I am always a little frustrated at the Salon articles, I dont even know why I read them anymore. There is a few choice sentences I'd like to rebut: "And while

I am always a little frustrated at the Salon articles, I dont even know why I read them anymore. There is a few choice sentences I'd like to rebut: "And while there is much to dislike about how Silicon Valley is rewriting the rules based on little more than the authority of its own arrogance" While I get the sentiment, the problem here is that blind appeal to authority of existing laws and figures is a well known civilization anti-pattern. It causes real problems in even the medium term. The "arrogance" judgement is also subjective, since it presupposes a mindset of "Silicon Valley" (which is hardly a singular entity) that may or may not be actually there. "This is our emergent culture: an onslaught of newness, disrespectful of status quo, law and propriety. " There is a lot to dislike about this sentence. First off is the negative judgement of 'newness' - we KNOW from neuropsychology that novel inputs to the brain are an essential ingredient to neural plasticity. New isn't just always new, but it's part of what it means to be young in the brain. The second part of this sentence is problematic to me. This almost reads like the author is advocating that respect to the status quo, laws, and propriety is a major virtue. Again, this is another strong civilization anti-pattern (well the same one basically). If the author isn't saying this, then what is he saying? Look I get it, change is scary. But the reality is we as a species have wedged ourselves into a weird place. We must proceed technologically to solve our problems. That is what Silicon Valley is about - moving tech and science forward to solve problems. Yeah not all problems seem essential (snapchat), but there is plenty of people who are doing way more interesting things. But also the pro-rationality, pro-new things, pro-science culture of the bay area is one worth extending and expanding. Because the alternative truly really is fist-bumping while rome burns. Certainly don't look at Wall Street to solve these problems for us.