Slashdot Mirror
'Increasingly, People in Silicon Valley Are Losing Touch With Reality' (500ish.com)
Longtime commentator MG Siegler writes: You can see it in the tweets. You can hear it at tech conferences. Hell, you can hear it at most cafes in San Francisco on any given day. People -- really smart people -- saying some of the most vacuous things. Words that if they were able to take a step outside of their own heads and hear, they'd be embarrassed by. Or, at least, these are stances, thoughts, and ideas that these people should be embarrassed by. But they're clearly not because they keep saying them. This isn't only about Facebook -- far from it. That's just the most high profile and timely example of a company suffering from some of this. And in that case, it's really more in their responses to the Cambridge Analytica situation, rather than the situation itself (which is another matter, though undoubtedly related). They don't know the right things to say because they don't know what to say, period. Because they've slipped out of touch.
But again, I feel like this is increasingly everywhere I look around tech. It's an industry filled with some of the most brilliant people in the world, which makes it all the more disappointing. I won't name names but also because I don't have to. I'd wager everyone reading this will have clear and obvious examples of what I'm talking about in their own circles -- even if only in their own virtual circles. This is everywhere. I don't know the cause of this. Perhaps we can blame part of it on Trump, even if only indirectly (a man who has gotten ahead in life by saying asinine things). If I had to guess, I'd say the root is an increasing sense of entitlement as the tech industry has grown in stature to become the most important from a fiscal perspective and arguably from a cultural perspective as well.
But again, I feel like this is increasingly everywhere I look around tech. It's an industry filled with some of the most brilliant people in the world, which makes it all the more disappointing. I won't name names but also because I don't have to. I'd wager everyone reading this will have clear and obvious examples of what I'm talking about in their own circles -- even if only in their own virtual circles. This is everywhere. I don't know the cause of this. Perhaps we can blame part of it on Trump, even if only indirectly (a man who has gotten ahead in life by saying asinine things). If I had to guess, I'd say the root is an increasing sense of entitlement as the tech industry has grown in stature to become the most important from a fiscal perspective and arguably from a cultural perspective as well.
Starts off with: People in silicon valley are in a bubble.
True statement.
Ends with: It's basically Trump's fault that people in Silicon Valley are in a bubble.
Yeah... that basically shows the author is basically in the same bubble as the people in Silicon Valley.
Lemme guess: The main conclusion is that the elitists in Silicon Valley aren't Pavlovianly "woke" enough, which is why they are in the bubble?
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
That perhaps the real problem is that YOU are measuring reality differently than they are.
They're measuring reality with the relentless mathematics of financial analysis.
Your metric may simply be different.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Seems that a person in a bubble is aware enough to notice other people's bubbles but not his/her own bubble.
I guess the point here is that people cannot have their own opinions, or opinions that are different from yours?
First world countries that think Internet Outages are a disaster and where priorities are selfies and self-driving cars and toilets with LEDs in them ...
If I typed that much without saying anything or making a point.
Tell us something we didn't know. Didn't even give us anything interesting that they had "heard". Bah. Waste of a couple of seconds to skim that fluff piece.
Listen, not that I disagree with you on silicon valley being out of touch, but WTF is this doing on slashdot?
/., go home. You're drunk.
> I won’t name names or give examples because I’m not an asshole.
ok, so I have no idea what you're referring to then
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
"really smart people—saying some of the most vacuous things."
What things. Just one example.?
This article is a joke with no punchline.
This "article" or "summary" blathers on about nothing in particular with no examples or substantial points to make.
Is slashdot twitter now, with a bunch of outraged SJW mouthing off about things of which they have no ability to form an coherent opinion or logical train of thoughts?
The entire article is written at this level of generality. As such, you can search/replace Silicon Valley with Wall Street and the same article applies. Hell, you can probably replace it with "That McDonald's, no the one by the Burger King".
His point may be valid, but he hasn't offered a single example to back it up.
And, as a public service, he has links out of his article that imply he links to the "vacuous things", but it's just another shitty page with nothing on it and he's just trying to drive up page views.... like those articles across 12 pages.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Color me shocked that an established echo chamber leads to unchecked bad behavior - as seen from the outside. Obviously the solution is to create new silicon valleys - like the 'silicon prairie' in the mid west, silicon hollar, or silicon river.
On that note I am pretty certain the Simpsons addressed this at Gazebo 7.
...the article itself was example.
For themselves and everyone around them. From celebrities to soccer moms to, yes, why not SV inhabitants. I have no idea where this urge comes from, but listen to anyone, literally anyone, who doesn't have any real problems to deal with, i.e. those that have the first and pretty much the second level of the pyramid of needs fulfilled and overfulfilled. You'll notice them lament about problems that are none. They actually start inventing problems they can lament about if they really can't find any.
Meanwhile, out here in reality, we shake our heads about them and wonder whether these are really role models and something to aspire to.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No examples, no specifics, just some vacuous rambling.
Damn, I miss the good old days when Slashdot posted stuff of interest.
This has got to be one of the worst articles I have read in a long time. There isn't a single example of what he's talking about.
"I won’t name names or give examples because I’m not an asshole. But also because I don’t have to. I’d wager everyone reading this will have clear and obvious examples of what I’m talking about in their own circles—even if only in their own virtual circles. This is everywhere."
Actually, I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you could write an article to explain yourself.
Joseph Elwell.
Haley/Pence 2020. They're already setting it up.
There is far to little "naming of names" these days.
Without it... one cannot gauge the veracity of a conclusion.
Name names- or shutup!
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
It's an industry filled with some of the most brilliant people in the world,
Hell, I've met more plumbers of high intelligence than I've met developers. To quote a wise Frenchman - doesn't take a lot of savvy just to be a whore. Tech workers are, by and large, dumbasses outside of a very narrow scope. Most people are, in fact; tech whores just love giving themselves airs, though.
I'd wager everyone reading this will have clear and obvious examples of what I'm talking about in their own circles -- even if only in their own virtual circles.
Sure. It's usually TDS-related. Every dumb fuck is an expert on the stock market, Syria, North Korea, every level of our legal system, et cetera, et cetera.
Perhaps we can blame part of it on Trump
And there it is.
Yeah, ideologues are at odds with reality. And ambition is looking past current reality toward a less real (but better) future. So when ambitious ideologues get ahead of themselves, they seem out of touch with reality — because they are.
It's not reality that Silicon Valley needs, it's humanity. Don't "make the world a better place"; make things better for people instead. People need your help, they don't need you to be their overseer, they don't need your ideas for how they should think or how they should live their lives. Don't impose. Don't preach at people. Don't try to engineer or optimize people who didn't ask you. Don't be a bully.
I see people here asking for examples of out of touchness:
https://ijr.com/2018/04/108406...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Particularly when in tight groups or quarters.
Groupthink allows one to feel safe.
Hmm....think those are the same types of people that are wanting to take guns away?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
human... possibly most existence is or has to be relative perspective.
The 1st world problems can feel just as severe and important to them as the 3rd world problems do to their people. Isolated, they won't ever be aware of what can happen outside of hypothetical fictional musings. Being aware does not put it into conscious thought all the time without reminders and your conscious mind has limitations on how many aspects it can deal with at a time.
For example, in the USA when it was 3rd world and quite barbaric (still left out of the history) they had a revolutionary war over less taxation and less representation than we have today; they also had less to lose by actually fighting and the majority were willing to harbor terrorists/traitors against the government while a minority of less 10% did the fighting until it was looking promising and even then probably only around 20% at peak. (please correct me if I'm not recollecting the numbers correctly; but remember the point is that a tiny group starts things and does the real hard work to build momentum where the majority of recruits who continue that momentum are often still not half the population. Passive and fickle is the majority... easily willing to praise successes and "join" them by word alone. )
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
No substance, no point, just saying people are out of touch about... uh about .. he doesnâ(TM)t say... and the problem is... wait there is no problem... and the cause of this he says is... maybe trump because... uhh ... well that was a very big waste of time. If you havenâ(TM)t read the article donâ(TM)t bother.
Lets think about other recent vapid silicon valley cycles: app economy, social, messaging, sharing economy.
Exactly how many of these changed the world?
App economy - people churning out bad games designed to prey on suckers
Social - while a few sites survived every beneficial use of social graphs failed leaving only sleazy actors like Cambridge Analytica
Messaging - still irrelevant, no western company managed to replicate the Asian market where messaging apps became platforms (probably because those apps started before smart phones)
Sharing economy - not actually sharing, taxis with apps behaving badly and short term rentals crowding out the market and causing disturbances
AI - not actually AI, so far deployed in a haphazard fashion with two companies (Tesla & Uber) causing deaths, and one of these companies continually points the finger at the victims.
The submitter will continue to be only a commentator. The post meanders along with no substance, then eventually gets to the point that it is just a political hit piece.
Everyone lives in a bubble that distorts reality through the filter of their own experiences. The 1% just have very high distortion bubbles because 1: By definition most of their experiences aren't shared by 99% of the rest of the people (and vice versa,) 2: they're often surrounded by sycophants who will agree with whatever drivel they spout forth, and 3: their wealth and fame gives them a louder voice if they choose to exercise it publicly, which amplifies their view of their own importance even more.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Tech people are really good at falling victim to the Dunning–Kruger effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... They equate their highly specialized technical abilities or "smarts" with being at the upper end of the cognitive spectrum overall. Where in fact, they are unable to baseline a "smart" person, so they assume they are one, because of their success in a very limited area. This is reinforced by people telling them how smart they are. Where in reality they understand a somewhat simple topic that the person giving the compliment lacks an understanding of.
The Dunning–Kruger effect is not just in tech, most people who are less than average overall assume they are at the upper end of the spectrum. This is entirely caused by a lack of a real point of comparison, they are ignorant of what they are ignorant of and no one dares tell them differently. They then feel they have authority to speak on topics where they have no more expertise than the average fifth grader. A great example of this is a genetics professor I once had given a lecture (in a high-level genetics class) about computer security. He was repeting a perspective that had recently been published in the media. He spoke with complete authority on the topic, but due to my lifetime in security, I know everything he was saying was sensationally fake. He lacked the perspective to understand that he wasn't smart in this area but claimed his high-level knowledge in biology allowed him to be an expert in every possible field. This is the exact same force at work...
... with meager quality hippster column on how silicon valley is bad, Peter Thiel and Co. are on koke, Ellison and Co. can be A-grade dicks and Mark talks big nothing in press release. Film at eleven.
I want my 3 minutes back.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
And then came the Assumptions
And the Assumptions were without form
And the Plan was completely without substance
And the darkness was upon the face of the Workers
And the Workers spoke amongst themselves, saying
"It is a crock of shit, and it stinketh."
And the Workers went unto their Supervisors and sayeth,
"It is a pail of dung and none may abide the odor thereof."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers and sayeth unto them,
"It is a container of excrement and it is very strong,
such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors and sayeth,
"It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength."
And the Directors spoke among themselves, saying one to another,
"It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors went unto the Vice Presidents and sayeth unto them,
"It promotes growth and is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went unto the President and sayeth unto him,
"This new Plan will actively promote the growth and efficiency of this
Company, and in these Areas in particular."
And the President looked upon The Plan,
And saw that it was good, and The Plan became Policy.
And this is how Shit Happens.
No content was harmed in the making of the article. 500 words on a complex social, economic, political, labor, gender roles, and political topic. Common now there is no way to do that except to rely on sweeping generalizations, stereotyping, unsupported assumption, and simplistic conclusions. Maybe this actual is intended to be an illustration of the arrogance and lack of intelligence I see in Silly Valley.
And a slashdot post is too short for me to even begin my ranting and raving. Maybe a journal entry.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Due to limited resources for intake, analysis, correlation of information, EVERYONE lives in a bubble. If it was possible for one person to know and understand everything, we would elect that person king of the world.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
From the article:
"Instead, I fear IQ has won at the expense of EQ"
In his own words, rational thinking has won out over emotions. If that's out of touch then I fear his idea of in touch.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
What if those are VR bubbles?
"Losing touch with reality" -- makes the implication that someone has an authoritative perspective on reality.
We're nerds.
We say blunt and undiplomatic things, and are comfortable with other people like ourselves because it's easy to know what's on their mind. Of course that's a stereotype; it represents the extreme of the scale, but most of us at least lean a bit toward that end of the spectrum.
The thing is as you get older you realize that sustainable success in life has two sides: exploiting your strengths and compensating for your weaknesses, and a preference for bluntness over social nuance is both a strength and a weakness. The dangers of social nuance are a fact, as objective as any other fact, and that means you can't blythely ignore other peoples' feelings and consider yourself a realist.
Mark Zuckerberg is 33, an age which, back in the day, a bright young guy would maybe have just clawed his way onto the bottom rung of the upper management. Now he's one of the masters of the universe, and still making the kind of mistakes that didn't prevent him from getting where he is today. The thing about mistakes though is that they don't always get you right away. Sometimes they catch up with you. But he's a young dog yet; maybe he'll learn new tricks.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
How is this different from Wall Street plutocrats of the Thurston Howell type? They've been with us since the industrial age, and in royalty before that in the "let them eat cake" sense.
Table-ized A.I.
The topic is right on. I see it all the time in trading... The Firehouse Effect is a notion attributed to a veteran market trader Marty O’Connell “that firemen with much downtime who talk to each other for too long come to agree on many things that an outside, impartial observer would find ludicrous”. Also Silicon Valley violates the principles of good decision making as outlined in Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki. Good decision making by groups: Diversity of opinion - Each person should have private information even if it's just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts. Independence - People's opinions aren't determined by the opinions of those around them. Decentralization - People can specialize and draw on local knowledge. Aggregation - Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision. SV has become a hotbed of McCarthyism in reverse.
Seriously, this is like Antifa trying to explain fascism to itself.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
The commentator's rant is perfectly self-referential: an apt example of everything he's complaining about. I can't decide if he's a complete genius or utterly clueless, but in either event, his rant is a work of art.
Also, can we just stop patting tech people on the back for being brilliant? There's little evidence of that these days. A lot of tech people now are highly trained performers who are skilled at the one thing they actually do, but maybe not overall the brightest crayons in the box. Tech hiring practices emphasize jumping through hoops to the exclusion of creativity or the ability to think about problems from multiple angles.
I've seen this effect outside of Silicon Valley as well. Particularly in a one company or industry town. Seattle and Boeing some 20 or 30 years ago come to mind. People only associate with their company/industry peers and they develop a group think that begins to diverge from the rest of the world.
Scott Adams (Dilbert) referred to these people as technological savants. Smart enough to solve the most challenging problem in their own field. But too stupid to compare two paychecks. The problem goes way beyond paychecks in that management is most content when they don't have to put up with people who point to another industry and tell them that someone else might have a better idea.
Have gnu, will travel.
The author makes some vague references, but doesn't provide any examples. I don't know what he's talking about. For all I know the people in Silicon Valley are in touch with reality and the author is so far out of touch that he can't recognize when he sees it.
For most of the Slashdot readers, no internet is as bad as no electricity.
#DeleteFacebook
Horoscope: Someone you thought was pretty smart will say something odd.
Reader: Odd how?
Horoscope: You don't know the first thing about horoscopes, do you?
You imply people are saying and doing things that are out of touch but you never say what those things actually are and who they're out of touch with? This is akin to the homeless guy on the corner constantly saying "it's the governments fault!".
a man who has gotten ahead in life by saying asinine things
The left, and many on the right, fail to grasp how incredibly shrewd Trump is. I don't much care for him as a person but the facts are undeniable that he is a successful real estate developer in NYC. It doesn't matter if his original seed money came from his father, one does not build ANYTHING in Manhattan without having a lot of clues. A great many things involving a large number of stakeholders have to happen to build a project and he did it multiple times.
In his first full attempt at public office (continued to the actual election), he ran for the highest office in the world and won. The man beat first the GOP, of which he was only peripherally a member that was united against him, and then beat the MSM and the career politician who was supposed to be the pre-determined next POTUS.
People think him to be a clown because he doesn't talk like a lawyer and then underestimate him. Sun Tzu said "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." Only one side in this battle knew the truth about the enemy.
Most people forget that what a person wants is very different from what they buy. A person buying a drill didn't want a drill, they need to make a hole. Even the hole was only necessary because the person actually just needed to mount a shelf. The Democrats kept saying "Look at our great drill and all the features it has. You have to get it because it is the best drill." Trump said "I'll hang your shelf."
Wow...just....wow.
You really believe that?
Did it never occur to you that the NRA is made up of and supported BY citizens of the United States, and that the organization is there to lobby on their behalf?
This isn't some mindless entity that is trying to push its evil views on the country, it is a representative of the people that value their 2A rights.
If the left wasn't trying to gun grab again....you'd not see this level of animosity that does seem to be brewing somewhat, but then again, what can you expect when you have sections of the US, trying to infringe upon the LONG held rights of many others in the US. You expect them to give up easily?
I'm actually shocked, to see how many people today, and it is mostly youths, that are so willing it seems to voluntarily give up their own rights.
And once you do give up said rights, you pretty much never can give them back.
But using words like slaughter, etc....that's really going above board. No one is calling for that.
If anything, I see more vitriol of that type actually coming from the left these days....they are the ones having the more violent protests these days.
If, however, there ever came a time with there was an attempt at mass confiscation, then yes....you likely would see violence.
I don't forsee it coming to that, but if constitutional rights get stomped on too much, it could get messy.
But do realize...that's what this country was founded upon, you know? Rights were hard fought for....the British didn't really nicely want to give us up if you recall. The founding fathers felt strongly enough to fight for their independence and to have a country with inherit rights.
One of the reasons for the 2nd Amendment, was to have some insurance that the government didn't become too overbearing and intrusive again. It wasn't passed to just assure people they could still hunt food.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Quote: "I'd wager everyone reading this will have clear and obvious examples of what I'm talking about "
I have no idea what you are talking about.
You lost the bet MG Siegler.
Don't read too much into this.
The article is an excellent example of what might now be called "Trumpist discourse", where vacuous phrases are tossed about to lead persons who are not using critical reading skills to accept some underlying, unspoken, premise. A couple of decades ago this style of suasion could have been called "Rushist discourse". Rush Limbaugh was a past master of this, even getting much of his audience to proudly label themselves "Dittoheads". Before that, the author of this vacuous attack on rational thought might have been labelled a Pied Piper, leading the good but child-like netizens astray by appealing to their Inner Children.
The purpose of this author's work was not to persuade anyone to any particular cause or to take any particular action. Its sole purpose was to derail the reader's train of thought; to create in each reader a train wreck of their rational processes.
Perhaps this was done with the intent to follow up with sock puppets in the comments that would direct the susceptible into adopting some particular point of view. Or perhaps it was done as an experiment to see whether the Slashdot community could be influenced in this way (with more specific attempts to brainwash slashdotters to follow). Or perhaps ---to put this in the most benign light possible--- this was an attempt to inoculate slashdotters from this kind of attack on their cognitive abilities.
Netizens of Silicon Valley: Untie! Free yourselves from the yoke of hard thinking! Four legs good, Two legs BETTER!
Anyone paying attention over the last 5-7 years knows this is true.
Seriously some of my brain cells died a little reading this. It looks like something the author scribbled in his My Little Pony journal.
I don't work in Silicon Valley; I went there once. My parent company is there, and the people who work on the campus there are smart, insightful, and hard working. I have no idea what the "author" is talking about, and from the other comments, neither does anyone else.
- Vincit qui patitur.
I remember working in a moving company in high school, some of the guys would make ridiculously racist jokes they'd be ashamed to repeat elsewhere.
I've been in a bar with skilled labour types, they made dumbass political statements that have no bearing on reality.
Every little subculture creates their own little reality, of course silicon valley folks are making statements among themselves that make sense in no other context. I don't think silicon valley is worse than any other culture in this regard. And outside of the occasional bad startup idea I don't think their weird quirks are really causing problems.
I stole this Sig
I think this guy seriously lack self-awareness.
"I won’t name names or give examples because I’m not an asshole."
Proceeds to throw out a couple names... Trump and Zuckerberg both who are right now easy targets.
" Though, admittedly, I sometimes play one on the internet too."
Perhaps he should have stepped outside before posting this on the Internet.
There is no actual content in this article beyond its headline.
It's seemed like everywhere I looked, not just Flint, Michigan, had lead in their drinking water or something, because it's seemed like people were getting dumber and dumber over time, and more and more disturbed, instead of smarter and more stable. But perhaps this person has hit upon it: more and more people are out-of-touch with reality? Consider also the opioid/fentanyl addiciton/overdose problem, and more and more people (apparently) taking up smoking in one form or another, regardless of the mountains of evidence that shows it's just plain bad for you; are people just trying to escape a world that's getting shittier and shittier, year after year? I think that might be why. I read in bed for a few minutes every night so I don't go to sleep thinking about the days' problems, and I get lots of exercise (7 to 15 or more hours a week, every week) both of which help me combat a shitty world dragging me down. Perhaps too many other people are escaping in other ways?
You can see it in the tweets. You can hear it at tech conferences. Hell, you can hear it at most cafes in San Francisco on any given day. People -- like M.G. Siegler -- saying some of the most vacuous things. Words that if he were able to take a step outside of his own head and hear, he'd be embarrassed by. Or, at least, these are stances, thoughts, and ideas that he should be embarrassed by. But he's clearly not because he keeps saying them. This isn't only about Facebook -- far from it. That's just the most high profile and timely example of a company suffering from some of this. And in that case, it's really more in his responses to the Cambridge Analytica situation, rather than the situation itself (which is another matter, though undoubtedly related). He doesn't know the right things to say because he doesn't know what to say, period. Because he's slipped out of touch.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
I'll give it a shot.
An SJW is someone who thinks that people who do not support their pet issue should be publicly shamed and extra-judiciously punished for not supporting their pet issue. Typically they identify themselves as victims of straight white males. When not online, they enjoy spending time in mobs while repeating slogans and protesting the world.
Not really that hard.
The bubble is also DC, the NYC area, LA/Hollywood. In other words, the "elite" of society, thing EVERYONE, lives, breathes, acts like they do, think like they do. The 2016 election, shook them up a bit because the country didn't side with Hillary.
You clearly have no idea how the rest of the world perceives American gun-fetishists and its associated stupidity.
There is NO God-given right to play with guns. Deal.
Nice post. By the way, when did you stop beating your wife?
Haley, being one of the very few competent members of this administration, now looks on her way to get thrown under the bus. But by 2020, this may actually be a point in her favour with the voters.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
... because we already knew about it and we've fixed it.
WE VOTED TRUMP INTO THE WHITE (GLASS) HOUSE
Yes, we targeted Trump and his entire orbit including those guilty of systemic sexual harassment, white nationalism, fraud, blackmail, money laundering, electioneering and, yes, even the people who wouldn't do anything sensible to at least try to reduce injuries and deaths by way of personal handguns and rifles.
We knew that Trump, as a president, would be under the microscope.
The Access Hollywood tape had been around awhile and we wanted that out there.
During the campaign, sure enough, the KKK people took off their hoods! Bonus. Notice that fire is tamped down now, but it's too late. Our LEOs have a year of video and photographic evidence that we have scanned through facial recognition and all your base are belong to us.
Our work has been fruitful.
Think of the many politicians that have met their political demise via exposure of their sexual indiscretions.
Look at Trump's lawyer, Cohen, who is in deep shit.
Look at Hannity. We wanted him and Bill O'Reilly and. we calculated to bring down Fox News and flat-line its bias and influence as fake news. That's a work in progress.
Appreciate that all the work done by lawyers and acquaintances of Trump, intended to shield him from negative press during the campaign, have a dollar value and are categorized as campaign contributions.
In some cases where individuals said they did shit for Trump on their own, the value of the work exceeds the limit of private campaign donation limits.
Cohen created companies in Delaware as a dodge in order to hide the transactions, but the companies did not claim the payout as campaign contribution. That's money laundering and other stuff.
==
Intelligent, reasonable, people have long asked for implementation of rational firearm regulation.
We were not out to get the guns.
Because more traditional approaches failed to move the needle, (and for other obvious reasons) we decided to pass on Hillary Clinton in favour of Trump.
Our strategy has worked in that gun sales are at record lows and some gun manufacturers are having fire sales because the batshit crazy #2A assholes were gearing up for a Hillary win and the manufacturers over-produced, and have a shit-load of inventory.
Gun maker stocks are down and some are even filing for bankruptcy.
SO, WE DIDN'T TAKE THE GUNS --WE FIXED IT WHERE FEW PEOPLE ARE BUYING THEM
OK, You may applaud now, and thank you for not cheering and yelling during this presentation.
Tip jar's on the piano, try the fish.
.
.
© 2018 CaptainDork
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Why was this modded Offtopic?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Heck, my wife beats me up almost every morning. I'm more of a night owl than she is.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You have a right to defend yourself. You don't have a right to drop your neighbour at 50 yards.
Someone who's actually spent time outside the US please mod parent up.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The big takeaway I had was that people are deriving identity from self-labeling far more than other places in the country I've lived, and I've lived all over. It seems like it's so terribly important to live up to your label in the bay area that it really defines you, and is how others define you. Everyone is a type of extremist and like any extremist, they place overlarge attention and emphasis on their key issue well past the point of rationality, to the detriment of any other issue, no matter whether it's related or not.
So the people there made it a horrible place to live.
I wrote this https://slashdot.org/comments.... about my experiences in the bay area back in the heady days of 1998. It even has some examples.
I don't think we need to invoke Trump, as per the article. The bay area has always been up it's own ass, though I'll concede it may be getting worse.
Anyone blaming Trump still is stuck in the Silicon Valley bubble. Nothing that they said would happen has happened. Stocks did not drop, unemployment did not increase, economy did not tank, no one's civil rights have been taken away.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
It's the author who's lost touch with reality.
He never does say what "it" is, and somehow expects us to know.
I honestly have no idea what this guy is going on about. I hear people say things that sound like technical jargon, I have no idea what they are saying, but it's not really "out of touch".
I hear a lot of political crap, mostly from facebook, mostly from the opposite of Si Valley, and honestly most of it sounds like russbot vomit. Either that or the US is on the edge of a civil war, waged by a secret far right militia against some "liberal soft coup" that I've never heard of. Does this make me out of touch with reality? Or them? It's difficult to tell sometimes, and depends heavily on reference point.
I'm thinking this guy is just fishing for examples so we can write an article for him. I conclude this with my need for a tactical retreat to enact my vertical strategy.
Sorry, i'm not as wealthy as you think i am. In terms of world population i'm in the 42%.
Source: "The Unprecedented Expansion Of The Global Middle Class"
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I'm in the top 1% of the world, sure. Most of the US population isn't. The population of the US is roughly 5% of the population of the world, and there are quite a few more people in rich developed countries. If everyone in the US was better off than everyone not in the US, only about 20% of the people in the US would be world 1%ers.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Um, the side that stays more legal? In civilized countries, we delegate a lot of our potential for violence to people who work for the government. Modern criminal justice systems have a lot of problems, but far fewer than if we practiced private vengeance.
If a "good ol' boy" fires a rifle at me, that "good ol' boy" is likely to be arrested, convicted, and lose the right to own a gun.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Here's a more apt article: 'Increasingly, People Everywhere Are Losing Touch With Reality'
The "Left" isn't particularly unified on this. Some leftists would like gun ownership mostly abolished, sure. Lots would like to see weapons like the AR-15 banned, but aren't willing to campaign to ban handguns and hunting rifles. A ban on AR-15 class weapons would be rather similar to the Reagan-era legislation on owning automatic weapons, and IIRC the NRA was in favor of that (can't find references right now, sorry).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
And you clearly have no idea how little we give a shit how the rest of the world perceives the US gun laws and leanings.
If you're not in the US, why are you even bothered at all how we live and do in our own country'? It has nothing to do with you or effect on your lives.
Actually, in the US we believe you do...in fact, ALL rights are God given, you are born with them, and then we take and regulate and have laws on some that may curtail some of them. In the US, neither the Constitution nor the government (federal, state or local) gives rights to the citizens, it is the citizenry that gives limited, enumerated rights to the various governments, and here, the states are supposed to have the most say on those laws....at least that's how it is set up to be.
So basically, unless there is a specific law against it, you are born with a right to just about anything or any behavior in the world in the US.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Says a commentator who despises everybody who doesn't fit his private little set of personal crotchets, none of which really relate to Silicon Valley. Who in hell is Nassim Taleb, anyway?
Believe me, if you donâ(TM)t like Trump, youâ(TM)ll really hate Pence. So you just have to ride it out.
PLEASE learn a bit more before you argue a subject.
it is already VERY difficult to legally own an automatic weapon in the US.
With current laws on the books, you cannot as a civilian possess a machine gun (fully automatic weapon, meaning one pull of the trigger will continue to fire until the trigger is released) that was made after 1986.
If you have about $10K which I believe is about the going rate for the cheapest of available low end machine guns in the us...you can find someone that will sell it, but you first must fill out paperwork, get a $200 tax stamp from the BATF, and then you can get that automatic weapon.
The AR platform, a civilian weapon is NOT an automatic weapon/machine gun. They are all just semi-automatic rifles. There are many many semi-automatic rifles out there, that shoot the same ammo (by the way, the AR-15 generally shoots a glorified .22 caliber projectile)....and many even more powerful ammo, but they aren't black, and don't look as 'scary'....but functionally, they are the same or even more powerful.
The AR just is popular due to interchangeable and upgradeable parts....none of which are legal to be sold to convert or use as a fully automatic weapon.
The AR is not an assault weapon, as that I mentioned, it is only semi-automatic, one pull of the trigger fires one shot. Again, MANY if not most other rifles fit that same description. Many ARs have things like pistol grips, or extendable stocks, but that stuff is purely aesthetic...they don't make them more deadly than any other semi-automatic rifle.
By the way....30 rounds is a standard magazine size, it isn't high capacity. Many rifles have that as standard magazine size....but that's another argument.
Anyway, please do note on your future arguments, that the AR platform rifles that the citizens in the US have are not fully automatic weapons. None of the shootings you've been hearing of in any recent times have been done with automatic rifles...they were all semi-automatic.
Hope that helps.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
But using words like slaughter, etc....that's really going above board. No one is calling for that.
To be fair, the GP did use the term "dogwhistle", which is almost always a term the left uses to excuse their exercise of imparting words and motives onto those they would like to discredit. It is their dogwhistling way of saying, "He didn't say that, but we all know what words we're going to put in his mouth."
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
It's pretty easy to spot signaling behavior.
These are the people who change their Facebook background quickly and call out anyone who doesn't. The ones who show up to protests and then can't even explain a single thing they want changed. I expect you haven't seen them, but there are lovely videos of chanting people where they interview *everyone* at the protest and not a damned person gives *even one* idea for change, it's all yelling and screaming.
You clearly have no idea how little we care about how you perceive America. Here is a clue, I don't live my life to impress you, Benji. I would tell you to go fuck yourself and the rest of your country sideways, but I actually don't care.
Now, that being said, who decided that I don't have a God-given right to play with guns? You? Do I have a God-given right to play with stick? Must I have your permission to play with a rock? May I, sir? Please?
Once again, go fuck yourself, you overbearing prick.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Whatever your take on this story is, read Chris Hayes' "Twilight of the Elites". A lot of the stupid shit you seen in politics, academia, and well, SV, it's all about elites and supposed meritocracies that, acting as optimization systems without proper health-checks, then end up moving into a degenerated state.
So basically, unless there is a specific law against it, you are born with a right to just about anything or any behavior in the world in the US.
Stop spreading misinformation.
In the USA, everyone is guilty of a bunch of serious crimes they've never heard of. When the right people decide they need to get you out of the way or collect they snatch you up and record any new crimes you commit up until you plea down or submit to a fair trial where you may be found not guilty or guilty and given no less amount of punishment than required to destroy the rest of your life.
When people are incentivised to think outside the box of course they will be bored shitless with reality - especially the traffic jams! And microdosing lsd before lunch helps that detachment :)
"Longtime commentator MG Siegler writes" should now be shown as "Know nothing blatherista MG Siegler spews"
Or maybe you're too dumb to notice that the republicans don't actually give a shit about any of the causes they espouse and it's almost always cover for enabling some other objective. Like keeping black people on the right side of town or getting out of wall street's way next time they feel like gorging themselves on our retirement funds. If you were a democrat you'd be the one telling people that Hillary is the voice of young black people.
A true.. dumb...believer.
Silicon Valley was out of touch way before Trump was elected. They've been out of touch since pretty much the beginning.
What do you mean on her way? They just said she was "confused" about something because of senior WH whoopsies ...
I won’t name names or give examples because I’m not an asshole. But also because I don’t have to. I’d wager everyone reading this will have clear and obvious examples of what I’m talking about in their own circles—even if only in their own virtual circles. This is everywhere.
Hey, those people over there, they are out of touch. I won't say how, but you know what I mean. If you don't, make up something in your head. Then think it, and imagine that's what I'm talking about.
This article is a big fat troll. Zero substance or data. Just hopping on the "Facebook bad!" bandwagon, but too lazy to discuss why.
Being smart is very often associated with someone is lands somewhere on the Autism Spectrum.
Of course that also means that they suffer from a lack of socialization skills, and thus, say stupid shit.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
As time goes on the whole country and even the world becomes more self-absorbed by day. The usual suspects are even showing up here, the right calling out the left, the left calling out the right, Baby Boomers calling out millennial as self absorbed and entitled when baby boomers are the most self absorbed and entitled generation in human history while the selfie obsessed Millennials never fail to point this out. It applies EVERYWHERE, screw you all, and screw /. for letting this obvious vapid click bait onto the front page when it belongs on Facebook.
It should be modded up. The more one is aware of propaganda techniques, the more obvious they become.
Seriously, this is considered worth posting? Don't get me wrong, I live out here, I've watched things progress, but it's not like reality had a hole where tech fits. Instead, for the most part, tech makes shit up and some of it changes reality. But the vast majority of it is just insanely ill-thought-out and sinks back into the swamp. That's not some weird new state we need to recover from, that's been the status quo in tech for decades. And the tech sector has grown tons in spite of that, with commentators grousing all the way.
[The above should not be taken as a blessing on the status quo. I've been one of those grousers since the early 90's. But I am also keenly aware that for all that I feel like how things work is embarrassing and we need to do better, I still have no fucking clue how to fix it.]
Not that i know anything about america, but didnt he take away the rights of the so called DACA or dreamers? forcing all these kids whoes parents brought them here to go back to a country where they may not even have citizenship?
Unless you consider american children not deserving of civil rights, just because of their birth country, which is a pretty monstrous position to take.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
The likes of the UK are currently banning knives and acid, I'm sure possessing a rock or stick without government permission will be illegal sooner or later.
Even then, it's unlikely to change such insufferable arrogance.
San Francisco is not Silicon Valley, but there is a lot of overlap, much much more than there used to be. The Dot-Com bubble spread the tech world to SF, and since tech rebounded after the crash, San Francisco has been firmly part of that world.
All you have to do is rotate the view spline and blockchain the option, and everything will be left as dry.
It's simple when you do that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Trump didn't take away dreamers rights. They were already illegal aliens, whether they came here illegally at 10 or 50. Laws are just being enforced like they always have been. Even liberal media ABC admitted Obama deported more than any other president and Trump is continuing what Obama started http://abcnews.go.com/Politics...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
This isn't some mindless entity that is trying to push its evil views on the country, it is a representative of the people that value their 2A rights.
The NRA opposes ANY gun controls, even those supported by the majority of Americans.
Made up words, or overly creative euphemisms: check
a grain of truth: check
promoting a narrative: double check
When you say that propaganda works, is that from experience?
Insert Morpheus meme picture.....
What if I were to tell you that it's possible to be anti-Trump, but even more anti-Hillary?
I didn't like Trump, and didn't vote for him. But President Hillary would have been immeasurably worse.
I have a political button with a cartoon of Cthulhu, tentacles raised in a "V"; "Vote for Cthulhu! Why Support the LESSER Evil?"
There's still a lot of SF that is NOT tech, probably more than Santa Clara or Cupertino have. So there's still that.
But they've been more and more getting pushed out of San Francisco as tech has causes living expenses to rise.
That ship sailed about 20 years ago dude. You're way too close to the problem to see that. Better late than never I guess.
Bannon/Nunes 2020
ACtually, unfortunately, they do not.
The NRA actually came out in favor of bump stock bans, which it should not have done.
And mean of the gun controls we have today (which we shouldn't have) were supported by the NRA....the 1986 bills for instance were huge.
But even so, they do a good job and do recognize, that the NRA isn't some faceless entity with a mind of its own, it is a lobbying agency supported by millions of legal citizen gun owners that wish to have their voices heard.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
no one's civil rights have been taken away.
Well except if you're Hispanic or an undocumented immigrant. But I suppose a lot of misguided people like to pretend that only citizens have rights.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What should I have learned? I knew pretty much everything you said. I couldn't remember what that 1986 law was called, but you didn't say either.
What I meant is that we have laws that make it very difficult to own automatic weapons, and ban all less than about thirty years old, and extending that to the closest non-automatic equivalents wasn't much of a stretch If I was unclear, I apologize.
Given the wording of the Second, it seems odd to me that I can't buy a modern infantry rifle, and I don't see that the Second should allow AR-15s and not M16A4s.
I wasn't aware that 30 rounds was a standard magazine size for a semi-auto rifle. It seems awfully high. We fought WWII with semi-automatic rifles with eight-round clips. Thirty rounds seems unnecessary for most purposes, and I'd think reducing the magazine size would reduce the weight and make the weapon more manageable.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Everything we said has happened,including convictions of inner services and yes, rights HAVE been taken away, just ask Chris Kobach, tRump's choice for "Voter integrity" now standing convicted of contempt of court for REFUSING the right to vote to citizens.
Post about vacuous speech and losing touch then asks if we can blame Trump?
Pot - meet kettle.
Perhaps we can blame part of it on Trump, even if only indirectly (a man who has gotten ahead in life by saying asinine things).
You need to have been out of touch with reality in the first place to have voted for Trump.
Trump is just further perpetuating "fake realities"!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
The author may or may not be right, but he gives no examples and names no names. His "article" is just an assertion that is repeated several times. It appears that standards have fallen at Slashdot.
The Topic Summary is completely unintelligible.
If there is a crisis in Silicon Valley, it's clearly a crisis in literacy.
Be it Silicon Valley or the government itself, the problem is that all those people are living in bubbles brought by income inequality.
Doesn't matter how much sympathy you have, when you live your life completely surrounded by people that are in a similar situation to yours, and you cannot bother to see other peoples' needs and everyday lives outside your bubble, you cannot understand what you need to do to get in touch with them.
But this has always been a reality. Silicon Valley is no exception. It's just another elite group.
The major problem I see these days with Trumpism and all is the polarization and absolute unwillingness to recognize that such a thing exists.
It is no secret, perhaps only not perceived by the most fanatical Trump fans. He doesn't and has never leaded anything "for the people". He does it for himself. He only "gets" his own interests, the only right thing for him is the way he does things, he's never wrong, and he accepts no outside input unless it's aligned with his own.
If there are any good outcomes from his government, it'll be about things that attend his own agenda.
This is nothing new. It has been clear as day and out there for anyone to see for years before the election - he's basically just acting the way he always did, as a prepotent boss, on his shows, and whatnot.
Silicon Valley is much of the same crap. People keep throwing money at these self professed geniouses that seemingly never had any experiences hanging around with us "normies".
What you get is a bunch of startups creating crap that only makes sense for themselves. An overpriced juice pack squeezer, a hipster vending machine, urban mobility for the 1%, mobile apps that only solves their own perceived problems.
The US will never get out of those loops until it seriously starts working on the income gap problem.
This is also why China is winning. Despite all the flaws of the country, which are huge, the people working there to make things are closer to the average worldwide citizen reality. And even China is quickly becoming elitized, because that's just the model it's following.
Ah, financial derivatives. Replacing fundamental investment analysis by short-term playing with paper. One of the great wastes of human brainpower.