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Exactly. Silicon Valley used to be countercultural, an alternative to Corporate America. Yes, there was always a money-making emphasis, and there’s a long his
by linguae 2y ago
Exactly. Silicon Valley used to be countercultural, an alternative to Corporate America. Yes, there was always a money-making emphasis, and there’s a long history of less-than-ethical practices, but this was countered by many positive aspects of the Valley, such as the paying-it-forward ethos and the feeling that technology matters. There’s a reason Xerox PARC was placed in Palo Alto and not in New England. There’s a reason why many of personal computing’s pioneers had a countercultural vibe.
Today Silicon Valley is the establishment. It seems less like the nerd mecca it used to be (remember Weird Stuff?) and is now a place that is much more obsessed with money. When a basic 1960s suburban tract house within a reasonable commute from work costs more than $2 million, it’s hard not to be obsessed with money. There are still good people and awesome technologies in Silicon Valley, which is one of the main reasons I’ve decided to stay in the Bay Area, but it seems like some companies in Silicon Valley have gone absolutely mercenary, and they have eroded the goodwill the area had as recently as a decade ago.
But I think this is part of the natural evolution of industry. The same could be said about the history of the railroad and car industries in America. Think of how essential telecommunications and electricity are to modern society, yet I’ve yet to meet a person who loves Comcast and PG&E.
- cornercasechase 2y agoI used to think this was the case as well, even though I suffered through the reality: computing was always a rich person's game. Even more so in the early days. Even a C64 was an upper middle class toy. Cosplaying counter cultural (really well) doesn't change the fact that if you cold afford to build the foundation of the computer industry, you were at least very aligned with capital. Now that alignment has been exposed, highlighted and scaled to global proportions.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lovich 2y agoMy eyes were opened when I started realizing the Wikipedia pages of luminaries in the software field had blue links to their famous parents and those parents also had blue links to _their_ famous parents Hell I’m guilty of some myself. I was surprised early in my career when I found out that most of my peers did not have a computer and internet access as children in the early 90s
- relaxing 2y agoWho? I checked Ritchie, Thompson, McCarthy, Sussman, Wirth… none had blue name parents.
- lovich 2y agoLinus Torvalds? Maybe I’m the wrong age but that was one of the bigger names when I was starting my tech career Edit: you’ve got luminaries like Stallman too, who didn’t have the rich family but did get the university they worked at to cover their living expenses. An uncomfortable amount of leaders in the Free Software and Open Source communities openly advocate for people to give away their time and effort for free, while living on the largesse of others
- aswegs8 2y agoThis is some low level criticism. Just because some one has successful parents it takes anything away from their accomplishments? I mean, it's always nice to root for the underdogs, I do too, but this Zeitgeist has just become childish.
- lovich 2y agoI wasn’t diminishing or taking away their accomplishment's, their background doesn’t change what they did or made. What I was critiquing was the fact that a seemingly inordinate number of people who advocate that your work in software should be free for anyone else to take without payment, also happen to not ever need to consider how they put food on the table due to wealth they inherited or were given due to their celebrity status
- relaxing 2y agoI had no idea about Linus’s pedigree. Thanks!
- lovich 2y agoNo problem, it was an interesting history to read
- mempko 2y agoYou need to watch "All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace" by Adam Curtis which outlines Silicon Valley's long Libertarian roots. Making money and greed has been deeply embedded from the start.
- bee_rider 2y agoIs it based on the poem or just named after it? I don’t remember anything particularly libertarian about the poem.
- marxisttemp 2y agoIt is just named after the poem, as a reference to the SV ideology of stepping back and letting the machines and the networks decide our future.
- marxisttemp 2y agoAbsolutely love Adam Curtis. I was first exposed to AWOBMOLG in the basement of the Palais de Tokyo as an idealistic undergrad, and bristled at his claims. Since then it has become one of my favorite pieces of filmmaking. Great soundtrack too.
- Terr_ 2y ago> "All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace" This reminds me of the tycoon's thunderously semi-religious speech from The Network [0], which has aged pretty well for a movie 50 years old. > The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs&t=0m43s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs&t=0m43s
- CPLX 2y ago> Silicon Valley used to be countercultural, an alternative to Corporate America. Turns out this is bullshit. It's fine I bought into it too. But it's a pretty unbroken path from today back through the history of business in Silicon Valley. It's always been a smokescreen. I recommend this book, it's highly illuminating and specific: https://www.amazon.com/Palo-Alto-History-California-Capitalism/dp/031659203X https://www.amazon.com/Palo-Alto-History-California-Capitali...
- literallycancer 2y agoIt has nearly nothing to do with the tech industry or counterculture and everything to do with being shit at urban planning and selling land to speculators on the cheap, so you end up with nowhere for the sprawl to go, and the land owner voting block that sabotages any attempt at building high density settlements.