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"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

"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 ago
Silicon Valley's politics, overall, lean towards being socially slightly-right-of-centre and fiscally almost libertarian, from the perspective of a Brit.
- Veen 10y ago
  Yeah, they're conservative like Thatcher was a conservative, not like William Buckley was a conservative.
- atemerev 10y ago
  That'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 ago
    Basic income as a way to shrink Government and get rid of all the bits that otherwise help people, might I point out.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    I 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.
  - valarauca1 10y ago
    (basic income, etc.), it's like Communist propaganda once again I don't think you really understand what Communism/Socialism is. Under these systems you have no right to private property. They are post-capitalistic. In Communism money doesn't exist. Communist Countries have been Socialist (example: U.S.S.R. United Soviet Socialist Republic). Socialism is the transfer from Capitalism TO Communism. Basic Income is just classical liberalism. Helping people survive who are under privileged within a capitalistic economy while leaving the existing capitalistic economy and power structures largely intact. Calling basic income communism is just GOP propaganda, not even libertarian propaganda. :.:.: Communists see Basic Income as a bourgeoisie hand out necessary to preserve existing class structures of a post scarcity capitalist society. By pacifying the proletariat and ensuring that in the event the bourgeoisie no longer require proletariat labor, they will still be able to exploit them for profit. But if there is no scarcity or labor, why must there be profit?
    - AdrianB1 10y ago
      I lived under communism for 17 years as I was born in such a country. I think you have a wrong idea about what communism was, I hope you will eventually try to find out and wake up.
      - valarauca1 10y ago
        I'm sorry you had to live thought the post Khrushchev era Soviet reforms. I'm also sorry that national propaganda taught you your nation was communist, and you haven't questioned this well into your adulthood. Have you seriously ever read Marx as an adult? Not under a teachers supervision? He disagrees with >75% of everything Stalin, and everyone who came after him did. A strong argument can even be made that Leninism is a fundamental diversion from Marxism. But (assuming you are European) non-Leninist communist literature was banned.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        > He disagrees with >75% of everything Stalin, and everyone who came after him did. The divergence actually goes back further than Stalin to Lenin and his rather extensive deviations from classical Marxism to come up with a new program that could plausibly be deployed in a society that was itself pre-capitalist without developing mature capitalism on the road to the socialism that Marx saw as the necessary stage between capitalism and the end-state goal of utopian communism. Outside of the utopian ultimate end-state that both strove for in principle, this required complete revision of every part of the Marxist program starting with the preconditions and working through the whole rest of the policy path.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > SV political preferences are so far left (basic income, etc.) Basic income as an alternative to existing social welfare programs has a substantial amount of support on the right, particularly the libertarian right (and, likewise, a substantial amount of opposition from the left, particularly outside of the small left-libertarian segment, which is actually probably where the most fervent support for BI is), though the more extreme position of "no social support structure at all" is even more popular on the right (both libertarian and not). BI, IOW, is not a distinctively left-wing position. > One thing we all can agree it's radical. There's some support for truly radical (or reactionary) ideas in SV, but overall its not really "radical" except in being a radical break from the establishment orthodoxy of either the left or the right. SV, on the whole, is a weird mix of naivete and pragmatism when it comes to policy preferences, with some leanings (though perhaps not as strong as one would expect from the people making up SV) toward the self-interest of relatively wealthy white men.
  - bbctol 10y ago
    Basic income isn't far left under any definition. It isn't full-on libertarian either, but it's definitely to the right of organized welfare programs.
vhfjcnncndnc 10y ago
>SV is about as radical as you can get without losing touch with reality. Being outside of the SV bubble looking in, this is patently false. These companies make grandiose claims like "we're going to democratize the social web!" and "we're changing the world for good!" when this most often translates to "we're building a website that steals all of its users' personal information and sells it to the highest bidder!"
valarauca1 10y ago
Silicon Valley is not conservative in any sense of the word. SV is libertarian to radically libertarian on nearly all fiscal issues. They are left of center on some social issues. Yes SV is not GOP conservative. But it is nonetheless right of center. I really think you don't understand that libertarians can be liberal on social issues, while being conservative on social issues. This is still very right of center. Ultimately money has to be part of the equation for the vast majority of worthy causes. This is capitalist propaganda. Some problems require social change not economic, and they are worthy causes. Some worthy causes simply need legal changes. And if you think I'm just one of those greedy capitalists peddling propaganda The cognitive dissonance is real. I say this as someone who took a 60% pay cut in hopes of ultimately making more impact on the world. Doing what? Taking a pay cut to join a startup to change the world? The idea that not being paid what you are worth IS some how heroic is capitalist propaganda. The idea is to make you feel morally superior when being paid less, and guilty when being paid more.

vertex-four 10y ago

Silicon Valley's politics, overall, lean towards being socially slightly-right-of-centre and fiscally almost libertarian, from the perspective of a Brit.

Veen 10y ago
Yeah, they're conservative like Thatcher was a conservative, not like William Buckley was a conservative.
atemerev 10y ago
That'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 ago
  Basic income as a way to shrink Government and get rid of all the bits that otherwise help people, might I point out.
- pjc50 10y ago
  I 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.
- valarauca1 10y ago
  (basic income, etc.), it's like Communist propaganda once again I don't think you really understand what Communism/Socialism is. Under these systems you have no right to private property. They are post-capitalistic. In Communism money doesn't exist. Communist Countries have been Socialist (example: U.S.S.R. United Soviet Socialist Republic). Socialism is the transfer from Capitalism TO Communism. Basic Income is just classical liberalism. Helping people survive who are under privileged within a capitalistic economy while leaving the existing capitalistic economy and power structures largely intact. Calling basic income communism is just GOP propaganda, not even libertarian propaganda. :.:.: Communists see Basic Income as a bourgeoisie hand out necessary to preserve existing class structures of a post scarcity capitalist society. By pacifying the proletariat and ensuring that in the event the bourgeoisie no longer require proletariat labor, they will still be able to exploit them for profit. But if there is no scarcity or labor, why must there be profit?
  - AdrianB1 10y ago
    I lived under communism for 17 years as I was born in such a country. I think you have a wrong idea about what communism was, I hope you will eventually try to find out and wake up.
    - valarauca1 10y ago
      I'm sorry you had to live thought the post Khrushchev era Soviet reforms. I'm also sorry that national propaganda taught you your nation was communist, and you haven't questioned this well into your adulthood. Have you seriously ever read Marx as an adult? Not under a teachers supervision? He disagrees with >75% of everything Stalin, and everyone who came after him did. A strong argument can even be made that Leninism is a fundamental diversion from Marxism. But (assuming you are European) non-Leninist communist literature was banned.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > He disagrees with >75% of everything Stalin, and everyone who came after him did. The divergence actually goes back further than Stalin to Lenin and his rather extensive deviations from classical Marxism to come up with a new program that could plausibly be deployed in a society that was itself pre-capitalist without developing mature capitalism on the road to the socialism that Marx saw as the necessary stage between capitalism and the end-state goal of utopian communism. Outside of the utopian ultimate end-state that both strove for in principle, this required complete revision of every part of the Marxist program starting with the preconditions and working through the whole rest of the policy path.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > SV political preferences are so far left (basic income, etc.) Basic income as an alternative to existing social welfare programs has a substantial amount of support on the right, particularly the libertarian right (and, likewise, a substantial amount of opposition from the left, particularly outside of the small left-libertarian segment, which is actually probably where the most fervent support for BI is), though the more extreme position of "no social support structure at all" is even more popular on the right (both libertarian and not). BI, IOW, is not a distinctively left-wing position. > One thing we all can agree it's radical. There's some support for truly radical (or reactionary) ideas in SV, but overall its not really "radical" except in being a radical break from the establishment orthodoxy of either the left or the right. SV, on the whole, is a weird mix of naivete and pragmatism when it comes to policy preferences, with some leanings (though perhaps not as strong as one would expect from the people making up SV) toward the self-interest of relatively wealthy white men.
- bbctol 10y ago
  Basic income isn't far left under any definition. It isn't full-on libertarian either, but it's definitely to the right of organized welfare programs.

vhfjcnncndnc 10y ago

>SV is about as radical as you can get without losing touch with reality. Being outside of the SV bubble looking in, this is patently false. These companies make grandiose claims like "we're going to democratize the social web!" and "we're changing the world for good!" when this most often translates to "we're building a website that steals all of its users' personal information and sells it to the highest bidder!"

valarauca1 10y ago

Silicon Valley is not conservative in any sense of the word. SV is libertarian to radically libertarian on nearly all fiscal issues. They are left of center on some social issues. Yes SV is not GOP conservative. But it is nonetheless right of center. I really think you don't understand that libertarians can be liberal on social issues, while being conservative on social issues. This is still very right of center. Ultimately money has to be part of the equation for the vast majority of worthy causes. This is capitalist propaganda. Some problems require social change not economic, and they are worthy causes. Some worthy causes simply need legal changes. And if you think I'm just one of those greedy capitalists peddling propaganda The cognitive dissonance is real. I say this as someone who took a 60% pay cut in hopes of ultimately making more impact on the world. Doing what? Taking a pay cut to join a startup to change the world? The idea that not being paid what you are worth IS some how heroic is capitalist propaganda. The idea is to make you feel morally superior when being paid less, and guilty when being paid more.