
Silicon Valley Reels After Trump’s Election - janeboo
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/technology/trump-election-silicon-valley-reels.html
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hga
Carlos Slim's personal blog continues to _generally_ disappoint (weasel
wording since I've heard nothing but praise about their election night
coverage, which could well be orders of magnitude better than most in both
presentation and accuracy).

For example, lying is not a policy that will help anyone:

 _Last year, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, published a broad rebuke
of Mr. Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from immigrating to the United States._

Trump's been quite explicit about this being a moratorium, until we can figure
out a better way to do it. And the "broad rebuke" they linked to was too short
in general and too biased in facts vs. feelings to take seriously. Could we at
least have an acknowledgement of why anyone would take this proposal
seriously? Since we're talking about California, I'll even include a hint:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack)
(an even a sane immigration policy could have prevented, our current regime
didn't even try, and we have many particulars about this couple if you doubt
it).

 _Some made very big, idealistic proposals — this being, after all, the land
of disruption. On Twitter, for instance, Mr. Pishevar said he would fund a
campaign to get California to secede from the nation._

And this concept is about as old as the nation itself, couching it in terms of
idealism and all the good connotations of "disruption" is ludicrous. Although
I suppose killing off 6-7 figures of people, as happened the last time this
was attempted for real, would qualify as "disruptive".

Let me also comment on the economic idiocy of such a proposal: if it wasn't
for the fashion and taste preferences of California's ruling classes being
enshrined in law and regulations, it could probably feed itself, and could
certainly supply its own electrical power and it's big enough, like Texas, to
run its own reliable gird.

But we all know the exact opposite has happened, and going further a simple
change in law could also deprive it of the Alaskan oil which the last time I
checked glutted its refineries (and crude oil is not all that fungible, plus
it would be _much_ more economic to send Alaska's oil to Japan and
thereabouts, they get most of their's from much further away, the law here is
a remnant of the '70s insane energy policies).

Etc.; without entering a real war, which didn't, for example, happen quickly
when Southern states started to succeed, the rest of the nation could bring
California _very_ low with simple embargoes like the ones I've mentioned, and
that not even getting into what could be done in "cyberspace". The _casus
belli_ would be the inevitable, even required refusal of cash strapped
California to shoulder it's share of the outstanding nation debt at the time
of succession.

ADDED: See also this "evergreen" Tweet
[https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/796229381114859520](https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/796229381114859520)

"Media which got everything wrong will now tell you all the things that will
happen as a result of the thing they said wouldn't happen."

