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I don't think the problem is with the Californian model. Silicon Valley knows how to do technology right for its own sake, and every technologist everywhere ca

I don't think the problem is with the Californian model. Silicon Valley knows how to do technology right for its own sake, and every technologist everywhere can learn a lot about how to do technology right by looking at Silicon Valley. Sure there is a gold rush mentality driving media and politics, and there is a lot of greed at play as well. But rich guys in Silicon Valley are no more greedy (and the true technologists among them are probably less greedy) than rich guys everywhere else in the world. The big difference between finance and tech is that deep down at the heart of tech is a natural curiosity and passion for problem solving, whereas finance is fundamentally about arbitrage. In order to take the right lessons from tech's failings you need to separate the tech from its social consequences. The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs. It is about seeking greater efficiency in all things. This is why politicians are wrong to try to solve unemployment with tech. It would be great if everyone could move up the food chain in terms of creative and technical work and that tech could create more jobs, but the problem is that by its very nature, the 1% in the tech world will be more efficient than the bottom 90% no matter how much training they receive. 100 great developers will produce better returns than 10000 bad developers. There's no way around this fact. Hell, if you have a powerful enough intelligence that was orders of magnitude smarter than the smartest human then it could obsolete developers entirely by being more productive on its own than all the worlds smartest developers. Increased efficiency is theoretically good, but we're reaching the point where we don't have the social capabilities to cope. We are wired to work, and to need to feel needed, and to feel that we have an upward trajectory in life. These things make it very difficult to cope with the impending unemployment crisis and the environmental consequences of a ballooning disposable culture. Tech is at the very heart of these issues, but Silicon Valley is not the cause of these problems, it's just one microcosm of them.

ibuildthings 13y ago
"The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs." While a very relevant sentiment, do you have any quantifiable data to support this ?
- BariumBlue 13y ago
  At the very least, it does obsolete jobs. The more accurate question to be asking would be whether tech or the economy create enough other jobs to come fill in those gaps.
- yardie 13y ago
  Is the Washington Post good enough? They have a link to the slide deck of a Federal Reserve about what was lossed and what was gained. Sadly, it didn't display in my browser. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/28/how-the-recession-turned-middle-class-jobs-into-low-wage-jobs/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/28/h...
nailer 13y ago
> The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs. It is about seeking greater efficiency in all things. Yes, but those efficiencies open new possibilities. Transistors killed abaci and slide rules, and made skills in their use suddenly redundant. Fast forward, and I'm reading about people employed to make realtime peer to peer video between any two people in the world. Yes, truly self improving AI would change everything, and probably spell the end of the traditional economy, but I think we're a long while off yet.
- jacquesm 13y ago
  > Fast forward, and I'm reading about people employed to make realtime peer to peer video between any two people in the world. That was a solved problem in 1998.
  - damiongrimfield 13y ago
    electricty? 'solved' in 1646. automobiles? 'solved' in 1769. space travel? 'solved' in 1961.
  - nailer 13y ago
    Yep, it's just in my head because now it's being given away for free (see TogetherJS announcement earlier).
- PakG1 13y ago
  There are three questions that must be asked here. 1. Is the rate of creating new possibilities equal to or greater than the rate of killing jobs? If yes: 2. Is the difficulty of retraining our workforce today equal to or less than the difficulty of retraining our workforce in the past? If yes: 3. Is the rate of retraining our workforce equal to or greater than the rate of creating new possibilities? If yes: Then yes, we don't have a problem.
  - zeigor 13y ago
    Until recently, technology made low-paying, undesired jobs obsolete at a pace that made it possible for more jobs to be created by new industries than the industries that have been disrupted by them. We are now entering a period in which middle and high paying jobs being replaced by machines. High-frequency trading replaced a whole profession in the financial sectors. There are now machines that are capable to analyze an x-ray image and determine the cause of the problem, leaving the doctor with "just" the job of delivering the news. So, yes, we do have a problem. I'm not a Neo Luddite. The purpose of this is not to destroy the Internet and all the machines, but I do think that we need to have an ongoing debate about the social structures that we are dissolving as much as about those that we want to build up.
tomp 13y ago
> The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs. > This is why politicians are wrong to try to solve unemployment with tech. The second does not follow from the first. Technology will always be killing jobs, and local politicians can do nothing to prevent that. The only difference they can make is where the profits from the old jobs go to; if they just stand by and watch, they will all go to companies in a few global tech centres, most in the US. However, if they encourage the development of a local tech scene, the efficiency problem might be solved by local entrepreneurs, meaning that they can still tax the profits, etc., making the local population better off. Also, I strongly disagree with your claim that "We are wired to work". We are raised to work. And by "we", I mean particularly the people far away from the equator, who always needed to work to survive. Personally, I would not work if I didn't need it for survival (or more free time in the future), and I'm certain there's many more people like me in the world. Why do you think kids play in their free time, and teenagers party?
- dasil003 13y ago
  Kids play to learn survival skills, just like all mammals. If no one ever has to work I submit that incidence of mental illness will go way up because we just don't know how to handle it. Note I did not say work like a dog 24-7 as has been the norm since industrialization. But even tropical peoples need to something to sustain themselves and they are not happy if they have no purpose in life.
  - tomp 13y ago
    I often see claims that "purpose only comes from work" (or its logical inverse, that "no work means no purpose"), but I cannot tell you how strongly I disagree with you. :) However, I believe there is a world possible for both of us, as you can do the work while I relax, and we are both happy.
    - dasil003 13y ago
      Are you retired? How do you know you will be happy doing nothing?

ibuildthings 13y ago

"The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs." While a very relevant sentiment, do you have any quantifiable data to support this ?

BariumBlue 13y ago
At the very least, it does obsolete jobs. The more accurate question to be asking would be whether tech or the economy create enough other jobs to come fill in those gaps.
yardie 13y ago
Is the Washington Post good enough? They have a link to the slide deck of a Federal Reserve about what was lossed and what was gained. Sadly, it didn't display in my browser. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/28/how-the-recession-turned-middle-class-jobs-into-low-wage-jobs/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/28/h...

nailer 13y ago

> The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs. It is about seeking greater efficiency in all things. Yes, but those efficiencies open new possibilities. Transistors killed abaci and slide rules, and made skills in their use suddenly redundant. Fast forward, and I'm reading about people employed to make realtime peer to peer video between any two people in the world. Yes, truly self improving AI would change everything, and probably spell the end of the traditional economy, but I think we're a long while off yet.

jacquesm 13y ago
> Fast forward, and I'm reading about people employed to make realtime peer to peer video between any two people in the world. That was a solved problem in 1998.
- damiongrimfield 13y ago
  electricty? 'solved' in 1646. automobiles? 'solved' in 1769. space travel? 'solved' in 1961.
- nailer 13y ago
  Yep, it's just in my head because now it's being given away for free (see TogetherJS announcement earlier).
PakG1 13y ago
There are three questions that must be asked here. 1. Is the rate of creating new possibilities equal to or greater than the rate of killing jobs? If yes: 2. Is the difficulty of retraining our workforce today equal to or less than the difficulty of retraining our workforce in the past? If yes: 3. Is the rate of retraining our workforce equal to or greater than the rate of creating new possibilities? If yes: Then yes, we don't have a problem.
- zeigor 13y ago
  Until recently, technology made low-paying, undesired jobs obsolete at a pace that made it possible for more jobs to be created by new industries than the industries that have been disrupted by them. We are now entering a period in which middle and high paying jobs being replaced by machines. High-frequency trading replaced a whole profession in the financial sectors. There are now machines that are capable to analyze an x-ray image and determine the cause of the problem, leaving the doctor with "just" the job of delivering the news. So, yes, we do have a problem. I'm not a Neo Luddite. The purpose of this is not to destroy the Internet and all the machines, but I do think that we need to have an ongoing debate about the social structures that we are dissolving as much as about those that we want to build up.

tomp 13y ago

> The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs. > This is why politicians are wrong to try to solve unemployment with tech. The second does not follow from the first. Technology will always be killing jobs, and local politicians can do nothing to prevent that. The only difference they can make is where the profits from the old jobs go to; if they just stand by and watch, they will all go to companies in a few global tech centres, most in the US. However, if they encourage the development of a local tech scene, the efficiency problem might be solved by local entrepreneurs, meaning that they can still tax the profits, etc., making the local population better off. Also, I strongly disagree with your claim that "We are wired to work". We are raised to work. And by "we", I mean particularly the people far away from the equator, who always needed to work to survive. Personally, I would not work if I didn't need it for survival (or more free time in the future), and I'm certain there's many more people like me in the world. Why do you think kids play in their free time, and teenagers party?

dasil003 13y ago
Kids play to learn survival skills, just like all mammals. If no one ever has to work I submit that incidence of mental illness will go way up because we just don't know how to handle it. Note I did not say work like a dog 24-7 as has been the norm since industrialization. But even tropical peoples need to something to sustain themselves and they are not happy if they have no purpose in life.
- tomp 13y ago
  I often see claims that "purpose only comes from work" (or its logical inverse, that "no work means no purpose"), but I cannot tell you how strongly I disagree with you. :) However, I believe there is a world possible for both of us, as you can do the work while I relax, and we are both happy.
  - dasil003 13y ago
    Are you retired? How do you know you will be happy doing nothing?