>So first he's criticizing techies for not fixing the pathologies of Oakland. Then he's saying these problems are rightly the domain of politics. So what's the

>So first he's criticizing techies for not fixing the pathologies of Oakland. Then he's saying these problems are rightly the domain of politics. So what's the problem? Those are political problems, should be left to politicians, and techies are doing exactly that. No, he’s saying that techies should not be separate from the political process. Techies, as a general rule, do not like politics. Here is a problem, here is a solution, implement, boom, done. Next problem. Politics is so much arguing and posturing and creating compromises that benefit nobody, just because somebody is passionately mistaken about something. Google famously did not fund a lot of lobbying in Washington until Microsoft pushed a bunch of anti-trust regulators at them. Now Google is one of the major organizations in Washington. Sadly for San Francisco politics, a huge proportion of the techies are not allowed to participate, because they are not US citizens, and the self-inflicted harms of 9/11 are keeping a bunch of my coworkers from even getting green cards.