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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

#251

Post by mixedbit »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #217
mixedbit wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

19 of 20 investments fail because VCs equate success with > 1B$ valuation. Among the failed companies there are plenty that produce great and useful products but need to shut down because the VC deals forced them to grow to unsustainable size.

ok, but those 19 investments didn't have to take VC money. if they produced great and useful products, then why couldn't they grow organically, borrow from a bank, etc.? I mean it's just complete nonsense to complain about the fact that you failed using someone else's money.

They could grow organically and there are plenty of companies that do, but this is not the Silicon Valley way, and this is what the article is complaining about.

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

#252

Post by AnthonyMouse »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #235
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what a universal basic income does . It lets the person whose labor is only worth $3/hour take a $3/hour job and still not starve to death.

Or a $3/hour jobs becomes a $1 an hour job because markets are incredibly efficient at pricing in a new, free flow of money.

Except that the employee can walk away from an employer who doesn't pay enough and still keep the UBI.

And the demand for labor at $3/hour is huge. People making even $40K/year would stop doing their own laundry or washing their own cars if they could hire someone to do it for that price. Good luck convincing anyone to work for $1/hour when everyone else is paying more.

Moreover, even if someone could only get a job for $1/hour, what is that supposed to change? Then they get a job at $1/hour + UBI, they don't starve, and the second someone offers $2/hour they trade up. Or they decide that their time is worth more than that to themselves and spend it volunteering to gain experience or going to school or whatever. Which one of these is supposed to be a problem?

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

#253

Post by ng12 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #223
ng12 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happens when we inevitably converge on a price point where BI only buys you a concrete block and government cheese?

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.

I don't think I ascribe to the reality where the bureaucracy is the worst part of being poor.

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

#254

Post by matt_wulfeck »

aylmao wrote: post #239
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a $3/hour jobs becomes a $1 an hour job because markets are incredibly efficient at pricing in a new, free flow of money.

Exactly, which is why even with UBI we need reasonable minimum wages.

Why not take the next logical step and control prices on everything?

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

#255

Post by richardknop »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #181
nsxwolf wrote: post #105

Middle America is not too keen on your "basic income" solution to all the problems you are creating. It brings to mind a future of living in a 300 square foot government apartment in some hideous Brutalist concrete block of a building, eating our daily Amazon rations, knowing that's just how life is going to be, forever, no need to have dreams anymore. There will be torches and pitchforks coming for you.

> Middle America is not too keen on your "basic income" solution to all the problems you are creating. It brings to mind a future of living in a 300 square foot government apartment in some hideous Brutalist concrete block of a building, eating our daily Amazon rations, knowing that's just how life is going to be, forever, no need to have dreams anymore. Except that all of those things are the exact opposite of what…

What about argument that basic income will cause prices to rise since people will be able to afford X spending per month. Wouldn't this be free market's natural response? Supply of money / disposable monthly income would increase therefor prices would go up?

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

#256

Post by weberc2 »

wtflmaohnisdumb wrote: post #118
weberc2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree, but the media (and a slew of other industries) are pro-minority , not anti-minority, so if the media are undermining minority confidence, it's not necessarily intuitive. Further, even the implicit bias theory has a lot working against it; chiefly, it is utterly dependant on the principle tool for measuring implicit bias, the IAT, which fails to actually predict bias or even return consistent results (…

I can't see why you would be skeptical about bias given studies (not relying on IAT) showing that -- all else being equal -- people with minority names on their resume get significantly less callbacks? The same goes with subtle class cues and identification. If IAT is broken, it's a broken tool. Not every bias test uses it. The idea that the media is pro-minority when we still have the media pissing themselves over k…

> Edited my post a bit because I completely misread your comment.

No worries. Sorry if I was hard to understand.

> people with minority names on their resume get significantly less callbacks?

Assuming this is a consistently-reproducible finding (I'm aware of at least one study that finds no disparity), how far can we extrapolate this finding? On this basis alone, can we conclude that pay is lower for employed minorities than otherwise equivalent whites/males, or that workplaces are more hostile? Is it sufficient to change policy? Can we extrapolate this to tech specifically? Should we fire people who openly question our extrapolations?

> Not every bias test uses it.

No, but most do, and it's considered to be the best bias test in social psychology (a very low bar, due to the difficult and complex nature of divining motives). If you throw away the racial-bias research predicated on the IAT and other unreliable tests, what remains is largely anecdote.

> The idea that the media is pro-minority when we still have the media pissing themselves over kneeling in protest is silly.

I don't see why; rightly or wrongly, most of the media is sympathetic to the BLM side of the issue. Media reporting is widely considered (by the left and right) to be socially left-leaning, and it's self-evident that the media goes to great lengths to show minorities in the best-possible light. Of course some outlets are exceptions--like Fox News--but exceptions don't disprove the rule. Even if the media are horrible racists (90% of journalists are Democrats, so we should expect them to favor a pro-minority narrative, but even assuming this isn't the case...), they are compelled by self-interest to at least appear pro-minority (in which case, they are still pro-minority for all relevant purposes).

With sincere respect, if you really think the media is anti-minority, I don't see how you and I can have a reasonable, agreeable, productive conversation about bias in tech, and maybe we should just let this thread die.

EDIT: Some edits made to improve clarity/organization.

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

#257

Post by jeffdavis »

Klockan wrote: post #228
jeffdavis wrote: post #115

Sincere question: what is problematic about the word "bodega"?

Cultural appropriation of Mexican small shops. Note that I don't really see the issue, the name describes their business well.

That was my question... I have never heard the word "bodega" is a negative context.

Nearly everything (especially having to do with food) is a cultural reference of some kind -- nothing bad about that.

And a lot is not very authentic and may count as some kind of "appropriation". That's not really avoidable when cultures mix (as they do in the US).

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

#258

Post by Caveman_Coder »

wtflmaohnisdumb wrote: post #89
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We're full. Stay in SV please /s There's good companies and bad companies, just like everywhere else.

I was interested if the parent moved and maintained his (adjusted) total comp and was happy with his decision, or was happy despite a loss in total comp. Obviously there are good companies and bad companies everywhere. :) (FWIW I'm not in SV)

I had a loss in total comp, however, my wife and I are not your typical consumerist-minded people, we like to save and invest. "Make half a million, but live like we make 100k" has kind of been our motto. The move to PHX was a drop in total comp, a net increase in the amount we could save/invest given the COL, and a much larger increase in total happiness.

I do not regret moving from SV one bit.

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

#259

Post by thriftwy »

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…

If you are raising two kids, isn't it kinda obvious that your BI payout is 3 * $12k = $36k?

Anything different just doesn't make sense in my opinion.

You also seem to discard the value of work (on a 10 hr workweek perhaps)

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

#260

Post by leggomylibro »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #205
leggomylibro wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle America doesn't seem to be keen on much of anything these days, besides torches and pitchforks. I'd rather put my money on the people trying to build solutions rather than more problems. Sure, it seems like the actual silicon valley location is mostly making solutions for problems that it created, these days. But there's plenty of tech outside of California. And anyways, dire imprecations of fire and brimstone…

> And anyways, dire imprecations of fire and brimstone if we don't do things your way is so 1700s. You think if the majority of people in this country continue to experience a declining quality of life, there won't be riots in the streets? This method of shifting blame from economic issues to social issues won't work forever. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain why? Am I wrong in some way?

That has nothing to do with Silicon Valley; don't conflate issues. The widening wealth inequality in this country is a product of much larger forces, don't blame people simply because they've happened to have found a modern-day trade which lets them eke out a middle-class lifestyle in the current economy.

It seems like you're the one shifting blame, onto people who have no power to change the situation. How about taking a look at DC, Virginia, and NYC, where the real power is?

Nah, it's easier to complain, stoke divisions, and take potshots at people slightly higher up the ladder than you. Classic crab bucket mentality.

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