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I think there is a growing sentiment of disdain of Silicon Valley and tech in general. And I can see why, and it is getting more and more justified. As this ar

I think there is a growing sentiment of disdain of Silicon Valley and tech in general. And I can see why, and it is getting more and more justified. As this article states, that arrogance to think that everything should/can be "disrupted". Usually the argument for disruption is always around another version of "making the world a better place", while it is very clear that the main motivation is to make a couple tech CEOs and tech workers even richer.

jrs95 8y ago
There’s sort of an assumption that the status quo is some how morally superior though. And you have to keep in mind that journalists are a part of that status quo. We have one group of elites and their spokespeople bitching about the newcomer. Personally I’d take the tech douche over the academic or the bureaucrat.
- ironjunkie 8y ago
  There is a lot of value in introducing new valid useful ideas. This is what Silicon Valley did 20 years ago. Now, the way a lot of people see it is as a set of elite smug overly-paid tech bros arrogantly trying to change every single unneeded part of life by "disrupting it". Which usually translates into yet another stupid useless app on your smartphone to order pizza.
  - jrs95 8y ago
    You’re really throwing the baby out with the bath water here, though. And you have to focus on either straw men or specific anecdotes of “disruption” in order to paint this negative overall picture. In the case of yet another app to order pizza...if nobody uses it or cares about it, then who gives a fuck? “We should be hostile to people who are in the business of creating technology because they might make something nobody wants to buy” does not make sense. Sure, maybe they’re smug and elitist idiots doing this stuff. But does it matter? And who is it that’s so interested in maligning tech as a whole? It’s their competitors in trying to accumulate wealth and power. Who, for what it’s worth, are even smugger and more elitist. Overall, my opinion of this article is that it’s too narrowly focused and while it’s opinionated it’s also shallow. This is all typical of media now though. Ultimately this is part of a larger political context, and I think the underlying motivation for this articles and others like it is no different from Alexandra Pelosi’s “San Francisco 2.0”.
ianai 8y ago
Ime, the “disrupted” products I’ve purchased were way over priced and fragile or worthless. Not just from amazon either. Oh and of course they come with daily spam.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Don’t forget they also phone home with too much data about you and try to second guess you. I’m about ready to throw away my “smart” thermostat and replace it with a model from the 1980s with a dial that stays where I set it and no unnecessary internet connectivity.
  - mmt 8y ago
    After trying a couple of the other "internet" thermostats (not Nest, though, that was too obviously creepy), I ended up springing for a Proliphix IMT550c, which I had to wait for a while to show up on eBay, since they stopped selling direct to consumers quite a while back. It's not exactly open, but it's reasonably hackable, and works just fine with no direct access to the Internet. I've never tried the wifi model (replace the "c" in the model with a "w", IIRC), since avoiding wireless issues was part of what drove me to this model in the first place. Security's almost completely absent, so you'd want to keep it on an isolated network with no direct Internet access, anyway.
PretzelFisch 8y ago
This isn't an SV thing, This is the political mindset of those that oppose government services.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

jrs95 8y ago

There’s sort of an assumption that the status quo is some how morally superior though. And you have to keep in mind that journalists are a part of that status quo. We have one group of elites and their spokespeople bitching about the newcomer. Personally I’d take the tech douche over the academic or the bureaucrat.

ironjunkie 8y ago
There is a lot of value in introducing new valid useful ideas. This is what Silicon Valley did 20 years ago. Now, the way a lot of people see it is as a set of elite smug overly-paid tech bros arrogantly trying to change every single unneeded part of life by "disrupting it". Which usually translates into yet another stupid useless app on your smartphone to order pizza.
- jrs95 8y ago
  You’re really throwing the baby out with the bath water here, though. And you have to focus on either straw men or specific anecdotes of “disruption” in order to paint this negative overall picture. In the case of yet another app to order pizza...if nobody uses it or cares about it, then who gives a fuck? “We should be hostile to people who are in the business of creating technology because they might make something nobody wants to buy” does not make sense. Sure, maybe they’re smug and elitist idiots doing this stuff. But does it matter? And who is it that’s so interested in maligning tech as a whole? It’s their competitors in trying to accumulate wealth and power. Who, for what it’s worth, are even smugger and more elitist. Overall, my opinion of this article is that it’s too narrowly focused and while it’s opinionated it’s also shallow. This is all typical of media now though. Ultimately this is part of a larger political context, and I think the underlying motivation for this articles and others like it is no different from Alexandra Pelosi’s “San Francisco 2.0”.

ianai 8y ago

Ime, the “disrupted” products I’ve purchased were way over priced and fragile or worthless. Not just from amazon either. Oh and of course they come with daily spam.

ryandrake 8y ago
Don’t forget they also phone home with too much data about you and try to second guess you. I’m about ready to throw away my “smart” thermostat and replace it with a model from the 1980s with a dial that stays where I set it and no unnecessary internet connectivity.
- mmt 8y ago
  After trying a couple of the other "internet" thermostats (not Nest, though, that was too obviously creepy), I ended up springing for a Proliphix IMT550c, which I had to wait for a while to show up on eBay, since they stopped selling direct to consumers quite a while back. It's not exactly open, but it's reasonably hackable, and works just fine with no direct access to the Internet. I've never tried the wifi model (replace the "c" in the model with a "w", IIRC), since avoiding wireless issues was part of what drove me to this model in the first place. Security's almost completely absent, so you'd want to keep it on an isolated network with no direct Internet access, anyway.

PretzelFisch 8y ago

This isn't an SV thing, This is the political mindset of those that oppose government services.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]