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Rand Paul and Silicon Valley's Shifting Political Climate
SonicSpike sends this story from NY Magazine:
Rand Paul appears to be making a full-court press for the affections of Silicon Valley, and there are some signs that his efforts are paying off. At last week's Sun Valley conference, Paul had one-on-one meetings with Thiel and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ... Next weekend, Paul will get to make his case yet again as the keynote speaker at Reboot, a San Francisco conference put on by a group called Lincoln Labs, which self-defines as "techies and politicos who believe in promoting liberty with technology." He'll likely say a version of what he's said before: that Silicon Valley's innovative potential can be best unlocked in an environment with minimal government intrusion in the forms of surveillance, corporate taxes, and regulation. “I see almost unlimited potential for us in Silicon Valley,” Paul has said, with "us" meaning libertarians.
Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues. But it seems more skeptical about taxes and business regulation than at any point in its recent history. Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.
Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues. But it seems more skeptical about taxes and business regulation than at any point in its recent history. Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.
It's people like you who enable that mayhem.
The idea that small government is a substitute for good governance is a koch dream. Small government means less oversight. So your dollars go to companies like Shell who destroy ecologies and societies.
Things like regulatory capture happen because people don't pay enough attention to their government, not because it is too big. Money chases power wherever it is. At least with government the money has to put in some work to get what it wants instead of getting it served up on a platter.
"That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves."
And given the overwhelming historical association between "liber"tarian ideology and slavery, it's probably more accurate to just call it according to its real preoccupation: Moneytarianism.
No doubt such a viewpoint would find a receptive audience in some of the shallower minds and uglier spirits of Silicon Valley.
But the philosophical core of the region and the tech industry remains fundamentally progressive. That's why it remains the king despite decades of conservative "small government" states desperately trying and failing to replicate it on any remotely competitive scale.
I just find it fascinating that left leaning people always proclaim how they are such fans of diversity and inclusion, yet revile any thoughts that might stand in opposition to their own.
God forbid people be open minded towards new ideas, or even old ones.
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