

Dave Winer: Occupy Silicon Valley? - daviday
http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/04/occupySiliconValley.html

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tryitnow
I think Silicon Valley is the answer, not the problem.

There's a world of difference between the massively publicly subsidized,
mostly zero sum financial industry and the technology driven entrepreneurship
of the Valley. One hedge fund's gains are another hedge fund's losses.* Google
and Facebook make money by improving the matching between buyers and sellers.
I would argue that thus far, my trade of privacy for useful communication
tools has worked wondrously in my favor. Does anyone disagree with that?

Privacy? I absolutely agree that's an issue. If you do too, then do something
about it. Create a company that consumers can flee too when/if Facebook et al.
overstep their bounds. That's competition. It actually exists in the Valley.
After the tech bubble did Uncle Sam bail out the entrepreneurs and VCs? No.

Yet when Wall Street managed to destroy more wealth than they ever created,
the taxpayer had to basically insure them against losses (it doesn't matter if
the government was made whole afterwards - the value of the insurance itself
is an implicit subsidy as well as a moral hazard).

Of course, government subsidies, particularly military subsidies, were crucial
to the early development of the Valley, but can anyone argue that we haven't
earned rich dividends on those public dollars?

Tech entrepreneurship is much more likely to be a positive sum game than the
financial speculation that has enriched the Street and the City.

Many of the biggest problems we face as a society can only be solved by
technology entrepreneurship. Information technology is ushering in an era of
personalized medicine that holds the promise of finally offering us effective
care at reasonable cost. New models of web-based and social learning promise
to disrupt the academic status quo and provide a new outlet for smart people
to learn skills quickly and efficiently. The Valley has also been at the
forefront of investing in energy technologies that will reduce our dependence
on fossil fuels.

Seriously, what has Wall Street done? What can they do? Is loaning someone
money to buy a house really so hard you need a 100 PhD quants figuring out how
to do it? Probably not. However, if your goal is to fight a zero sum game in
the financial markets with other hedge funds then that brain power comes in
handy. But what has society gained in that scenario? Nothing. Instead we've
just lost brain power that could have been developing the next disruptive
technology.

* This is only true in highly liquid markets. I think the evidence suggests that financial trading is valuable up to a point to create liquidity. I would argue that the US and UK have well exceeded the point where we need to shuffle more brains and talent into Wall Street and the City.

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carsongross
Most serious traders recognize that "providing liquidity" is a huge joke for
the bumpkins. Don't give the banks that kind of credit: even in the best of
times, with fractional reserve lending, they are government-sponsored ponzi
schemes.

On the other hand, are you _sure_ that silicon valley is driving net material
progress? Is Facebook adding or detracting from our material wealth. Would a
drug with significant side-effects that swept through the world be a good
thing or a bad thing? Are the jobs that are being lost to increasing
automation being replaced by better jobs? Or worse ones?

Personally, I am quite ambivalent and confused on these topics, and certainly
skeptical of pat answers on either side.

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andrewljohnson
I think VCs and Silicon Valley create value. Wall Street doesn't seem to be
doing that recently - much the opposite actually.

And people don't hate Wall Street because they are rich - the riches are the
insult added to the injury. They hate the financial industry because they
appeared to have recklessly gambled away our future, and then left the people
holding the bag.

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carsongross
The protestors could do worse, although not for the reason Winer suggests:
many of the jobs that they thought they were going to have upon graduation
have been eaten by technology.

I am ambivalent on the topic.

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SergeyBrin
no one is forcing you to use these technologies.

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tempaccount10
Really? Credit card companies are starting to analyze your transaction data
for ad companies. Can you not use credit card? Can we not use cell phone? When
more and more aspects of our life are recorded and sold,you might find that if
you don't use these services, it will be almost impossible to live a
functional life. Yes, they don't force you. But when every company is doing
it. You are left with little options.

~~~
han5ish
I don't use a cell phone or a credit card.I don't have both of them.

