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That's a disingenuous attack on Silicon Valley. At a technical level, Silicon Valley is merely a geographical location. Anyone can move there. Anyone can invest
by whack 11y ago
That's a disingenuous attack on Silicon Valley. At a technical level, Silicon Valley is merely a geographical location. Anyone can move there. Anyone can invest money in anyone they want to. If some guy from NYC moved to SV tomorrow, and invested in a company that makes the world a worse place, how is it fair to blame the 'Silicon Valley" for that?
When the author says "Don't blame Silicon Valley," he's not referring to the geographical location. He's referring to the culture and ecosystem. That's an important distinction to make. If you feel that the SV culture and ecosystem are indeed to blame for Theranos, you need to show that Theranos has strong ties to players who are a central part of the SV culture and ecosystem. This is surely a nebulous and subjective term, but that doesn't make it any less important. It makes no sense to blame SV culture for something, if the only players involved are fringe players in the ecosystem.
- forgotpwtomain 11y agoWhat the OP is referring to is exactly the kind of argument you are making* - since you can always scope the culture and ecosystem to exclude the kind of people that should be blamed for X. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
- whack 11y agoAgain, you haven't addressed any of the things I said at all. If you have a couple of people whom you know to be at-fault, and you want to indict the broader SV culture/eco-system to be at-fault, you need to show that those people are emblematic of the SV culture/eco-system. The NYT author has taken a reasonable stab at refuting that assertion. I'd love to see you make a similarly credible assertion, before expecting anyone to take you seriously. Yes, such an argument is subjective in nature, but so are many important things in life which can't simply be ignored because they are subjective. Your assertion that SV culture is at fault, just because person X did something wrong and person X lives in SV, is absurd. By that same argument, if some NYC billionaire were to move to SV today, and bankrolls some company founded by another NYC guy who just moved to SV and proceeds to engage in unethical behavior, it would be a damning indictment of SV culture. Such an argument is patently absurd and violates all common sense.
- CPLX 11y ago> It makes no sense to blame SV culture for something, if the only players involved are fringe players in the ecosystem. Tim Draper is not a fringe player.