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Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

weeklystandard.com

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Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#71

Post by nraynaud »

FedRegister wrote: post #63
nraynaud wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they are pointing the fact that as soon as West Coast got access to the power through money, they did what the East Coast did: protect themselves from the plebe and create a new nobility with barriers to entry instead of using it for greater motives than simple personal accumulation.

Yet you'll still hear many people parrot the line that SV is a "meritocracy".

I see a lot of articles about how you need to be connected to find some capital and that the decision makers always rely on sergeants for introductions, so I guess the meritocracy soundbite is slowly coming to a rest.

But criticizing SV is still not finding a good way to conduct our life that would make us happy and avoid having a negative impact on the society in the long run. This is a negative feeling.

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#72

Post by malyk »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #51

Interesting article. I wonder how much of the income disparity would be relieved if there was more room to build affordable housing, as in the "limitless" cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas where you can buy a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath for $150K. In Phoenix, there are also rich people and poor people, but not the stark contrast of Silicon Valley. Fewer billionaires, I think and also the neighborhoods are so vast and more…

The absolute last thing anybody needs is more horrible sprawling "cities" like those in the sunbelt.

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#73

Post by ForHackernews »

woah wrote: post #59
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruby is a programming language. Rails is a framework. I guarantee that you can, in 2013, find "Ruby on Rails programmers" who wouldn't know what to do if you took the Rails away.

I'm sure you could also find a lot of C programmers who wouldn't know what to do if you took the compiler away. Talentless amateurs.

Serious question: What can you usefully do in C without a compiler? Write your own self-hosted compiler somehow?

I reject the notion that people who are skilled at using a set of tools are "talentless amateurs" because they don't know how to work without those tools, or create the tools from scratch.

How good is a master carpenter if you took away his hammer and saw?

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#74

Post by blisterpeanuts »

ryandrake wrote: post #57
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #51

Interesting article. I wonder how much of the income disparity would be relieved if there was more room to build affordable housing, as in the "limitless" cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas where you can buy a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath for $150K. In Phoenix, there are also rich people and poor people, but not the stark contrast of Silicon Valley. Fewer billionaires, I think and also the neighborhoods are so vast and more…

Even if there was room for affordable housing, who would build it? Home builders need to make a profit, and you do that by building $900K luxury townhomes, not by building $400K roach traps that need tax payer subsidy to break even. Do you think the tax payers lounging in their Atherton mansions give a crap about housing for poor and middle class people?

If market conditions warranted it, someone would find a way to make a profit on modest construction. I would think that the Bay area is bursting with people yearning to buy a real house for around $350K or less. If you could magically find the land to create such a subdivision, I'd bet you'd sell out in days.

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#75

Post by cheesylard »

fzzzy wrote: post #69
cheesylard wrote: post #46

Living in the Silicon Valley after reading this article might sound awesome; but it's far from the truth. I grew up there. I feel like I was deprived of a childhood. I moved away a couple of years ago and am never going back. You have nothing but sprawled out office parks, rich internet tycoons, a police force with nothing to do, helicopter parents, and soccer moms. The thing that topped it all off was the super comp…

Plus leaf blowers 24/7.

Wow, that's kind of funny, because I didn't even notice that was gone until you mentioned it. I guess I was so used to it that I tuned it out.

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#76

Post by FedRegister »

nraynaud wrote: post #71
FedRegister wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet you'll still hear many people parrot the line that SV is a "meritocracy".

I see a lot of articles about how you need to be connected to find some capital and that the decision makers always rely on sergeants for introductions, so I guess the meritocracy soundbite is slowly coming to a rest. But criticizing SV is still not finding a good way to conduct our life that would make us happy and avoid having a negative impact on the society in the long run. This is a negative feeling.

So if something is intentionally misleading by the Robber Barons of Silicon Valley ("it's a meritocracy" is the 21th Century version of "there's gold in them thar' hills" - the only people getting rich are the ones selling office space/furniture or developer tools now, or the big companies that swallow up competitors they have screwed for pennies on the dollar) it shouldn't be criticized because "it's a negative feeling"?

Part of the reason that this line of bullshit needs to be criticized is so that nobody else falls for it. Only be criticizing it can we start to look for alternatives.

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#77

Post by FedRegister »

venomsnake wrote: post #26
riggins wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A solution to this dystopian future would be the basic income I'm fascinated to see how philanthropic society will choose to be. Here's why. With the advent of robots I believe that something fundamental has changed. Elites, if they so choose, will not need to accommodate lower classes. Previously, there had to be some sharing because elites still had to rely on other humans for policing and military. However, it see…

Think of the other side ... all the hacker movies that we watched - they could become a reality. When you launch your startup why not just try to use zero day exploit to mess with the brakes of Zuckeberg's tesla (that is PS4 on wheels) while he is near a cliff. Home made drones - with the advance of 3d printing why not? If 10 people could create a billion dollar company today just think what a rogue genius could do i…

Technology is only good if you know how to use it (or can find out). If you keep the underclasses poor and dumb they will never be able to afford it and won't know how to use it. This is why the digital divide is such an issue.

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#78

Post by pmarca »

awkward wrote: post #31

Interesting that an article that deals this directly with class is running in the Weekly Standard. Outside a couple swipes at green building codes and a pass at hypocracy vis a vis apartments, this is almost something I could see running in Mother Jones.

Exactly. This is not left vs right, this is old vs new. The author has (literally) a PhD in Medieval Studies.

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#79

Post by joshAg »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #51

Interesting article. I wonder how much of the income disparity would be relieved if there was more room to build affordable housing, as in the "limitless" cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas where you can buy a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath for $150K. In Phoenix, there are also rich people and poor people, but not the stark contrast of Silicon Valley. Fewer billionaires, I think and also the neighborhoods are so vast and more…

sacramento might be a good comparison for that perspective.

Re: Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge

#80

Post by prostoalex »

epistasis wrote: post #9
pavlov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article seems to be saying that the upper class are the capitalists that have founded successful companies, and the middle class are all the engineers, and the lower class are the rest of society. This view of class division in an industrialized society is not particularly new. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano presents this exact scenario (upper class of managers, middle class of engineers, unemployed masses),…

I agree that the class division is fairly standard (though the middle class also includes the lawyers, doctors, and other professionals that earn as much or more than engineers), but I guess I don't understand the connection to real estate prices. Who owns all these homes, and buys all these homes? It seems as though it's a bubble that's almost ready to burst, the way that it's been laid out in the article. Or that t…

> It seems as though it's a bubble that's almost ready to burst

It's not a bubble if you already own and keep owning - California Prop 13 prevents the tax man from raising property taxes more than 2% a year.

It's not a bubble if you paid cash, which is majority of real estate purchases in Santa Clara County - unless you choose to go the HELOC route.

It's only a bubble if the buyer is taking out a mortgage to buy the piece of real estate, has very little as far as rainy fund, and needs to have a job to continue making payments.

I don't think Valley real estate prices are that reasonable (and have voted myself out of the market by selling last month), but it's not truly a bubble where you hope the greater fool will come around and buy the stuff from you.

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