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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

#471

Post by notthemessiah »

root_axis wrote: post #410
notthemessiah wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the word Bodega, it's the insult to injury added to the death of the American dream. Bodega's were ways that people could people of a community could pool their resources together and make a living for themselves while serving their community. Now some ambitious VC-backed firm not only wants to decimate that road to the American dream, but they also have to steal the name too? That's like killing your n…

> That's like killing your neighbor and wearing his skin while fucking his wife. Somewhat over the top, no? A bodega is not a religious shrine, it's just a business like any other. I agree that the naming is tacky (it's like "Walmart" rebranding as "Mom & Pop's"), but that's about the extent of it. Certainly, they are not guilty of "decimating the American dream" by starting a business.

I'm not saying they've done it or are going to do it, just that they clearly want to. And I don't see the Walmart comparison as comparable because this issue is also compounded with the issue of gentrification, which is particularly emblematic of the things that people hate about Silicon Valley and to a lesser extent the Presidency (VC-baked out-of-touch privileged idiots colonizing the urban landscape).

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

#472

Post by danenania »

Clubber wrote: post #450
jnbiche wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but we don't give foreign governments and intelligence agencies unhampered access to our TV and radio airwaves to broadcast whatever the hell they want. There's a big difference between US nationals broadcasting bullshit and hostile foreign governments broadcasting bullshit. Neither is ideal, but the latter is completely unacceptable, at least to me, because it touches on sovereignty issues.

I agree, but I think broadcast is a misleading term. They were buying ads on websites. And their buy footprint is very small. To say, as the media has insinuated, the Russians swayed the election by buying $100K in Facebook ads is disingenuous and alarmist.

That was just a single front. There were others on other platforms as well, and likely others on FB. It's unlikely we'll ever know the full extent of this operation, but it was clearly huge in its scope.

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

#473

Post by wutbrodo »

snerbles wrote: post #367
wutbrodo wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It kind of combines all the worst ideas from liberalism over the past 50 years (postmodernism, identity politics) Not to be pedantic, but those are _illiberal_ ideas. You're conflating liberals and the left, which was mostly fine when they were in a coalition for a while. But if you're talking about identity politics et al, you're very specifically describing things that are almost definitionally illiberal.

It's tragic that some consider "classical liberal" an alt-right dog whistle.

Yea, liberalism just isn't in vogue anywhere on the political spectrum. The kind of people you're talking about are particularly intellectually dishonest and morally decrepit, but a rejection of liberalism seems to have taken root all over the place.

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

#474

Post by pdimitar »

rtx wrote: post #344
pdimitar wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the truth. Well articulated. The companies came along and gave us things we needed. There are such events in history that would inevitably happen regardless of the person (or people) who started it. People needed electricity. People needed long-range quick communication. People needed places to form groups, physically or not, etc. Most of the corporations' products were inevitable. Thing is, they are a…

So who pays the cost and profits.

Should we care? They introduce problems we didn't have before -- namely how do they pay their hosting bills -- and then make us pay for those with ads.

It's their problem, not ours. If they can't manage, be very sure somebody else will gladly come along and replace them.

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

#475

Post by lostboys67 »

balls187 wrote: post #356
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…

That attitude is completely irrational. What is the difference between the government creating jobs for which there is no market, and the government handing you a check to make ends meet?

Its also similar to "farmer palmer" attitude in Viz "get of moi land" and you don't get that stereotype (farmers living of the CAP subsidies) without some truth.

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

#476

Post by tempodox »

Apocryphon wrote: post #362

Two things that the article missed: 1. The startup scene's smarmy feel-good rhetoric and forced friendliness. The cutesy aesthetics, the wacky company names, and most gratingly the lofty mission statements that cover up at best business as usual and at worst actual corporate malfeasance. How did we get to here? When did "making the world a better place" become the mantra of Silicon Valley, and why did this laughable…

“Making the world a better place” is simply the cheapest marketing gag you can get. And in a way, they did make the world a better place—it's just for a select group of founders and investors only.

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

#477

Post by tempodox »

d_burfoot wrote: post #141

Here's another view of the problem: the "average Joe" American is starting to hate all the centralized and monolithic institutions in the country, because he sees them as being corrupt, privileged, and primarily concerned with cementing their own power. It used to be that SV was a rebel and outsider going against Washington and Wall Street, but increasingly SV is just another pillar of the power structure.

> ... cementing their own power.

Of course. That's basic systems theory. And one reason why checks and balances are not just romantic crap but really necessary. The deregulation hype is the real romantic crap.

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

#478

Post by Apocryphon »

tempodox wrote: post #476
Apocryphon wrote: post #362

Two things that the article missed: 1. The startup scene's smarmy feel-good rhetoric and forced friendliness. The cutesy aesthetics, the wacky company names, and most gratingly the lofty mission statements that cover up at best business as usual and at worst actual corporate malfeasance. How did we get to here? When did "making the world a better place" become the mantra of Silicon Valley, and why did this laughable…

“Making the world a better place” is simply the cheapest marketing gag you can get. And in a way, they did make the world a better place—it's just for a select group of founders and investors only.

That's true, but why did Silicon Valley pick that shtick when other industries don't seem to except maybe when they're trying to greenwash.

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

#479

Post by staticelf »

s73ver_ wrote: post #310
staticelf wrote: post #56

As a non-american and as a person who has never been to SV but love the idea that is described in the article that anyone can start up a company I would like to adress the points in the article. 1. Your ideas are only as good as the people in the room. And your door is shut to most people. Well, if anyone can start a company the door isn't shut. I don't buy that white men only invests in white men. I think people inv…

"Well, if anyone can start a company the door isn't shut. I don't buy that white men only invests in white men. I think people invest in companies (for the most part) where investors think they will gain the most money from." Numbers don't lie. And there are countless examples of times where women-led startups couldn't even get meetings with VCs, but after adding a male founder, suddenly were asked to come in for mee…

> And there are countless examples of times where women-led startups couldn't even get meetings with VCs

Lol, please provide countless examples. I dare you to find even one. My guess is that if you find even one, you will find 10 reverse where women get meetings because of their gender.

> Most of the costs are not something that countries can help with. You're still going to need funds for equipment, salaries, and such.

What I meant was that new, small companies should not be taxated as much as companies that is established.

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

#480

Post by Clubber »

CalChris wrote: post #467
Clubber wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal is dead due to the economies of natural gas. Besides, China uses coal like crazy, and we pay China to do so, so as far as the atmosphere goes, the US not using coal doesn't really matter that much.

Chinese coal consumption has been declining since 2013.

They say they are working to reduce consumption, but at the same time, they are building more coal fired plants, which is projected to increase through at least 2020. They are also building plants in other countries.

http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/china-india-w...

According to Bloomberg, China’s coal-fired generation capacity may increase by as much as 19 percent over the next five years. While the country has canceled some coal-fired capacity due to lack of demand growth, China still plans to increase its coal-fired power plants to almost 1,100 gigawatts, which is three times the coal-fired capacity of the United States.

While it is true that China is building wind and solar units domestically, many of these units are being curtailed due to lack of infrastructure and a preference for coal.

Edit: The Chinese government indicates they are though, which coincides with your 2013 statistic.

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/03/14/china-coal-consumption-...

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