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Silicon Valley wants to trick us into thinking capitalism is revolutionary
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jasonkostempski 10y agoThis article is 100% lies https://amzn.com/B00E1HIX66 https://amzn.com/B00E1HIX66
- intro-b 10y agothank you i've always wanted to order the audio cassette to the 1997 hit film "Good Burger"
- jasonkostempski 10y agoThe DVD was my point, the audio cassette is over $10. Is the whole world blind to good deals?
- kelukelugames 10y agoWhen a startup can't pay you real money, we have to convince you it's revolutionary.
- pc86 10y agos/can't/won't/g
- anotherarray 10y agoCapitalism isn't revolutionary or creative. It is destructive. It's not shiny or different - it doesn't have to. As long as it makes X more productive, it will help people in the long-term.
- bpolverini 10y agoThe personification of "Silicon Valley" into some giant evil blob-like entity attempting to consume innocent, creative counter-revolutionaries undermines a perfectly awesome, but 100% non-unique to SV opinion: Technologists (and any industry with any modicum of power) can suffer from a bad case of hubris. Is creative destruction real and good (most of the time)? Yes. Is your startup selling SGaaS (scuba gear as a service) going to radically impact the disinherited and the poor? No. Is there anything new under the sun? Still, the criticism of the author is received: More humility from the collective "we" of SV wouldn't hurt.
- nibs 10y agoI think the hubris is a necessary protection mechanism for the fact that without arrogance and conviction no progress would ever happen. Reasonable people get convinced not to rock the boat. Only unreasonable people ignore that "good" advice and fuck shit up for the benefit (or sometimes detriment, or sometimes both) of society.
- idlewords 10y agoSilicon valley entreprenerds are top-notch conformists. The fact that they're conforming to a culture that puts value on arrogance, megalomania, or "rocking the boat" doesn't make them agents of progress, any more than being a goth kid who hangs out at the Cinnabon threatens middle-class values.
- smallnamespace 10y agoYou could say the same thing for every revolutionary ever. Gavrilo Princip was just some angsty kid who wanted to fit in with his fellow revolutionaries. He still succeeded at starting a world war. Every organization is composed mainly of followers, even ones that have recognizably brought progress to our world.
- idlewords 10y agoI don't think Gavrilo Princip is a great role model.
- zeveb 10y agoIn a world where technical & economic progress are artificially retarded by statist regulation, capitalism is revolutionary. What makes me sad is to think about how much improvement we'd see if all technologies were as free as software (it also scares me to imagine what civil engineering would be like were it as free as software — obviously not all regulations are bad). Granted, I think it's a little twee when folks claim (to use the article's example) that they are 'building the restaurant of the future,' but that's harmless enough.
- idlewords 10y agoCapitalism can only exist within a framework of "statist regulation". Complaining about it is like a goldfish being angry that there are aquarium walls. You can argue that the aquarium is the wrong shape, or the castle is the wrong color, but you would not like a world where there were no state-enforced rules.
- nilved 10y ago> Capitalism can only exist within a framework of "statist regulation". This isn't true at all. We had capitalism before we had states and regulation.
- theseatoms 10y agoThen what do you classify the enforcement of property rights as?
- mbostleman 10y agoPretty much every narrative in politics, entertainment, and marketing ignores the reality of economics for some imagined good deed(s).
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- thedevil 10y ago"the industry—despite its language of revolution—is quite conservative" This statement is crazy and captures the folly of this article. Silicon Valley is not conservative in any sense of the word. SV is about as radical as you can get without losing touch with reality. The author seems to think that anything that touches money must be evil. But you can't make much positive impact on the world by sitting around a fire singing kumbaya. Ultimately money has to be part of the equation for the vast majority of worthy causes. And if you think I'm just one of those greedy capitalists peddling propaganda: I say this as someone who took a 60% pay cut in hopes of ultimately making more impact on the world.
- vertex-four 10y agoSilicon Valley's politics, overall, lean towards being socially slightly-right-of-centre and fiscally almost libertarian, from the perspective of a Brit.
- Veen 10y agoYeah, they're conservative like Thatcher was a conservative, not like William Buckley was a conservative.
- atemerev 10y agoThat's odd. From a perspective of an actual libertarian, SV political preferences are so far left (basic income, etc.), it's like Communist propaganda once again. One thing we all can agree it's radical.
- vertex-four 10y agoBasic income as a way to shrink Government and get rid of all the bits that otherwise help people, might I point out.
- pjc50 10y agoI don't think "SV" actually supports basic income, it just likes saying that it does. Whenever discussing what "SV" wants, we should try to distinguish whether we're talking about the leaders, venture capitalists, prominent opinion-formers etc versus trying to find an average of what the public in that area think. And there's an extreme diversity of views to average over.
- jondubois 10y agoCapitalism is built on hypocrisy and an illusion of justice (which most people believe). Those who obey the rules are at the bottom of society and those who break the rules (in clever ways) are at the top. I think that most of the people at the top are fundamentally evil but they genuinely think of themselves as benevolent. Companies continue to deliver growth by fostering a culture of hypocrisy and by shielding themselves from unpleasant ideas which would adversely affect their desire to keep growing. Most companies have negative side effects on society but no one involved wants to admit it (even to themselves).
- AdrianB1 10y agoEven Karl Marx had more arguments when stating something, you have absolutely none - just statements. This is not a discussion, it is propaganda.
- jondubois 10y agoI'm just giving my opinion of how I think society works. Not saying that communism would be better.
- talmand 10y ago>> Those who obey the rules are at the bottom of society and those who break the rules (in clever ways) are at the top. This is not exclusive to capitalism. It actually goes against the basic idea of a free market.
- Kalium 10y agoThe form of this article is familiar. It laments hubris, asserts the power of some, and engages in a litany of evils. In that order. Capitalism isn't revolutionary. But looking to the corporate world to solve all your social problems might be.
- jesuslop 10y agohow can capitalism be revolutionary if it is older than people exchanging corn for goats?
- nitwit005 10y agoHere's something from the "About us" page of the company that made my toaster: http://www.bellahousewares.com/img/home/side.png http://www.bellahousewares.com/img/home/side.png Companies pretty much all say the same things about themselves, inside of SV or out. It's just whatever happens to be the marketing buzzwords of today.
- eveningcoffee 10y agoPlease be careful with your bold toaster.
- saturdaysaint 10y agoMy feeling is that we've barely started to grips with any of the consequences of any of the (Silicon Valley-originated) digital services we use. Where would you even begin to study how ever present access to information has changed life for most people? Who can say which technologies (or any technologies) have led to the decades-long cratering of crime rates? Really, how has Facebook changed our lives? How has Amazon changed cities? These are almost futile questions to seriously study, and the fact that they revolve around major corporate brands means that a lot of smart people (such as the author) mostly just roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders.
- kyledrake 10y ago"Yet the San Francisco of today is also strikingly different from the one my parents knew—and not just because I can’t find a single good burger under $10." I've never paid more than $10 for a good burger in San Francisco and if you spend a minute of work on it, you won't either. I wonder though if the burgers the author's parents knew would qualify for the author as "good". Lots of mom and pop diners throwing stuff together in the "rent is cheap" days, and that's still where you'll find the cheap burgers, if you don't mind them leaving off the truffle shavings.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- squozzer 10y agoSV's major fault lies in its overuse of hyperbole, which it uses to trick itself into thinking it's revolutionary. Isn't most of what we hear from SV just typical corporate bro-speak + double espresso? Dennis Miller once said that 95% of art is shit, 4% shit with an asterisk, but God bless the remaining 1%? That sums up what I see from SV pretty well.