a place increasingly devoid of the idiosyncrasy, the complexity, the opportunity, and the roiling excitement that make a city great These are the consequences

a place increasingly devoid of the idiosyncrasy, the complexity, the opportunity, and the roiling excitement that make a city great These are the consequences of the confluence of money and the intervention of power. Idiosyncrasy, complexity, and opportunity arise from "The Bazaar." The combination of concentrated money and authoritarian government strive for "The Cathedral." This is factor #1. Factor #2: You can only have "The Power of the Marginal" when you have a substrate which lets marginalized groups carve out their own communities. Social media and the democratized organizational power of networks paradoxically work against this by enabling the most virulent and toxic elements of society to engage in campaigns of "soft terror" through moralistic name-calling and infiltration of subcultures. "The Power of the Marginal" has been replaced with "The Power to Marginalize." http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html (EDIT: If you want a society where you have "The Power of the Marginal," you want a "Live and Let Live" society. That is how you foster diversity. Back in my grad school days in a southern backwater in the mid 90's, the Hard Rock crew, Heavy Metal folks, Punks, Rude Boys/Rude Girls, Trad music folks, World music people, people into eastern religions, Orthodox Christians, "College Alternative," people with pimped-out Harley bikes, bible thumping "local-missionaries," atheists, art school types -- we hung out with each other, sometimes went to the same cafes and clubs, and even had healthy arguments. If you want diversity, you need a "live and let live" attitude. It was easy then and there, because we were all marginalized together, united against the mainstream, and if we didn't coexist, there would be no place at all for us to hang out. Today, things have changed so that certain factions of the formerly marginalized now have access to tremendous power. As always, power corrupts. As everyone's reach has been extended, the reach of the most toxic has also been extended. We no longer live in a "Live and Let Live" society. Some of this has been positive. I'm not so sure about the overall cost/benefit, however. Short term security isn't worth the price of long term freedom.)