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>Americans who once thought of Silicon Valley as a jewel of U.S. innovation are likely to turn against these companies if they see them as relentless political
by koboll 9y ago
>Americans who once thought of Silicon Valley as a jewel of U.S. innovation are likely to turn against these companies if they see them as relentless political enemies.
This is evidently false, since everyone knows the West Coast's political biases and everyone uses its tech products anyway.
- duxup 9y ago"everyone uses its tech products anyway" Is there another option? Simply... not?
- pentagonpapers 9y agoIf Mark zuckerberg ran for office on one party, I'm guessing it would impact the number of users in the opposition party
- RickS 9y agoAnother option is to politicize manufacturing. Take "Made in USA" vs "Made in China" and the connotations of those stickers in parts of working class america. The equivalent could be a right-leaning silicon valley in middle america making competing goods and services. I see firms like this from time to time (often veteran owned), but it's a bit surprising it hasn't cropped up more. If Thiel etc were really trying to play the long game and erode the cultural monopoly of the coastal elite, creating competing centers of competence seems like a good place to invest.
- thundergolfer 9y agoNo there's not really another option for conservatives if they don't want their everyday tech built by left and centre-left people. But the article says "turn against them". "turn against them" !== "stop using their products"
- duxup 9y agoThat would be kinda like opting out of the internet for the most part I would think.
- halflings 9y agoWhen these companies are making vastly superior products to the competition (if there's any), people are just making a rational choice. It doesn't mean that there's no hate for tech companies and the Silicon Valley... Just go read what Fox News commenters and Donald Trump supporters have to say about Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter, ... sometimes justified (Bezos owning the WaPo, Eric Schmidt being quite cozy with the DNC), sometimes just on the basis of a perceived liberal bias (e.g Google/YouTube often accused of unsubscribing people from conservative channels or hiding search results without any concrete proof).
- nerfhammer 9y agoAlso no one has stopped watching cable TV due to it being run largely by right-wing billionaires. Complain about it, yes, but actually change their behavior because of it? no. Same with tech products.
- vgf 9y agoThe companies used to mostly act in a nonpolitical way though, as the article notes. That has clearly changed.
- landryraccoon 9y agoI wouldn't be so assured of that. Thiel has a point that the situation can change very quickly. IMO it would be dangerously arrogant to assume that just because a state of affairs is just so, that it will always continue to be the case. We are speculating about future events after all.