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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

#391

Post by alasdair_ »

austenallred wrote: post #24

People generally do love Silicon Valley and what it creates. It’s the media that doesn’t. Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace. In fact, Silicon Valley has never been more influential. Ask people to go to a world without iPh…

>Ask the average person what brands and products they like and use the most (or just look at the data on where and how they spend their time and money) and you’ll see that Silicon Valley is doing just fine in the eyes of the populace.

By this logic, Walmart is one of the most beloved companies in the US, right behind the oil companies and the cable companies.

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

#393

Post by jrs95 »

KingMob wrote: post #135
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…

It's a bit ironic that SV nerds are dealing with rampant racial/gender issues, while NFL jocks are protesting for racial justice in policing. It's like all those 80's movies flipped the nerd/jock paradigm.

That's how the media is portraying it of course, but I think if you took a step back and took a look at the general behavior of each group I don't think it would really hold up.

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

#394

Post by jrs95 »

Tyrek wrote: post #246
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…

Is it truly ironic? Most 'social reject' subcultures trend towards their own styles of conformity and in/out group determination, which can be as harsh or harsher than that of the mainstream. Should it really come as a surprise that nerd culture has taken the same path? Just consider anti-dress code, 'mandatory' code marathons, etc.

Maybe this sort of thing is more of a problem in SV itdelf, but tech in Columbus OH isn't like this at all. Most accepting group of people I've known.

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

#395

Post by JangoSteve »

jabot wrote: post #46

This article bashes Juicero - rightfully, in my (humble) opinion; it is a stupid and wasteful idea, and ridiculously overpriced. However, it has that in common with Keurig - which is a huge success. My point is that just because something is stupid and wasteful it doesn't have to fail...

Ha, that's one of the reasons that my answer is always the same whenever someone asks what I think of their idea: "Whatever I think of the merits of your idea are almost completely irrelevant. I've seen horrible ideas succeed, and I've seen great ideas fail for irrelevant reasons. What I can offer, however, is a list of challenges I think you'll have."

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

#396

Post by Clubber »

tomjen3 wrote: post #390
Clubber wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but coal miners are such a small subset of middle America. I'm talking about all the blood letting between VA and CA. And (I'm not being snarky) but what would you retrain them to do? Unless those cities grow an economy, they will just be retrained, still unemployed people. Unless you have a massive migration to large cities, it's not going to do much good. I mean think about that for a few steps. You have milli…

Then have the migrate to the cities. Seriously, the US was founded by people moving over the Atlantic in search of better opportunities and the west was converted the same way.

50 million people? Simple dismissive answers to complex problems isn't going to solve anything.

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

#397

Post by Applejinx »

kazinator wrote: post #186

> Your companies are now solving “my-world problems” (food delivery, cold-pressed, on-demand juice versus the “real-world problems” you used to solve (getting affordable computers in the hands of everyone; inventing the Internet). You can understand where these hapless doofuses are coming from, though: whatever you come up with has to have paying customers, and be something someone won't steal two weeks after release…

>cushy government grants

Dare we say… 'handouts'? Gee, seems like that might not be such a bad thing after all.

Want flyover America to grow economies and produce stuff to perk up SV's ears? Pay it to do so.

People treat economics as if it's a merit-evaluating system capable of managing the ground its actors grow from, and it's absolutely not. Money is better considered as a vote, or like water in the environment. You can't have it function both in its fundamental property of facilitating commerce, and as a score indicator. I think something akin to 'likes' ought to replace money as the score indicator, and money ought to be entirely allocated to population-wide commerce.

That means entirely abandoning the connotations of 'value' it has, reimagining it as 'abstracted power', and leaning much harder on the capacity of populations to innovate. It is stark madness to assume that the capacity to accumulate abstracted power (money) signifies ANYTHING other than itself, plus the ability of that power to convert back into actions (easily mistaken for merit or virtue!)

Anyone who's seriously dug into the genetic algorithm ought to be able to see the merits of doling out 'power' (money, ability to act in an economic system) across a massive population of organisms who're on the whole still individually more intelligent than AI could hope to be.

Starving populations of humans to death for the crime of not being as economically powerful as Silicon Valley is not only immoral, it's a grotesque and foolish waste of intelligence and innovation resources. Elon Musk is a clever and interesting fellow, but he's WAY less intelligent/innovative than a supported POPULATION of humans. You only think he's that much more clever, because his resources are almost unmeasurable compared to the fellow (times 10,000) in Boise Idaho with just a garage, who've got almost no resources at all.

Genetic Algorithm says to focus solely on giving more resources to Elon is producing a local maximum and screwing yourself in the long run. We can't afford to make that mistake.

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

#398

Post by CalChris »

Clubber wrote: post #383
CalChris wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did. He may have never used that word but he was the biggest trash talker. At the Olympic workouts there was an All Star's All Star game and afterward he told Magic Johnson there was new sheriff in town. http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-johnson-trash-talking-m... Elitism is a self-protecting cabal. SV doesn't really do that. That's the point of disruptive technology. You're disrupting an existing order. That's…

So, for one, he said that in private, you called yourself elite on a public form. Two, that's MJ, are you saying you're the MJ of SV software engineers? (please do, that would be hysterical).

Really.

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

#399

Post by yahna »

shoefly wrote: post #78

The small midwestern town from which I hail is rotting. The residents could never afford the luxuries flowing here in the valley. They are angry. They are huge Trump supporters. They don't want handouts. They want jobs. They want to contribute. They don't want to leave their homes. They are stuck.

Well they should pull themselves up by the bootstraps like good little republicans.

On my team of 8 people 1 grew up anywhere near the Seattle area. Half the team moved to the US from other countries. Maybe these people should move. It sucks, but life isn't fair and sometimes you have to sacrifice what you want for what you actually need.

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

#400

Post by Clubber »

balls187 wrote: post #348
Clubber wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ideas that seem dumb and ideas that are dumb. The first makes money, the second doesn't. :)

Agreed. There are dumb ideas, and dumb ideas that are poorly executed. Juciero is clearly the latter. But just because an idea is dumb, doesn't mean it won't be successful in the market. Two of my favorite satires on this point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t28ZB1t6gg8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDEL4Ty950Q

This was hysterical:

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/9nzwjt/the-colbert-report-vess...

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