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Is this a case of emphasizing aspects of each environment based on some kind of personal bias? The article describes a lack of moral compass in Silicon Valley

by daemonk 10y ago

Is this a case of emphasizing aspects of each environment based on some kind of personal bias? The article describes a lack of moral compass in Silicon Valley and an enriching hacker spirit in Beijing. What about the other way around? If you apply a standard of morality to Beijing, is it better or worse? If you judge the hacker spirit of Silicon Valley, is it better or worse? Are you holding Beijing up to less scrutiny compared to Silicon Valley? This is a genuine question. I haven't lived in either places, so I really can't say.

mathattack 10y ago
Entrepreneurs are very positive people by nature. As a result we accentuate the positive. It comes from the same place as, "Come work for me - we're going to disrupt this industry! Please don't look at the legacy code in the corner." (And I mean this in a good way) There's a large group of "grass is greener" people, but they're not starting companies or moving to Beijing to write about it. They work at the cable company in the middle of nowhere.
TorKlingberg 10y ago
I enjoyed reading the article, and I must assume the author is very good at Chinese language and culture if can run a startup there. That said, people seem to find it easier to ignore social issues in a culture very different from their own. For a European, the problems in SF fit a familiar pattern and you can pick up a local paper and read all about them. In an Asian country the social situation is different enough that it doesn't trigger your moral unease. Also very very few westerners can just pick up a Chinese newspaper and casually read it. So even ignoring censorship, you are shielded from the problems and conflicts of locals that you don't directly meet and talk to.
analyst74 10y ago
One's view of a place depends highly on which circles he or she belongs to. There are definitely a lot of corruption and bad things happening in Beijing, but in some circles, like ones the author experiences, people are apparently more up to doing good. This is definitely a naive view of Beijing, but if you look past the generalization, it shows a rarely exposed part of Beijing and highlighted some problems in the Valley.

by daemonk 10y ago

mathattack 10y ago

Entrepreneurs are very positive people by nature. As a result we accentuate the positive. It comes from the same place as, "Come work for me - we're going to disrupt this industry! Please don't look at the legacy code in the corner." (And I mean this in a good way) There's a large group of "grass is greener" people, but they're not starting companies or moving to Beijing to write about it. They work at the cable company in the middle of nowhere.

TorKlingberg 10y ago

I enjoyed reading the article, and I must assume the author is very good at Chinese language and culture if can run a startup there. That said, people seem to find it easier to ignore social issues in a culture very different from their own. For a European, the problems in SF fit a familiar pattern and you can pick up a local paper and read all about them. In an Asian country the social situation is different enough that it doesn't trigger your moral unease. Also very very few westerners can just pick up a Chinese newspaper and casually read it. So even ignoring censorship, you are shielded from the problems and conflicts of locals that you don't directly meet and talk to.

analyst74 10y ago

One's view of a place depends highly on which circles he or she belongs to. There are definitely a lot of corruption and bad things happening in Beijing, but in some circles, like ones the author experiences, people are apparently more up to doing good. This is definitely a naive view of Beijing, but if you look past the generalization, it shows a rarely exposed part of Beijing and highlighted some problems in the Valley.