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Is Silicon Valley Morally Bankrupt and Toxic?
concealment sends this quote from a post about how the goals of many tech companies are at odds with what's good for consumers:
"Since I've been out of the Silicon-Valley-centered tech industry, I've become increasingly convinced that it's morally bankrupt and essentially toxic to our society. Companies like Google and Facebook — in common with most public companies — have interests that are frequently in conflict with the well-being of — I was going to say their customers or their users, but I'll say 'people' in general, since it's wider than that. People who use their systems directly, people who don't — we're all affected by it, and although some of the outcomes are positive a disturbingly high number of them are negative: the erosion of privacy, of consumer rights, of the public domain and fair use, of meaningful connections between people and a sense of true community, of beauty and care taken in craftsmanship, of our very physical well-being. No amount of employee benefits or underfunded Google.org projects can counteract that. Over time, I've come to consider that this situation is irremediable, given our current capitalist system and all its inequalities. To fix it, we're going to need to work on social justice and rethinking how we live and work and relate to each other. Geek toys like self-driving cars and augmented reality sunglasses won't fix it. Social networks designed to identify you to corporations so they can sell you more stuff won't fix it. Better ad targeting or content matching algorithms definitely won't fix it."
Betteridge's law of headlines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states:
"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no". ...
"The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bollocks, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
As for the article's content:
A great discovery!
The author has finally also found out that their customers are the advertising firms, their 'users' are the product they sell.
Film at 11.
The rest is some pseudo-socialist rant.
Move along, nothing to see here.
then it will happen. Companies that survive do so by providing something that people want and something that people will pay for (sometimes the two are split, like Facebook).
If other people don't want what you want, accept it, and don't blame Silicon Valley.
You were the one who wanted all this great content for free (as in beer). By "you", I mean the opinions expressed here on Slashdot, especially when the topic comes to copyrights and file sharing laws. Google and Facebook are doing things "the right way", by that reckoning, but yes there is the darker side of which you speak.
How is Google supposed to pay 30,000 engineers, 1M rack-mounted x86 systems, and still hit their quarterly earnings and revenue targets? And the same for Facebook.
Only Amazon has a traditional business model, but even they are leaders in mining content about their users as well as their traditional IP inventory.
Let me tell you, if you want to see toxic check out Wall St. and it's satellites in NJ and CT. At least Silicon Valley creates cool shit that make people productive and/or entertained. Wall Street produces nothing, it just sucks value out of the economy and puts it in overseas tax shelters. it sounds to me like you're burned out from living in the center of a capitalist vortex. Take some time off and go live in Massachusetts or Oregon or something and decompress. I would kill to work at a place like Apple. I don't care if it means 90 hour weeks, you got something more important to do than develop the next generation of computing technology?
Looking back to what it was 25 years ago, much of what it was no longer exists. There's lots of vacant buildings, don't know why they are building more.
mfwright@batnet.com
Gee, I'd love to see a world where Intel, Dell, IBM, HP, TI and a host of other companies never existed. Yea, we'd be better off without GE, Ford, General Motors, Exxon and the like. Would not need any hackers in Silicon Valley, much less silicon. Just forget the transistor, integrated circuits or microprocessors ever existed.
Capitalism may have it's flaws, but it is better than any previously tried system over the last 6,000 years of recorded history. Please let's not repeat any of them!
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The era of socialism as it defined in the dictionary is dead in America. The idea of noblesse oblige, and societal responsibility are not only forgotten in minds of those who control the wealth in this country, but spit upon as if it were a curse. Too many Americans today feel that wealth redistribution by the state should be abolished, as they are quick to scapegoat the needy in light of this country's ills. It is this undercurrent of disregard for our fellow countrymen that is showing all over the place in the attitudes of the Haves, in today's politics and even something so basic as getting a job.
America needs to wake the hell up and realise that helping each other, taking responsibility for one's actions, and working for the common good are the cornerstones of civilization. Throw them out, and all you will have is barbarity and all that implies.
Well, I agree with the author. Tech is a malignant leech on society, unlike wholesome industries such as finance or insurance.
I am not completely convinced of the points that the OP is trying to make. But any company has the interest of it's owner closest to heart. In a public company, the owners are the stock holders and stock holders usually wants continuous growth and year on year profit, which might not be what is best for the company an might not be what is best for the consumer/user.
I once had the fortune to work for a very large international corporation that was entirely family owned, with no external stock holders. And I can tell you that the culture and mentality within that corporation was completely different compared to other workplaces I have been in.
They were much more concerned with continuously building the value of the brand / family name, than to make profit for the share holders. If they were convinced something was the right thing to do, they would allow it to take time and money.
So I would say the problem lays more in the way that companies are financed today, and the effects that has on their operations, than whether they are located in Silicon Valley or not.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
Since when are self-driving cars a "geek toy"? Road safety is a huge thing. Unless you hate old people, the disabled, and people who are just unlucky, getting humans away from the steering wheel is going to be up there with curing cancer.
How do you figure?
Go watch TV. Then come back. We'll talk then........
Back? OK, notice how TV ransoms you shit? Like the news & weather, the plot twist, etc? Much of the web does not do this. Paywalls are going up some places, and other places (like this one) let you pay to be free of the damn ads. Let's say you pay for TV from cable or sat dish provider. They inject local ads into the stream to target you, so even if you pay for the service you have to pay additional to get the few "premium" channels that don't have commercials. Imagine if your ISP were inserting ads into the sites you visit. Some tried, I believe, it was a huge stink and they stopped... settling for DNS redirects (use a different DNS).
TV is only about AV media and only secondarily about information and interactive stuff, but the web isn't, nor are the companies presented. However, I think they do a better job than the old media has. I can barely stand to watch TV at all the commercials are so intrusive in comparison.
... well ...
Please stop using the PC / Tablets / Smartphones - for many of the hardware were designed in Silicon Valley
Please stop using many of the software that you are using - including technologies that enable you to surf the Net
Without the Silicon Valley - and many of its offspring around the world - the author of TFA can whine all he wants, on a column on his local newspaper - if the editor of his local newspaper grant him a column, that is
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I moved there in 1997 to work for the Lighthouse Design division of Sun Microsystems (formerly the division did NeXT software). As a mid-size city kid from the Canadian prairies, I was immediately struck by, not just the moral bankruptcy, but what I felt was literally a soul-destroying culture. I left soon after and only returned a couple times, each time having that impression confirmed.
Here are some of the things I observed. Some are general to the United States and its form of capitalism, some (seem to be) specific to the Bay Area and Silicon Valley:
1. Culture of guns and violence. Simply a belief that enough other people are "bad" that you must protect yourself and it would be okay to kill someone else to do that. There are lots of places in the world where that belief is not pervasive and they seem to be nicer places to live. It's kinda like the justice system is supposed to work: it's fairer if you presume innocence and that actually encourages people to behave nicely whereas if you presume guilt, people will live up to that expectation.
2. Extreme Culture of Materialism. Money matters, and getting rich matters even more. The expression "F***-You Money" is a good indicator of this. I knew a few people who had their "F***-You Money" and they weren't enlightened... they were spoiled. It's like the "American Dream" taken to an unhealthy extreme. People were generally extremely busy and most friendly conversation was either about money, money other people make, technology, sex or drugs. Very little friendly conversation was about community, relationships, or the soul.
3. A Bizarre Hypocrisy around Tolerance/Inclusion. San Francisco, in particular, was bad for this; blind to its own racism yet so proud that it was inclusive and tolerant. If you know the area, I only need say "East Palo Alto" (it's been a few years so maybe it's gentrified now) and you should be able to figure out what I mean. We tolerate all religions, all philosophies, all genders, all types of cultures... except the black and spanish folks in our midst who only work menial or retail service jobs. The real problem is that most people there were completely blind to what was blindingly obvious to me as an outsider.
4. Pervasive, Persuasive Moral Bankruptcy. The longer I was there, the more I "got into" the culture. I've seen this happen to other friends from outside the area. It kills people's souls. Maybe not everyone... I'm sure there are some people who are shining examples of enlightenment... but I couldn't resist it, and I don't know anyone else who has (save one person). Of course, this is "normal" - we adjust to and eventually adopt the culture of our surroundings unless we actively work against it. I _was_ actively working against it and it still changed me to my own detriment.
I believe that the organizations that are there (Google, Facebook, etc.) are not "to blame" as they are just participating in the culture and trying to be successful in that culture. (Or to be more accurate, the people in those organizations are doing this.) But anyone who has an idealistic bone in them will quickly have it gellified and unconsciously begin to give up that idealism for the much more flexible moral relativism and then eventually the outlook that, heck, capitalism isn't so bad after all! not realizing that the ideology in that area is beyond capitalism: it's imperial corporatist capitalism that cares only for growth, and at any human cost (just so long as it doesn't harm the bottom line).
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
It's an airy concept devoid of any real meaning. It's has the flimsiest of justifications for its existence and every time I hear it I want to hit someone. It's a high-minded sounding renaming of whatever particular pet grievance the current user of the term has in mind at the moment. It's an attempt to avoid any real debate over the merits of the grievance by presenting a piece of the picture and appealing to someone's sense of fairness. It's dishonest, deceitful and doesn't belong in polite conversation. It's the race-baiting of the left.
Otherwise, I completely agree with you. Silicon Valley is toxic and morally bankrupt. Just as bad in its way as Wall Street.
The problem, as I see it, is the profit motive. Which is not exactly a problem precisely. It's when the profit becomes the goal instead of the reward.
When you structure a business, you have to structure it so it makes financial sense, so it can support itself, so it can make money. Structuring it to extract the maximum possible value out of the system is counter-productive. With the right kinds of locks and business tricks you can keep anybody else from getting into your value stream at all. Microsoft is the king of this. Unfortunately this behavior is long-term toxic to the business ecosystem. And it's long-term toxic to the fabric of society.
No, you should have a goal in your business that has nothing to do with money. The goal you have is the value you provide. Then think about how to get enough money out of the system to achieve that goal grow modestly and make you and your employees reasonably well-off. Your profit is your reward for doing something people value. It's not the goal.
Of course, there are puzzles like Facebook. Facebook has never been profitable. They're greedy because they have no idea how to extract value. So any means is considered fair game because they're hungry. Which is a different (but related) kind of attitude problem.
To me, the evil of Facebook is one of centralization. Whenever you have that kind of centralization you will get something that uses its control to the detriment of everybody else. It might not happen right away (aka Google), but it will inevitably happen. Centralization is a bug, never a feature.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
If you read the article, it's not about that at all. It's about _new_ Silicon Valley: the startup culture. This is massively different to the culture that existed when Intel, Dell, IBM, HP and TI were founded.
Those companies are all fairly traditional companies in organization and goals. They were typical old-school American corporate structures built to achieve modern results. HP wasn't crowdfunded, hyped into a bubble and then pushed into an IPO to make the founders and a couple of venture capitalists into multi-millionaires. It was a long-term endeavour built around providing serious engineering for serious ends. It wasn't a get-rich-quick scheme.
This article is more about the culture of quick-hit startups in Silicon Valley these days, which are built more around buzz, hype and marketing vapidity than they are around serious engineering or any kind of long-term planning. It's questioning the culture of founding a company around a cute idea with the aim of selling out in two years to become a millionaire. That is not what Hewlett and Packard were about. They built a company around engineering on the basis of a belief that they could provide a benefit over the long term.
If anything I'd say the weakness of the article lies in its evidence, which isn't really sufficient. It has one useful and accurate case study - Uber - but it really needs more than that to talk about any kind of trend. I rather think, though, that if the author had tried, he could have come up with lots of other examples. Uber was a great case study, though. It's 'innovative' and 'disruptive'...where you read 'disruptive' to mean 'doesn't see the point in complying with regulations meant to ensure public safety'. There's a _reason_ taxi services are strongly licensed and regulated virtually the world over (and you probably wouldn't feel great taking a cab in a place where they aren't).
I think my subject line says it all. We need to make a headline out of that.
Period.
- Don't ever think a corporation does anything directly to benefit their customers.
- Don't ever think a corporation does anything directly to benefit their internal employees.
- Don't ever think a corporation does anything directly to benefit the "public"
For corporations, everything is done in the name of profit. If it happens to benefit other parties, that's a side effect, not the intention. In most cases, it has to benefit other parties to make a profit, but by no means is original intention. The original intention is profit.
AC states this as a fairly generalized statement. There are exceptions - corporations who fall outside this stereotype, private companies who are not necessarily interested in a profit, non-profits, etc. However, for most cases, don't delude yourself into thinking there was ever any true intention other than profit.
This is not because this system has allowed great things that it is exempt from any criticism or that alternatives can not exist. Half of the achievements of the 20th century was publicly funded, let's not forget about that. Corporation are not the only way to make things happen.
Look at Bletchley park, look at the NASA. Look at the Bell Labs, which are an hybrid entity of public obligations and private funds and which invented Unix, C, and radioastronomy amongst other things.
Great things can be done through capitalism, free entrepreneuship and competitions, but let's not assume that this is the only way.
By the way, let's review the invention that you attribute to corporations :
So be careful with the examples you choose and realize that the computer revolution started as a governmental effort to crack German code, continued in the US as a Navy project, was given its best tools by the Bell Labs, an entity whose structure would make most business angels cringe and that software development is now driven in big part by a bunch of OSS idealists that often work on it for free.
Internet itself started as a university and military project. It was heavily funded by the government (Hello, M.Gore) before corporations could understand the interest of this thing. Afterwards, they tried very hard to break and control it, unsuccessfully. (Look at AOL, look at what MSN was supposed to be at first)
I don't deny that capitalism or even corporatism can drive innovation, but if you want examples, computer science is not the best place to get them. The feeling I get is that groundbreaking innovations are usually publicly funded while incremental innovations are made by corporations.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
It would help if we actually had a left wing. Currently, we've got a center-right and far-right wing. I'm admittedly on the far-left, making me a bit out of step with the rest of the country, but it's deeply frustrating to any socialist when people call Barack Obama, a center-right politician, a Marxist or socialist.
Obama is very friendly to Wall Street. Very, very friendly.
Skud's an experienced programmer. As is the case with many experienced computer programmers, she didn't have a computer science degree. Please see any of the countless debates on Slashdot on whether computer science degrees are necessary for programming. She wasn't switching to a technical position: she was getting forced out of a technical position she had held for three years. She wasn't switching to a handle; her name is Skud, that is the name she normally uses, and that is what Google's official policy supposedly defines as the name to use for a Google account.
Much of the article is a critique of Silicon Valley culture in general, and why she's glad she left.
Google+ doesn't want me to use a handle. I'm a queer/transgender female so that's offensive.
You obviously read enough of The Fucking Article to have seen this part:
As a queer/genderqueer woman, victim of abuse, and someone who was (at that very time) experiencing online harassment and bullying, I was very vocal within Google for the need for Google+ to support pseudonymity.
Her words speak for themselves.
You haven't done anyone a service by summarizing.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!