4 ms·

Slightly OT, but what's up with the rise of the anti-tech media on the east coast? Who reads that trash anyway? It's all about weird tech CEOs, accusations of p

by crassus 13y ago

Slightly OT, but what's up with the rise of the anti-tech media on the east coast? Who reads that trash anyway? It's all about weird tech CEOs, accusations of prejudice, accusations of unoriginality, and the like.

pg 13y ago
I think it's because startups have been doing well lately. Whenever anything is doing well, its reputation contains a sort of potential energy that can be exploited by someone attacking it. E.g. "I found a mistake in Einstein's math" is going to get you a lot more attention than "I found a mistake in my next door neighbor's math."
- tomasien 13y ago
  I'm not sure if you use Facebook, but on Facebook there is a constant wave of quotes mis-attributed to Einstein and Thomas Jefferson. It's really interesting, they all get 10000's of shares. Somebody somewhere (or just the crowd accidentally) A/B tested a ton of different historical figures and came out with Einstein and TJ.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    The patois of misattribution is, often times, a rather fun deception -- to see who will share the meme. Things like "The internet is full of trolls" are captioned to a photo of Abraham Lincoln, for example. Or, more recently, the phenomenon of attributing moving quotations to Taylor Swift, or Barack Obama, where the actual source was Adolph Hitler. In short, you're not wrong that these things occur, but in some cases, they probably occur as a means of exploiting our collective ignorance, and/or our willingness to share things that we think are attributable to someone we might idolize. Summed up in a Hitler quote (attributable to anyone): "How fortunate for leaders that men do not think."
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
tomasien 13y ago
W/R/T who reads it, one of my best friends LOVES Valleywag and I ask him about it all the time. He thinks SV is just up its own ass (maybe), especially as it relates to social issues (yes) and that makes it like hate porn for him. I suppose that makes an ounce of sense, but the criticism of the businesses and innovation themselves feel out of place in that environment. The other side is just haters, there's been a recent wave of really awesome startups that are growing fast and doing great stuff, and haters are looking for something to hate. I know some people don't like to see the term "hater" used like that, but man is it useful!
- crassus 13y ago
  With respect to the social issues - on GitHub, nobody knows you're not a white straight male, but it turns out that open source is mostly written by white straight males anyway. Most of the criticism from the east coast seems to be that Silicon Valley doesn't care enough about correcting this outcome, and I'd say they are right - most engineers care more about how code works than who wrote it, and that's very much an old-fashioned enlightenment value that I agree with. While initiatives to lower the barrier to entry in writing software are great, I'm not sure I want to see an industry that cares more about achieving social equality than writing good code. Crowds of engineers will never be fertile soil for social justice warriors for this reason.
  - seivan 13y ago
    I don't use certain OSS libs because of the people writing/maintaing it. I'd rather spent some nights and weekends writing my own. Of course this is if it's feasible. Sometimes I got no choice.
6cxs2hd6 13y ago
Are you saying the New York Times is trash? If so, I disagree. Although I wouldn't put any institution on a pedestal, I would say that the NYT is demonstrably a non-trashy news organization. Demonstrable in part by the fact you don't love everything they write about your precious industry or coast -- that is in fact an indication that they're doing a good job, i.e. not pleasing everyone all the time.
- 001sky 13y ago
  Are you saying the New York Times is trash WAT? He's referring to the trash they <write>[1,2]. Its more akin saying the east coast media has a napoleon complex wrt the west coast (because the growing wealth threaten's old money/media's sense of self/hegemony). Lots of people use "trashtalk" professionally, eg sportsmen. Hell, it even has its own wikipedia page. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash-talk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash-talk [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smack_talk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smack_talk
  - 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
    Well I also disagree that the New York Times writes trash, either. Yes we're all primates. Yes you can usefully analyze a lot of behavior in terms of tribes and regions, and who is the current or former alpha male, etc. At the same time, you can make an effort to transcend that, with at least partial success. An organization like the NYT exists to try. They can never be 100% successful. But I think it's missing the point to fling feces at them, saying, "Hey, they're just flinging feces." O_o The article has a valid point. What some of y'all need is the Uber of Ubers -- an app that geolocates the nearest business, and spits out a business plan for Uber-izing it. Which you can run down to the average investor who wants to hide in the middle of the tribe/herd. Obviously not all startups or investors are that unoriginal. pg has a great point that some are original, but need to seem less so -- to simplify their message -- for the average bear. Even so, many startups are yawningly copycat. And some folks doth protest too much when it's pointed out.
    - 001sky 13y ago
_delirium 13y ago
I haven't really noticed a coastal difference in that respect. The LA Review of Books, not to mention any number of lesser outlets, has been holding down the fort for anti-tech west coast media. :)

by crassus 13y ago

pg 13y ago

I think it's because startups have been doing well lately. Whenever anything is doing well, its reputation contains a sort of potential energy that can be exploited by someone attacking it. E.g. "I found a mistake in Einstein's math" is going to get you a lot more attention than "I found a mistake in my next door neighbor's math."

tomasien 13y ago
I'm not sure if you use Facebook, but on Facebook there is a constant wave of quotes mis-attributed to Einstein and Thomas Jefferson. It's really interesting, they all get 10000's of shares. Somebody somewhere (or just the crowd accidentally) A/B tested a ton of different historical figures and came out with Einstein and TJ.
- bmelton 13y ago
  The patois of misattribution is, often times, a rather fun deception -- to see who will share the meme. Things like "The internet is full of trolls" are captioned to a photo of Abraham Lincoln, for example. Or, more recently, the phenomenon of attributing moving quotations to Taylor Swift, or Barack Obama, where the actual source was Adolph Hitler. In short, you're not wrong that these things occur, but in some cases, they probably occur as a means of exploiting our collective ignorance, and/or our willingness to share things that we think are attributable to someone we might idolize. Summed up in a Hitler quote (attributable to anyone): "How fortunate for leaders that men do not think."
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

tomasien 13y ago

W/R/T who reads it, one of my best friends LOVES Valleywag and I ask him about it all the time. He thinks SV is just up its own ass (maybe), especially as it relates to social issues (yes) and that makes it like hate porn for him. I suppose that makes an ounce of sense, but the criticism of the businesses and innovation themselves feel out of place in that environment. The other side is just haters, there's been a recent wave of really awesome startups that are growing fast and doing great stuff, and haters are looking for something to hate. I know some people don't like to see the term "hater" used like that, but man is it useful!

crassus 13y ago
With respect to the social issues - on GitHub, nobody knows you're not a white straight male, but it turns out that open source is mostly written by white straight males anyway. Most of the criticism from the east coast seems to be that Silicon Valley doesn't care enough about correcting this outcome, and I'd say they are right - most engineers care more about how code works than who wrote it, and that's very much an old-fashioned enlightenment value that I agree with. While initiatives to lower the barrier to entry in writing software are great, I'm not sure I want to see an industry that cares more about achieving social equality than writing good code. Crowds of engineers will never be fertile soil for social justice warriors for this reason.
- seivan 13y ago
  I don't use certain OSS libs because of the people writing/maintaing it. I'd rather spent some nights and weekends writing my own. Of course this is if it's feasible. Sometimes I got no choice.

6cxs2hd6 13y ago

Are you saying the New York Times is trash? If so, I disagree. Although I wouldn't put any institution on a pedestal, I would say that the NYT is demonstrably a non-trashy news organization. Demonstrable in part by the fact you don't love everything they write about your precious industry or coast -- that is in fact an indication that they're doing a good job, i.e. not pleasing everyone all the time.

001sky 13y ago
Are you saying the New York Times is trash WAT? He's referring to the trash they <write>[1,2]. Its more akin saying the east coast media has a napoleon complex wrt the west coast (because the growing wealth threaten's old money/media's sense of self/hegemony). Lots of people use "trashtalk" professionally, eg sportsmen. Hell, it even has its own wikipedia page. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash-talk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash-talk [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smack_talk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smack_talk
- 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
  Well I also disagree that the New York Times writes trash, either. Yes we're all primates. Yes you can usefully analyze a lot of behavior in terms of tribes and regions, and who is the current or former alpha male, etc. At the same time, you can make an effort to transcend that, with at least partial success. An organization like the NYT exists to try. They can never be 100% successful. But I think it's missing the point to fling feces at them, saying, "Hey, they're just flinging feces." O_o The article has a valid point. What some of y'all need is the Uber of Ubers -- an app that geolocates the nearest business, and spits out a business plan for Uber-izing it. Which you can run down to the average investor who wants to hide in the middle of the tribe/herd. Obviously not all startups or investors are that unoriginal. pg has a great point that some are original, but need to seem less so -- to simplify their message -- for the average bear. Even so, many startups are yawningly copycat. And some folks doth protest too much when it's pointed out.
  - 001sky 13y ago

_delirium 13y ago

I haven't really noticed a coastal difference in that respect. The LA Review of Books, not to mention any number of lesser outlets, has been holding down the fort for anti-tech west coast media. :)