6 ms·

The author danced around but missed the detached, holier-than-thou elitism that radiates from the entire Bay Area.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
That's like saying an atom bomb produces a warm glow.
CalChris 9y ago
There's a huge difference between being elite (we are and I sure am) and elitism. In fact the author stabs at the heart of Silicon Valley elitism: Your ideas are only as good as the people in the room. And your door is shut to most people.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I don't think I've ever heard someone call themselves elite outside of a gaming session. You should probably use the numbers 1337 though. Wouldn't calling yourself elite, seemingly unaware of what that projects to people count as elitism?
  - CalChris 9y ago
    If Michael Jordan calls himself elite, is he an elitist? If a quite successful Valley engineer calls himself elite, am I an elitist? These are different words. Populists will call SV elitist. That doesn't make them right.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      That's kinda the point. I don't believe MJ ever called himself elite. He didn't really need to, did he?
      - CalChris 9y ago
        He did. He may have never used that word but he was the biggest trash talker. At the Olympic workouts there was an All Star's All Star game and afterward he told Magic Johnson there was new sheriff in town. http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-johnson-trash-talking-michael-jordan-story-2016-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-johnson-trash-talking-m... Elitism is a self-protecting cabal. SV doesn't really do that. That's the point of disruptive technology. You're disrupting an existing order. That's anti-elitist.
        Clubber 9y ago
        So, for one, he said that in private, you called yourself elite on a public form. Two, that's MJ, are you saying you're the MJ of SV software engineers? (please do, that would be hysterical).
        CalChris 9y ago
        Really.
        l33tbro 9y ago
        “I am completely an elitist in the cultural but emphatically not the social sense. I prefer the good to the bad, the articulate to the mumbling, the aesthetically developed to the merely primitive, and full to partial consciousness. I love the spectacle of skill, whether it's an expert gardener at work or a good carpenter chopping dovetails. I don't think stupid or ill-read people are as good to be with as wise and fully literate ones. I would rather watch a great tennis player than a mediocre one, unless the latter is a friend or a relative. Consequently, most of the human race doesn't matter much to me, outside the normal and necessary frame of courtesy and the obligation to respect human rights. I see no reason to squirm around apologizing for this. I am, after all, a cultural critic, and my main job is to distinguish the good from the second-rate, pretentious, sentimental, and boring stuff that saturates culture today, more (perhaps) than it ever has.” - Robert Hughes.

That's like saying an atom bomb produces a warm glow.

There's a huge difference between being elite (we are and I sure am) and elitism. In fact the author stabs at the heart of Silicon Valley elitism: Your ideas are only as good as the people in the room. And your door is shut to most people.

Clubber 9y ago
I don't think I've ever heard someone call themselves elite outside of a gaming session. You should probably use the numbers 1337 though. Wouldn't calling yourself elite, seemingly unaware of what that projects to people count as elitism?
- CalChris 9y ago
  If Michael Jordan calls himself elite, is he an elitist? If a quite successful Valley engineer calls himself elite, am I an elitist? These are different words. Populists will call SV elitist. That doesn't make them right.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    That's kinda the point. I don't believe MJ ever called himself elite. He didn't really need to, did he?
    - CalChris 9y ago
      He did. He may have never used that word but he was the biggest trash talker. At the Olympic workouts there was an All Star's All Star game and afterward he told Magic Johnson there was new sheriff in town. http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-johnson-trash-talking-michael-jordan-story-2016-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-johnson-trash-talking-m... Elitism is a self-protecting cabal. SV doesn't really do that. That's the point of disruptive technology. You're disrupting an existing order. That's anti-elitist.
      - Clubber 9y ago
        So, for one, he said that in private, you called yourself elite on a public form. Two, that's MJ, are you saying you're the MJ of SV software engineers? (please do, that would be hysterical).
        CalChris 9y ago
        Really.
      - l33tbro 9y ago
        “I am completely an elitist in the cultural but emphatically not the social sense. I prefer the good to the bad, the articulate to the mumbling, the aesthetically developed to the merely primitive, and full to partial consciousness. I love the spectacle of skill, whether it's an expert gardener at work or a good carpenter chopping dovetails. I don't think stupid or ill-read people are as good to be with as wise and fully literate ones. I would rather watch a great tennis player than a mediocre one, unless the latter is a friend or a relative. Consequently, most of the human race doesn't matter much to me, outside the normal and necessary frame of courtesy and the obligation to respect human rights. I see no reason to squirm around apologizing for this. I am, after all, a cultural critic, and my main job is to distinguish the good from the second-rate, pretentious, sentimental, and boring stuff that saturates culture today, more (perhaps) than it ever has.” - Robert Hughes.