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But that's what I'm speaking of: an inherent bias. Silicon Valley has this notion that one can replace hundreds, thousands, or millions of people with "short s

by kefka 11y ago

But that's what I'm speaking of: an inherent bias. Silicon Valley has this notion that one can replace hundreds, thousands, or millions of people with "short shell scripts". The base idea is something I'm OK with. However, with no social support structure in place, the ideas/implementations of Silicon Valley (and VC culture) seek to destroy people and families. No jobs == no money. No money == homeless, foodless, resourceless. A great problem child is Uber. They destroy what little protections employees have, by refusing to have "employees". Powerless people either work for peanuts, or not work at all. They certainly won't sue. And Uber's end-game is "disenfranchise all workers by investing in automatic transportation via autonomous vehicles". That's the kind of endgames Silicon Valley thinks of. And that's frankly terrifying : "Be a serf until we no longer need you" And, one can have the understood mindset of Silicon Valley and the VCs, and yet not live there. I know of those whom live in Chicago, New York City, parts of the Eastern Seabed in decent proximity of DC, London, and others whom share these notions. The thing missing from the 'Valley speak is there is no discourse on how to handle everyone when nobody needs to work. That discussion is (not so) mysteriously left out.

dang 11y ago
> The thing missing from the 'Valley speak is there is no discourse on how to handle everyone when nobody needs to work. That discussion is (not so) mysteriously left out. Here's an example of what I mean that some of these perceptions are imaginary. In fact what you describe is a hot topic of discussion in SV as in other places; YC Research is funding an experiment in Basic Income; and so on.
- kefka 11y ago
  I held off responding because I wasn't aware of this. I needed to research after your mentioning involvement in UBI research. Yes, my views of SV are shaped by internet media, business acquisition coverage, comments here at YC news, and conventions I attend. So no, I don't live in the 'Valley per se, but have at least some understanding of it. If I cite correctly, I found these as the UBI discussions YC is funding? https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982340 http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056510/why-silicon-valleys-leading-startup-incubator-wants-to-research-basic-income http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056510/why-silicon-valleys-leadi... http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/27/technology/y-combinator-basic-income-research/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/27/technology/y-combinator-basi... So, yes, it does seem that YC is continuing the underlying research on what it would take to implement UBI. That's awesome! Unfortunately, the negative comments towards "Silicon Valley and the VCs" was that: a larger discussion. I'm not meaning this to be a "YC sux" kind of discussion. That goes nowhere. I'm sincerely glad you (and YC) are getting into this tough area. But you seem rather alone in that regard. The Guardian puts it well, with this article (Feb 2016): http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/28/silicon-valley-basic-income http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/28/silicon... So, to keep this constructive, what can the members of the (tech enlightened) public do to help? Have other organizations (for and non-profit) entered into talks to assist with your UBI research?
DanBC 11y ago
There are plenty of people on HN who criticise Uber and AirBnB.
- kefka 11y ago
  Of course, DanBC. But questioning the inherent biases (and actions) of Silicon Valley are verboten. It's a sacred cow, in to the point I'm not even allowed to discuss these areas. And perhaps Uber was a good and bad idea both. There's hundreds of these companies that seek to "disrupt" whatever. The problem with these "disrupters" is that they also cause great problems... but those areas aren't explored because they are externalities. Outside the business interests; out of scope; government's problem; should have did it better; less interference... We've heard these as responses when individual areas are questioned. The other part of highlighting inherent bias with regards to Silicon Valley (and VCs), is that areas like Hacker News punish you for non-groupthink. The more karma per recent post, the more you can post. If you have a contentious, but well thought out argument/discussion but yet against popular opinion here, you are modded down, and therefore silenced with "you're submitting too fast". There is no distinction between someone who is against the public opinion here, and that of a troll or regular crapflooder. I'd like to think there is a huge difference, but a -1 is a -1. The repercussions remain the same. Maybe it's what Dang and other admins want. I don't know. Although I think it is of utmost importance to understand ones own biases. Knowing how your and others biases interact can be very useful, especially in business and enterprise.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > The other part of highlighting inherent bias with regards to Silicon Valley (and VCs), is that areas like Hacker News punish you for non-groupthink. The more karma per recent post, the more you can post. If you have a contentious, but well thought out argument/discussion but yet against popular opinion here, you are modded down, and therefore silenced with "you're submitting too fast". There is no distinction between someone who is against the public opinion here, and that of a troll or regular crapflooder. I'd like to think there is a huge difference, but a -1 is a -1. The repercussions remain the same. I agree with you here. People who get flagged and downvoted for reasonable opinions should not be caught up in rate-limiting, and that seems to happen a bit too much. For what it's worth you can try asking dang to remove the rate limiting if you're caught by it.
narrowrail 11y ago
>there is no discourse on how to handle everyone when nobody needs to work. It seems like you are suggesting that we have not had numerous discussions about a 'Universal Basic Income' on HN? I'm pretty sure that there is a thread/wk on HN about that very topic.
- kefka 11y ago
  Those two issues are orthogonal to each other. On some plane of understanding, business executives understand that lack of money makes commerce grind to a halt. It's a form of tragedy of the commons, in monetary philosophy. Henry Ford understood this concept; it's why he paid his people well to make cars... which his workers bought. > there is no discourse on how to handle everyone when nobody needs to work. I was in haste in that sentence. Things like UBI are being discussed. However, the flip-side is the actual actions that grind down the worker to a 'nothing': robotic/computer work is ideal for every job, to the minds of the Silicon Valley exec. UBI/Minimum Income: It's been given a many great names through the years. But it's understood as a way for everyone to receive the basic necessities of life, plus a bit more. But this idea requires buy-in of the population at large. Or at least, buy in from the "rich" ( https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig?t=12 https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig?t=12 ) The problem with Silicon Valley is that they have an assumption this either this already exists somehow, or it will magically appear. What instead happens, is that people lose jobs, wages are forced yet lower and lower, and the human is removed carte blanche in the favor of unpaid robotic labor. On an individual company level, this helps the bottom line of the company (race to the bottom). However, when this idea is expanded to wider and wider areas, it gentrifies the owner class away from everyone else. For in that eventuality, not even upper class jobs exist. I do not argue that column lines or minutes/week are not given to the idea of UBI. A simple HNsearch query shows that. But I do, and have argued, that SV culture seeks to an absolute minima of nobody working except the owners and, nobody getting paid except for the owners. This, given enough iterations, leads to economic slowdown and disenfranchisement. As closing questions: What happens when these wheels of extreme automation are turned within the current iteration of government? What happens when we get 50% unemployment? 75%? 95% (nobody working except owners)? Do you think Marshall Brain's idea of Manna is possible or likely?

by kefka 11y ago

dang 11y ago

> The thing missing from the 'Valley speak is there is no discourse on how to handle everyone when nobody needs to work. That discussion is (not so) mysteriously left out. Here's an example of what I mean that some of these perceptions are imaginary. In fact what you describe is a hot topic of discussion in SV as in other places; YC Research is funding an experiment in Basic Income; and so on.

kefka 11y ago
I held off responding because I wasn't aware of this. I needed to research after your mentioning involvement in UBI research. Yes, my views of SV are shaped by internet media, business acquisition coverage, comments here at YC news, and conventions I attend. So no, I don't live in the 'Valley per se, but have at least some understanding of it. If I cite correctly, I found these as the UBI discussions YC is funding? https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982340 http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056510/why-silicon-valleys-leading-startup-incubator-wants-to-research-basic-income http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056510/why-silicon-valleys-leadi... http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/27/technology/y-combinator-basic-income-research/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/27/technology/y-combinator-basi... So, yes, it does seem that YC is continuing the underlying research on what it would take to implement UBI. That's awesome! Unfortunately, the negative comments towards "Silicon Valley and the VCs" was that: a larger discussion. I'm not meaning this to be a "YC sux" kind of discussion. That goes nowhere. I'm sincerely glad you (and YC) are getting into this tough area. But you seem rather alone in that regard. The Guardian puts it well, with this article (Feb 2016): http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/28/silicon-valley-basic-income http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/28/silicon... So, to keep this constructive, what can the members of the (tech enlightened) public do to help? Have other organizations (for and non-profit) entered into talks to assist with your UBI research?

DanBC 11y ago

There are plenty of people on HN who criticise Uber and AirBnB.

kefka 11y ago
Of course, DanBC. But questioning the inherent biases (and actions) of Silicon Valley are verboten. It's a sacred cow, in to the point I'm not even allowed to discuss these areas. And perhaps Uber was a good and bad idea both. There's hundreds of these companies that seek to "disrupt" whatever. The problem with these "disrupters" is that they also cause great problems... but those areas aren't explored because they are externalities. Outside the business interests; out of scope; government's problem; should have did it better; less interference... We've heard these as responses when individual areas are questioned. The other part of highlighting inherent bias with regards to Silicon Valley (and VCs), is that areas like Hacker News punish you for non-groupthink. The more karma per recent post, the more you can post. If you have a contentious, but well thought out argument/discussion but yet against popular opinion here, you are modded down, and therefore silenced with "you're submitting too fast". There is no distinction between someone who is against the public opinion here, and that of a troll or regular crapflooder. I'd like to think there is a huge difference, but a -1 is a -1. The repercussions remain the same. Maybe it's what Dang and other admins want. I don't know. Although I think it is of utmost importance to understand ones own biases. Knowing how your and others biases interact can be very useful, especially in business and enterprise.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > The other part of highlighting inherent bias with regards to Silicon Valley (and VCs), is that areas like Hacker News punish you for non-groupthink. The more karma per recent post, the more you can post. If you have a contentious, but well thought out argument/discussion but yet against popular opinion here, you are modded down, and therefore silenced with "you're submitting too fast". There is no distinction between someone who is against the public opinion here, and that of a troll or regular crapflooder. I'd like to think there is a huge difference, but a -1 is a -1. The repercussions remain the same. I agree with you here. People who get flagged and downvoted for reasonable opinions should not be caught up in rate-limiting, and that seems to happen a bit too much. For what it's worth you can try asking dang to remove the rate limiting if you're caught by it.

narrowrail 11y ago

>there is no discourse on how to handle everyone when nobody needs to work. It seems like you are suggesting that we have not had numerous discussions about a 'Universal Basic Income' on HN? I'm pretty sure that there is a thread/wk on HN about that very topic.

kefka 11y ago
Those two issues are orthogonal to each other. On some plane of understanding, business executives understand that lack of money makes commerce grind to a halt. It's a form of tragedy of the commons, in monetary philosophy. Henry Ford understood this concept; it's why he paid his people well to make cars... which his workers bought. > there is no discourse on how to handle everyone when nobody needs to work. I was in haste in that sentence. Things like UBI are being discussed. However, the flip-side is the actual actions that grind down the worker to a 'nothing': robotic/computer work is ideal for every job, to the minds of the Silicon Valley exec. UBI/Minimum Income: It's been given a many great names through the years. But it's understood as a way for everyone to receive the basic necessities of life, plus a bit more. But this idea requires buy-in of the population at large. Or at least, buy in from the "rich" ( https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig?t=12 https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig?t=12 ) The problem with Silicon Valley is that they have an assumption this either this already exists somehow, or it will magically appear. What instead happens, is that people lose jobs, wages are forced yet lower and lower, and the human is removed carte blanche in the favor of unpaid robotic labor. On an individual company level, this helps the bottom line of the company (race to the bottom). However, when this idea is expanded to wider and wider areas, it gentrifies the owner class away from everyone else. For in that eventuality, not even upper class jobs exist. I do not argue that column lines or minutes/week are not given to the idea of UBI. A simple HNsearch query shows that. But I do, and have argued, that SV culture seeks to an absolute minima of nobody working except the owners and, nobody getting paid except for the owners. This, given enough iterations, leads to economic slowdown and disenfranchisement. As closing questions: What happens when these wheels of extreme automation are turned within the current iteration of government? What happens when we get 50% unemployment? 75%? 95% (nobody working except owners)? Do you think Marshall Brain's idea of Manna is possible or likely?