

Fortune asks 'Why does America hate Silicon Valley?' - matan_a
http://www.zdnet.com/fortune-asks-why-does-america-hate-silicon-valley-7000021591/

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magicalist
Jesus, speaking of narcissism...

America likes tech, but _really_ doesn't care that much about Silicon Valley.
Does anyone leave this place and not immediately see that?

(even the original article is flawed, somehow thinking that distance between
the New York financial sector and the press lets them fare better. The meme
these days is that the tech sector is after your private data to advertise at
you, but Americans by and large put the financial sector at about the same
level as they put Congress. The idea that Americans even care enough about
Silicon Valley to be able to loathe the place is a joke)

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potatolicious
Ehh, sort of kind of agree.

America in general doesn't hate tech. Here in NYC tech is not really a
controversial topic, and I certainly don't feel a stigma telling people I work
in tech.

That said, _the Bay Area_ really hates tech, for much of the same reasons
outlined in the article. Despite the fact that techies are _everywhere_ ,
there is certainly a stigma and a very palpable tension between tech and
everyone else in the area.

And I have to agree with the article on that front. We talk a lot of shit
about changing the world, we project the image (and the ballot boxes confirm)
of bleeding heart, socially-aware liberals but yet it seems that belief
applies anywhere except our own back yards. It's a quixotic place where we
rant about Big Pharma abusing governments for tax breaks, and then do it
ourselves.

It's the sort of place where you'd talk a lot of shit about doing good,
alleviating poverty, establishing microloans in distant faraway lands, but do
nothing for the open-air crack den you live next to. Nothing about the tens of
thousands of homeless people. Nothing about the second-world warzone of a
ghetto smack in the heart of the city (the article mentions East Palo Alto,
but the Mission and SOMA deserve a mention too). In fact we seem to go out of
our way to obstruct any progress in this regard.

We evangelize the dream of this techno-utopia when we can't even realize it in
our own back yards. _Worse_ , we're not even trying.

I for one got sick of this shit and moved out. I don't want the future that
the Bay Area is building, because it involves a lot of wealthy people deeply
absorbed into techno-gadgetry while the world burns down around them.

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aphelion
People who hate Silicon Valley do so because they think it's full of
narcissistic social climbers who just want to get rich quick but talk like
they've joined up with the Peace Corps or are working on a cure for cancer.
Wall Streeters, by comparison, are more honest about their rapacity.

It's a stereotype, and one that I'd argue is mostly unfair but at least
occasionally accurate.

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dankesha
I can say that, in Australia, we simply have 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' which
Wikipedia defines to be "... a social phenomenon in which people of genuine
merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or
achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers."

Wouldn't go so far as to say we 'hate' Silicon Valley.

~~~
adamnemecek
I think that there is something similar in Scandinavia

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

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k-mcgrady
It's interesting that most of the comments here are about the point that non-
tech people hate silicon valley people. The most interesting part of this
article for me was the fact that these companies are changing the world but
not helping or contributing to their own local areas. As businesses are more
easily able to reach a global market, rather than having to build from a small
area and grow, they seem to be caring less about social responsibility. It
would be interesting to see how something as simple as shutting down Twitter's
free employee meals/snacks etc. and instead subsidising purchases at local
businesses would affect the local area.

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yason
Not living there, what's the Silicon Valley crime like _in reality_?

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toddh
They hate us for our freedoms.

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ChrisNorstrom
On one hand:

It's not Google or Facebook's responsibility to fix a broken government. Stop
being so entitled. Twitter cannot fix a ghetto. Twitter cannot hand out jobs
to gangsters and murderers. Twitter cannot build a police station. Twitter
cannot set up surveillance for the neighborhood. Twitter cannot open up it's
campus to random strangers. Twitter is a company, not a charity. It's working
in the best interest of its employees.

On the other hand:

You are judged by your attitude. "Change the World"ers remind me of
Christians. They worship Jesus yet act nothing like him nor do they follow any
of this rules or philosophies. Googlers & Twatters talking about changing the
world with WiFi Blimps in Africa and bringing democracy to the middle east
while isolating themselves from their own local community is like Christians
talking about how much they love Jesus, read the bible, donate millions to
televangelists, build million dollar church stadiums yet completely ignore
helping the children, poor, & sick.

Then again:

Should "Change the World"ers be more corporate so we don't judge them based on
the expectations they set themselves up to? How is that better?

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dschiptsov
Why mediocrities hate cleverness? Because of inevitable cognitive dissonance
they must experience in order to fool themselves back to the delusion of their
own cleverness.)

Why common people hate hipsters is another question worth asking.) This is
because everyone could see, except hipsters themselves, that their playacting
of being smart/sophisticated instead of _actually being smart_ is an offence
even to that very basic intelligence common folks have.

True smartness doesn't require any special behavior or a dressing style, the
same way that wearing a robe is optional for a true seer and flawlessness of a
posture is of second importance to the goal of so-called meditation.)

