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Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

theguardian.com

81–90 of 99 posts

Re: Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

#81

Large SV companies have nowadays become cash-making media machines of a gargantuan scale, acquiring that cash from all over the world for a service of questionable value, and investing it back in a relatively small area while providing only a few tens of thousands of jobs there. This distribution of capital creates a huge imbalance, no matter how "liberal" the stakeholders are.

My sense from reading was that he was upset by what he perceived to be hypocrisy on the part of the wealthy. In that they talked the talk about charity and making the world better, but their actions spoke differently. So liberal words, liberal values being expressed, but pure greed when it mattered.

> So liberal words, liberal values being expressed, but pure greed when it mattered.

But liberalism (both in the modern American sense, and in the classical sense of which both modern American liberalism and mainstream modern American conservatism are subsets) is a system which overtly valorizes greed and the pursuit of personal gain in a facially neutral common market-based environment as both a deontological good and a practical engine of social progress. (Modern American liberalism differs in its expression of this from the modern conservative expression of classical liberalism in favoring modest and limited active correction of the impact of past deviations from the ideal of facial neutrality as a matter of Justice and restoration of the ideal neutral condition whereas the conservative expression of classical liberalism favors studious current facial neutrality.)

Re: Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

#82

It's easy to resolve this discrepancy when you realize these people are not actually liberal or progressive.

They are actually liberal, they are not progressive or leftist. People get confused because conservatives have spent a long time equating those, and they are sometimes allies against conservatism.

Re: Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

#83

It's easy to resolve this discrepancy when you realize these people are not actually liberal or progressive.

Is it so strange? The progressive value system very much says that social services should be provided by the state and paid for by taxes. It's not hard to see how this leads to the conclusion that if they're paying taxes then their work on this planet is done. In fact, several progressives including Bernie Sanders have actively campaigned against private charities.

> In fact, several progressives including Bernie Sanders have actively campaigned against private charities.

It's very common for progressives and leftists to be skeptical of tax-subsidies for private charities viewing them as mechanism for redirecting resources from public priorities to the private priorities of wealthy donors.

It's less common to see them actually campaign against private charity as such, and I suspect any claim of the latter is based on the former.

Re: Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

#84
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree with you more. I moved to the Bay Area a few years ago from Vancouver which certainly has its share of extremely wealthy residents and expensive housing problems. I was blown away by the level of social inequality in SF exactly as you describe. In Vancouver, you at least see the rich people partying near you. Perhaps at the next restaurant over on the beach which is much nicer than the one you're at,…

"I couldn't agree with you more. I moved to the Bay Area a few years ago from Vancouver which certainly has its share of extremely wealthy residents and expensive housing problems. I was blown away by the level of social inequality in SF exactly as you describe. In Vancouver, you at least see the rich people partying near you. Perhaps at the next restaurant over on the beach which is much nicer than the one you're at…

> the transient nature of the population in San Francisco

If transience is defined as the fraction of the population who moved in or out in 2015, San Francisco is a relatively non-transient city [1]. The five most transient cities in America by this metric are Provo, Ann Arbor, Gainesville, Boulder and Tempe. Transience does not appear, at first glance, to positively correlate with inequality.

[1] https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-most-transient-cities-in...

Re: Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

#85
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dangerous trend that people with money less and less interact with people with less money. Private schools, super expensive neighborhoods, super expensive gyms, bars and restaurants. These people have the power to influence political decisions but they have no idea how most people live.

You have articulated brilliantly something which as a Brazilian disturbs me to no end. I despair seeing cities change their structure to accommodate the desire for segregation.

Speaking of Brazil reminds me of a documentary about Ayrton Senna I watched years ago. He flew his beautiful helicopter to his beautiful skyscraper in Sao Paolo, then to his beautiful beach house and then taking out his beautiful boat. All that with dirty, poor kids and the slums in Sao Paolo in the background. It was a really jarring experience.

Re: Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

#86
Recently I was in a late 1800's home in Denver. From the outside it doesn't look mansion-like huge, but it was huge. It had over a dozen rooms, and long since renovated "servant's quarters".

Hindsight isn't really 20/20, is it? I look back on that era and think how blatantly racist and classist it was. But in contrast to today's segregation based on race and class, all we've done is move the servants out of the homes they serve, put them on public transit, and make them live 50 miles away. It's just feudalism vs a kind of neo-feudalism.

And meritocracy in practice is different than meritocracy as an ideal. Perhaps Vulcans have the extreme discipline required to actually adhere to a strict system of merit. But humans do not. Anyone in a meritocratic environment lowers the ladder to friends and family, people they like, which immediately corrupts the meritocracy. Meritocracy in practice corrupts itself, the very thing the ideal proclaims to avoid. And even the ideal version pretty much pre-supposes that those without merit, without wealth, don't really deserve anything other than what they have (or don't have), there isn't anything to do about it, and it might even be immoral to intervene.

The book of Job, and numerous stories of Christ in the New Testament are very critical of wealth and merit. And that's probably why the message doesn't go over very well anywhere with institutional power and wealth, be it the Pharisees, or Silicon Valley's wealthy (and regardless of whether they're liberal or conservative).

Re: Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

#87
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally give the respect to people to refer them as they would like to be identified Huh? Why? Seriously, I don't understand that kind of thinking. I don't think individuals necessarily deserve that kind of power others. Sometimes we should adjust to save other peoples feelings. But having that as the default seems crazy. What if they are full of shit? Or misuse that power? Or I simply disagree with them.. sho…

These labels are all fuzzy, so self identification is the only reliable way of applying labels in any sense. For example, if the Chinese communist party says they are communist, why would you want to argue with them?

If you claimed your comment was in French instead of English, even though I can clearly see it's in English, why wouldn't I disagree?

Re: Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commute between New York and the Bay Area, and am consistently struck by how plutocratic of a city San Francisco has become. Most social functions are held in private venues and heavily segregated by race and class. Leaving a charity event, a millionaire will casually step over a homeless person en route to their apartment. They will talk about poverty in Africa and then vote in NIMBYist politicians. A total guttin…

I couldn't agree with you more. I moved to the Bay Area a few years ago from Vancouver which certainly has its share of extremely wealthy residents and expensive housing problems. I was blown away by the level of social inequality in SF exactly as you describe. In Vancouver, you at least see the rich people partying near you. Perhaps at the next restaurant over on the beach which is much nicer than the one you're at,…

The US is a very classist society at its core. I am an immigrant as well and the contrast is very stark.

That's not to say that other countries aren't following in the same direction - for more classist segregation and isolation.

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