50 million people?

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

#377

Post by rgrieselhuber »

reaperducer wrote: post #345
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The media" is a reflection of the people Relevance to this particular topic aside, I'd recommend looking into the corporate structure behind the "media" in the US before making that statement.

25 years in "the media" is my reference point. What's yours?

If you've spent that long in the media and aren't aware of the massive consolidation that has occurred, then I'm not sure this will interest you but I'll paste it anyway:

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-...

It's not hard to find lots of information about this trend.

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

#378

Post by chasd00 »

jszymborski wrote: post #196
reaperducer wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Don't blame the messenger. "The media" is a reflection of the people. Not only is it made up of, largely, ordinary people; it spends billions of dollars each year to find out what ordinary people think, want, and feel. It tracks their lives in ways that companies like Google could only dream of, and is sitting on almost a cent…

> "The media" is a reflection of the people. No it isn't. Most of it is a magnifying glass on vocal minorities that have a narrative that can sell ads and set-off talking heads. A true reflection of the people would be a very boring centrist and apathetic view-point.

man, very well put. I wish I could edit your post and make it bold.

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

#379

Post by ameister14 »

leggomylibro wrote: post #358
ameister14 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 of the top 5 most valuable companies in the world are tech companies. Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon. Hundreds of millions of people use their products every day. You don't think that's power?

Sure it is, but it damned well isn't the power that drove and continues to drive this nation's staggering wealth inequality. So why are they blamed for it?

Because they are an obvious sign of that wealth inequality. It's like how someone will say something like 'this damn cough' when in reality the cough is just a symptom.

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

#380

Post by jrs95 »

reaperducer wrote: post #342
jrs95 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>developing a workplace culture that prevents them from attaining those positions Some who make this argument (and I'm not necessarily saying you're in this camp) are essentially saying that "nerd culture" is some oppressive sexist force. That's sort of ironic given that it's basically a subculture formed by social rejects. There are of course aspects of workplace culture which do this, but an appreciation of science…

But it's not the real nerds who run SV. It's the used car salesmen, itinerant bankers, and other various grifters who are only there because they follow the money from one industry to the next until they've bled it dry. Then they move on.

This is exactly what I mean. That's who people should be upset with. Culture issues stem from management, generally speaking. Some misplace this entirely and basically resent tech workers who have little say in policy anyways just because they have a subculture.
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