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The whole paragraph is awful: > These “equity engineers,” as I’ll call them by one of their goals, cashing out, might have studied computer science in order to

The whole paragraph is awful: > These “equity engineers,” as I’ll call them by one of their goals, cashing out, might have studied computer science in order to solve problems, or to live a good life. It would be a caricature to say that these archetypes don’t care at all for politics, but their radicalism tends to be an inward-facing one, lured by technolibertarian fetishes such as blockchain. For this group, technology is politics, and seeing the two at odds becomes incoherent. It says that it's explicitly avoiding a caricature, but these people who just want to be paid to do work are still radicalized, technolibertarian fetishists for whom technology is politics. I hate this view of silicon valley and tech workers as characters you'd expect to see in a cyberpunk story, rather than, like, normal people who happen to live in the bay area and work with computers, or even alongside people who work with computers. Instead everyone has to be radicalized in some direction or another. If they don't appear to be radicalized, then "their radicalism [must] be an inward-facing one." That's not a caricature?

Avicebron 6y ago
I think because from an outside perspective, many seem to make caricatures of themselves as these massive intellectuals making more money than anyone else in the US while while engaging in some sort of futuristic fever dream of silicon, hallucinogens, and money. Not saying I particularly agree, but coming from a more traditional work background, seeing the ball pits/slides/wave pool college campus like billion dollar companies, hearing (probably exaggerated stories) of bizarre costume parties etc seems to be very much an isolated (radical) group. There is also the worship of billionaires and a dark dystopian vision of the future with the promotion of things like the gig economy, offshoring, and an internal class system in the companies of the "red badges" and the "brilliant engineers" I don't think it is a stretch to see this as a breeding ground for radical technolibertarianism. I mean, they made it, why can't everyone else?
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  Those folk do exist here, but they most definitely aren't the ones who are just here for a paycheck "to live a good life." Most people I know here are just like everyone I know elsewhere, except that their rent is higher, their houses smaller, and their paycheck larger. I've been working here in tech for over a decade now, ranging from the wildest tiny startups to big billion+ dollar public companies, and I've never worked anywhere with a ball pit, slides, or wave pools. They exist. They just aren't what most of us actually experience. Silent majority, I guess. Almost everyone I know here thinks the people and company practices you're describing are as crazy/dumb/awful as you do. Sorry, I just get really frustrated when the media labels the kookiest loudest of us as what Silicon Valley is. Especially when they're trying to describe the boring ones without caricatures.

Avicebron 6y ago

I think because from an outside perspective, many seem to make caricatures of themselves as these massive intellectuals making more money than anyone else in the US while while engaging in some sort of futuristic fever dream of silicon, hallucinogens, and money. Not saying I particularly agree, but coming from a more traditional work background, seeing the ball pits/slides/wave pool college campus like billion dollar companies, hearing (probably exaggerated stories) of bizarre costume parties etc seems to be very much an isolated (radical) group. There is also the worship of billionaires and a dark dystopian vision of the future with the promotion of things like the gig economy, offshoring, and an internal class system in the companies of the "red badges" and the "brilliant engineers" I don't think it is a stretch to see this as a breeding ground for radical technolibertarianism. I mean, they made it, why can't everyone else?

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Those folk do exist here, but they most definitely aren't the ones who are just here for a paycheck "to live a good life." Most people I know here are just like everyone I know elsewhere, except that their rent is higher, their houses smaller, and their paycheck larger. I've been working here in tech for over a decade now, ranging from the wildest tiny startups to big billion+ dollar public companies, and I've never worked anywhere with a ball pit, slides, or wave pools. They exist. They just aren't what most of us actually experience. Silent majority, I guess. Almost everyone I know here thinks the people and company practices you're describing are as crazy/dumb/awful as you do. Sorry, I just get really frustrated when the media labels the kookiest loudest of us as what Silicon Valley is. Especially when they're trying to describe the boring ones without caricatures.