Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

Yeah we know there is a Great Hollowing Out. We know that some lucky talented people start to rationalise their success through "doing good works must be the reason for success"

And we know that Piketty is right about capital beating out labour.

But I was hoping for some insights - some idea of what to do about it.

A very good philosophy, that I also discussed here: http://danieltenner.com/2014/11/19/work-and-life-balance-and...

I had not read Eric Schmidt's book at that point, though.

The author continues, however:

But it also highlights the extent to which our world is bifurcating into parallel universes.

No it's not. It's evolving into a new universe. There's no reason why everyone, yes, everyone, can't be in that new universe where they work on what they're passionate about. And when we figure out how to fix our screwed up economic systems to enable that (one possible solution is the Basic Income idea), we will derive, as a species, productivity benefits that we can't even begin to comprehend right now.

At this point in time, the majority of humanity toils for subsistence. A sizeable minority work to pay for their lifestyle (aka the work-life balance level), and they are a bajillion times more productive than the subsistence workers. A tiny slice of us are now able to work with passion, on what we want to do. Like artists working on a song or a painting or a book, they do not draw a clear line between work and play. They're always working and always playing. With this they achieve a level of enjoyment of life and of productivity that the work-life balance crowd cannot touch.

Let's all work together to get everyone into this last category. It's easy to point to the fact that we're not there yet. Harder to make tangible progress towards this goal.

1) Like Cameron, most SV tech workers are utterly convinced that they are doing "good", even if that means replacing jobs with machines.

I don't necessarily have a problem with replacing jobs with machines, but we have to come up with some means of sustenance and stimulation to replace jobs for those affected (btw, these are not intractable problems: basic income could address the sustenance issue, and for the stimulation part, I believe that open source model has a lot to offer). That's urgent. Otherwise, no one is doing any good, we're just knocking middle class earners into poverty.

2) The tech "elite" (not fond of the term) are living in a parallel universe.

This one is on display any time any economic article is posted on HN. It's clear that many (most?) commentators are convinced that the economic recovery is complete and everyone is happy. This is far from the truth. As well documented by respected economists, at least in the US, most of the economic gains since the great recession have gone to the top 1% of income earners [1]. The rest of this country's inhabitants are suffering still.

By the way, to be specific about what in this article is "unfounded", it's calling tech workers in SV "elite" or "rich". Given extraordinarily high cost of living in SV, the average wage among SV workers is frankly not enough to support a middle class family at the level the middle class enjoys in the small towns and cities in middle America (I recently researched this in detail). The only reason the average tech workers has significant disposable income is that they are young and single or married with no children. Young people working professional jobs anywhere have disposable income (it's the only time in my life I had significant disposable income).

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/upshot/gains-from-economic...

Edit: small request for posterity: can the downvoters please indicate which part of my post you disagree with, since I have strong criticism for both the writer and for tech culture? A simple reply of "techie" or "lefty" would suffice. Thanks!

That's just passing the buck. It's on both parties, creator and user, to find a solution. Did you think no one would use the technology that allowed them to cut jobs?