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Silicon Valley's raison d'etre is to leverage computers to make our lives easier. It's a confluence of people who are good at software (and the business of sof

Silicon Valley's raison d'etre is to leverage computers to make our lives easier. It's a confluence of people who are good at software (and the business of software) - nothing more, nothing less. Apart from the means to throw vast amounts of money at the problem, there's no reason that Silicon Valley nerds should be expected to solve squishy human problems like inequality. Those require a greater understanding of people and society. And to borrow an analogy from John Oliver, expecting tech entrepreneurs to possess this is like expecting a vegan to be good at karate - there's no cause and effect between these two, and the correlation usually goes the other way.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> Apart from the means to throw vast amounts of money at the problem, there's no reason that Silicon Valley nerds should be expected to solve squishy human problems like inequality. Conversely, there's no reason reaching your exit should be so profitable. Leverage computers, while government raises capital gains tax to income levels to even the playing field (which, coincidentally, is a great way to capture efficiency gains and distribute to social safety nets).
pdkl95 11y ago
> there's no reason that Silicon Valley nerds should be expected to solve squishy human problems like inequality. Change isn't predictable[1], so it is misguided to expect that anybody will be able to solve difficult problems like inequality. However, we can and should expect "Silicon Valley nerds" to at least follow the principle of failing safely when designing new technology. Technology can provide incredible benefits to society, but harmful effects can also be amplified. While we shouldn't expect a solution to hard problems, we should be assigning liability and charges of negligence when someone makes the these problems worse. [1] For detail, see James Burke's non-teleological interpretation of history.
d--b 11y ago
> nothing more, nothing less. That's not quite true. There definitely is a culture that is specific to Silicon Valley. Of course, not everyone in the valley matches that culture, but on average there are some values and a certain rhetoric that comes out of that area that is very recognizable. You can see that by watching the silicon valley show, the guys in the show represent the different stereotypes of people that you encounter all the time in the valley. This is important to the argument here, because one aspect of the silicon valley rhetoric is that its objective is to do good, to make the world a better place, to not be evil. It is that rhetoric that pisses off people. The fact that ruthless businessmen (because they are ruthless businessmen) put themselves on the right side of morality. It is going way further than Wall Street's "greed is good". At least the Wall Street guys had some actual cynicism behind it. Here, you get people who actually believe that they are making the world a better place, and that humanity owes them the insane amount of wealth they're getting out of it. And that's where the arrogance comes from. Instead of telling the world: 'we're making life a little bit more convenient' they say 'we embody human evolution, we are progress and progress is good'
- ewzimm 11y ago
  I think this perception of arrogance is often a misunderstanding. The stuff that Silicon Valley makes is often treated like brilliant children. Especially when we are talking about creating automated systems, the pride is the same as a parent training a child to go out and do great things. They don't take full credit for it. They just laid the groundwork for that child to go out and become an amazing person. In the same way, people working on things like AI are looking at the limitless potential, not necessarily as their own achievement, but as helping to nurture something which will eventually develop on its own, but in ways that are currently unimaginable by people. This might look arrogant to other people, but it's more like humility in reality, a realization of what our limitations as people are and an understanding about how we might be able to build intelligent systems that can surpass these. They might not all be Artificial General Intelligences. They will often be good at very specific things, like AlphaGo, but they will be able to make leaps of intuition that we know no human could accomplish. I think that most people's problem with pride isn't that someone else is feeling good about themselves but rather that it humiliates the person seeing it. We're going to have to learn a lot of humility as a species if we are ever going to overcome our limitations.
  - thelock85 11y ago
    > a realization of what our limitations as people are and an understanding about how we might be able to build intelligent systems that can surpass these. I wish it was this way but in my experience, technologists are creating great/novel technology for the sake being able to create great/novel technology, instead of thoughtfully designing systems that consider consequences beyond a high-growth business model (if any). I agree it's not arrogance but also it's hard to pass of as humility; rather, it seems to be a limitation of wisdom which is hardly unique to SV.
    - ewzimm 11y ago
      I do think there are plenty of people who just enjoy creating things, but I've heard and read plenty of thoughtful consideration of the consequences too. The problem is that it's almost impossible to predict the full consequences of transforming society to the extent that the progress of technology does. We can only try things in limited settings and see how they work. The idea of the basic income is to give us more room to experiment without having to worry about the financial viability of each experiment. It certainly doesn't mean those experiments aren't worthwhile or useful, just that sometimes what makes money isn't the same as what needs to be done.
Scea91 11y ago
No I don't believe that the correlation goes the other way. I think that people knowleadgeable of logic, problem solving, statistics and other things are very capable of understanding society. Maybe they are sometimes more technical than emotional but in the end it is a good thing. Good decision can't be based solely on emotion.
chemmefatale 11y ago
And venture capitalists should not be at the forefront of social change either. That is why we have organizations like the DOE, NIH, and NSF for basic research. I can not imagine how many socially important projects would be scrapped now because they did not meet profitability goals.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> Apart from the means to throw vast amounts of money at the problem, there's no reason that Silicon Valley nerds should be expected to solve squishy human problems like inequality. Conversely, there's no reason reaching your exit should be so profitable. Leverage computers, while government raises capital gains tax to income levels to even the playing field (which, coincidentally, is a great way to capture efficiency gains and distribute to social safety nets).

pdkl95 11y ago

> there's no reason that Silicon Valley nerds should be expected to solve squishy human problems like inequality. Change isn't predictable[1], so it is misguided to expect that anybody will be able to solve difficult problems like inequality. However, we can and should expect "Silicon Valley nerds" to at least follow the principle of failing safely when designing new technology. Technology can provide incredible benefits to society, but harmful effects can also be amplified. While we shouldn't expect a solution to hard problems, we should be assigning liability and charges of negligence when someone makes the these problems worse. [1] For detail, see James Burke's non-teleological interpretation of history.

d--b 11y ago

> nothing more, nothing less. That's not quite true. There definitely is a culture that is specific to Silicon Valley. Of course, not everyone in the valley matches that culture, but on average there are some values and a certain rhetoric that comes out of that area that is very recognizable. You can see that by watching the silicon valley show, the guys in the show represent the different stereotypes of people that you encounter all the time in the valley. This is important to the argument here, because one aspect of the silicon valley rhetoric is that its objective is to do good, to make the world a better place, to not be evil. It is that rhetoric that pisses off people. The fact that ruthless businessmen (because they are ruthless businessmen) put themselves on the right side of morality. It is going way further than Wall Street's "greed is good". At least the Wall Street guys had some actual cynicism behind it. Here, you get people who actually believe that they are making the world a better place, and that humanity owes them the insane amount of wealth they're getting out of it. And that's where the arrogance comes from. Instead of telling the world: 'we're making life a little bit more convenient' they say 'we embody human evolution, we are progress and progress is good'

ewzimm 11y ago
I think this perception of arrogance is often a misunderstanding. The stuff that Silicon Valley makes is often treated like brilliant children. Especially when we are talking about creating automated systems, the pride is the same as a parent training a child to go out and do great things. They don't take full credit for it. They just laid the groundwork for that child to go out and become an amazing person. In the same way, people working on things like AI are looking at the limitless potential, not necessarily as their own achievement, but as helping to nurture something which will eventually develop on its own, but in ways that are currently unimaginable by people. This might look arrogant to other people, but it's more like humility in reality, a realization of what our limitations as people are and an understanding about how we might be able to build intelligent systems that can surpass these. They might not all be Artificial General Intelligences. They will often be good at very specific things, like AlphaGo, but they will be able to make leaps of intuition that we know no human could accomplish. I think that most people's problem with pride isn't that someone else is feeling good about themselves but rather that it humiliates the person seeing it. We're going to have to learn a lot of humility as a species if we are ever going to overcome our limitations.
- thelock85 11y ago
  > a realization of what our limitations as people are and an understanding about how we might be able to build intelligent systems that can surpass these. I wish it was this way but in my experience, technologists are creating great/novel technology for the sake being able to create great/novel technology, instead of thoughtfully designing systems that consider consequences beyond a high-growth business model (if any). I agree it's not arrogance but also it's hard to pass of as humility; rather, it seems to be a limitation of wisdom which is hardly unique to SV.
  - ewzimm 11y ago
    I do think there are plenty of people who just enjoy creating things, but I've heard and read plenty of thoughtful consideration of the consequences too. The problem is that it's almost impossible to predict the full consequences of transforming society to the extent that the progress of technology does. We can only try things in limited settings and see how they work. The idea of the basic income is to give us more room to experiment without having to worry about the financial viability of each experiment. It certainly doesn't mean those experiments aren't worthwhile or useful, just that sometimes what makes money isn't the same as what needs to be done.

Scea91 11y ago

No I don't believe that the correlation goes the other way. I think that people knowleadgeable of logic, problem solving, statistics and other things are very capable of understanding society. Maybe they are sometimes more technical than emotional but in the end it is a good thing. Good decision can't be based solely on emotion.

chemmefatale 11y ago

And venture capitalists should not be at the forefront of social change either. That is why we have organizations like the DOE, NIH, and NSF for basic research. I can not imagine how many socially important projects would be scrapped now because they did not meet profitability goals.