"Silicon Valley seems to have lost a bit of its verve since the Presidential election. The streets of San Francisco—spiritually part of the Valley—feel less crowded. Coffee-shop conversations are hushed. Everything feels a little muted, an eerie quiet broken by chants of protesters. It even seems as if there are more parking spots. Technology leaders, their employees, and those who make up the entire technology ecosystem seem to have been shaken up and shocked by the election of Donald Trump."
As loathsome as Trump is, I do look forward to having our collective nose rubbed in our collective shit.
This business cycle started down well before the election. Many reported evidence of a big turnaround in August and September of 2015. Apartment prices we well known to be headed down in early 2016. What is happening in San Francisco and Silicon Valley has to do with macroeconomics and very little to do with politics.
Shlock. The writer is satisfied with the world he inhabits, is not particularly aggrieved by the powers that be, has not been particularly failed -- and therefore takes umbrage at the suggestion that the established order might not be both benevolent and competent.
But guess what? This isn't the general experience! Most people are constantly, crushingly immiserated and failed -- a societal "failure mode," as he so charmingly terms it, has already come to pass. It's unclear, in fact, that we've ever /not/ been in a failure mode -- begging the question of /why/ things are so consistently fucked up.
I couldn't have said it better myself. I had my finger on your exact objection to the author of the article but couldn't articulate them well. Respect to you.
The author lost me the moment he introduced the "paradox" of a writer thinking the societal systems are inefficient but they would dial 911 as soon as there's trouble. So...
(1) Both things are not mutually exclusive at all. Nobody is expert in everything.
(2) What does this guy think the writer should do? Grab a kitchen knife and go be a hero? Outside the USA you can get jailed for assaulting a burglar. He should do some net reading because I suspect him of being too USA-centric.
(3) You can write about heroes while fully realizing you're not one. Takes culture and education to do, and it's very far from impossible. Example: the writers of Spiderman whom the author likes aren't superheroes themselves yet they portrayed the superhero quite well.
The whole thing is written in a way that somehow makes you feel the author is salty and strongly dislikes people who criticize the current public systems. "Be respectful for the work previous generations have put for your future, you ungrateful whippersnappers!", that's how he sounds to me.
I'll admit he makes several good points (like the horror "plots" which were probably already beaten to death as far back as the 1950s) but there are parts of his article I find to be very biased.
I recently watched "Command And Control" (http://www.commandandcontrolfilm.com) on a whim. I hadn't read up about the film before seeing it, so I understood "nuclear missile accident" to mean, presumably, almost accidentally firing a warhead -- a more-or-less standard nuclear nightmare.
This, of course, is not what happened. The Damascus Titan accident did not involve a nuclear weapon being mistakenly, but intentionally, armed. The very real fear was, instead, that the explosion of a damaged missile could accidentally detonate the warhead as well -- or, in a case only slightly better, blast it into radioactive dust.
I'd never considered the risk entailed by the simple existence -- intentional use entirely aside -- of nuclear weapons. Reading the list of (public!) broken arrow incidents is harrowing.
While there's a grain of truth to this, to insist on this generalization is to twist Stallman's meaning to suit your own purposes. It's quite clear that Stallman is, here, speaking /quite specifically/ about corporations -- inveighing against them, in fact. I am sure that he would agree that governments can engage in similar behavior, but the target of his criticism here is corporations alone. Forcing governments into the conversation is a way of derailing specific criticism of corporations.
"If corporations dominate society and write the laws, then each advance or change in technology is an opening for them to further restrict or mistreat its users."
Also, you definitely can, tongue-in-cheek, call a general statement a "law." It's not meant to be taken in a literal sense; it's meant for humorous or broadly pragmatic effect.
That's not a "maybe" any more by now. Corporation are meant to maximise profits, at the expense of everything else, except braking the law —and even that is debatable. Some jurisdictions even have laws to enforce that mindset.
As soon as profit maximization is at odds with the user's interests (that's pretty much all the time), the corporation will naturally act against the user's interests.
From this, I'm pretty sure "law" is a relatively accurate descriptor.
God forbid those proles vote, or -- horror of horrors -- have one of the most fulfilling human experiences! They should all be disenfranchised and sterilized.
He may have been being sarcastic, but if you add three words it becomes less of a war crime and more of a solid plan for the future: "without an education". Yes, everyone should be able to vote and should be able to have kids. Everyone should have a good solid education that teaches critical thinking, too.
If someone is uneducated, that's everyone's problem, specifically because they do vote and do have kids. We shouldn't take that away from them, however we should do a better job at not producing uneducated citizens in the first place.
I think you were trying to parody comments on HN or elsewhere but I've rarely, if ever, heard anyone espouse such a view. The overwhelming majority agree that increased automation will lead to higher productivity but also cause unemployment. It's easy to write a snarky comment like that one, but I don't think it really adds value to the conversation.
There are definitely some people here who espouse the view that the technological changes will certainly create new jobs that replace the ones that disappear and there is no worry about unemployment going up. I think they are in the minority though and not really parody-worthy.
But what of the risk to your mental health if you end up realizing that how much money you make isn't measuring how much value you provide to society?
Or that, there are inherent contradictions in capitalism and therefore people have lied to you. The system is more complex and less rational than you thought. That would mean that we aren't in Fukuyama's post-ideological, end-of-history era!
Sounds terrifying, maybe it is better to avoid becoming an educated adult.
This should be aimed at me just as much then. My comment was more snide if anything.
Also, I disagree, irony has its place and one of them is to poke fun at commonly held but profoundly mistaken beliefs that result in widespread suffering. Even if that has a high chance of offending people who don't like smart ass comments chipping away at the pedestal holding up their privilege.
I'm sure you meant well, and I'm not attack you. I have noticed that often cutting jokes are considered acceptable here only when they align with certain political beliefs, and I feel it's eminently constructive to politely push back on that, so please take this as my intent.
Agreed. Though to be honest the political alignment doesn't matter to me so much. I see so much acrimony on both sides which I've tried to push back against in general. I'm sure I unconsciously push back on one side more than another, but I have tried to be even handed and civil (as you have, and I thank you for that) when I do so.
I very much disagree that they do nothing to promote constructive discussion. They put a fine point on the absurdities of the position mocked -- hardly unconstructive.
As loathsome as Trump is, I do look forward to having our collective nose rubbed in our collective shit.