

Fist-bumping while Rome burns - C13slam
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/29/fist_bumping_while_rome_burns_the_seduction_of_silicon_valley_disruption/

======
tptacek
You can write an unbounded number of think-pieces for Salon by selecting some
broad economy metric at random --- unemployment, manufacturing layoffs,
elimination of defined benefit pension schemes, the escalating price of health
insurance --- and joining it with a series of vignettes about SFBA tech
culture (Lyft cars, Uber black car SUVs, Instacart deliveries, beer kegs in
offices). All will have the same moral message: the tech elite have become a
kind of decadent aristocracy, but America 2013 is really France 1794 and
they'll all be sorry when the people find their new Robespierre.

This article doesn't even go that far. It simply collects a bunch of totally
unrelated vignettes --- the FDA regulating 23AM, the Goldieblox/Beastie Boys
kerfluffle (how you know this is a crappy piece: it attempts to distill
meaning from the Goldieblox "drama"), Lyft cars --- and delivers its message
entirely through an insinuating title.

~~~
timr
You can also criticize any essay by arguing that the examples used to support
the thesis are "unrelated vignettes". That's how essays work -- you make a
thesis, cite several diverse examples to support the thesis, then summarize
the argument.

Good essays -- the ones most worth reading -- take examples that initially
seem unrelated, and tie them together via a thread that the reader may not
have considered before. For example, _" thoughtless disruption"_ might be such
a thread.

~~~
bjterry
It is possible to write an essay by making a thesis and citing diverse
examples to support it, but this is not the only way (or best way) to write an
essay worth reading. I find essays much more valuable when they provide a
clear thesis, cite extensive high-powered evidence in support of that thesis,
and directly address potential weaknesses in their arguments, possibly with
some explanatory text to provide logical or causal inferences related to the
evidence. I don't typically find that diverse examples constitute high-powered
evidence, which is why I don't consider essays that follow the Salon style to
be particularly compelling.

If you are willing to cherry-pick anecdotes and examples, one can make a case
for almost anything, but if you are anchored to actual facts (ideally ones
which are statistically valid) you provide a much closer mapping between your
opinion and reality.

Perhaps we differ on what sort of texts count as essays, but I would note that
many people on this site find Paul Graham's essays to be compelling, and in
general his essays do not comprise a collection of disparate examples
surprisingly linked through a common thread.

~~~
melaina
After all hard evidence dick stroking you cite pg?! He writes in exactly the
same style as the Salon author!

Empirical and statistical evidence is a delightful way to make a point, but
what you "hard discipline" fetishists don't realize is that there are non-
empirical "goods" that run our lives.

Narratives, thoughts, feelings, intuitions, broad non-empirical world views.
There's a huge world of stuff out there to which statistics just don't apply,
and they are all forms of knowledge. In the most basic way it's called
rationalism, and it doesn't require any statistics or empirical evidence to
make a point. In a more developed way it can be called post-modern knowledge
concepts.

Basically, people who constantly talk about being "hard" are just dry humping
modernity, something that smart people over 100 years ago realized was a
collection of myths. The hard sciences sit on a foundation of warm gooey mud.

~~~
bjterry
I wasn't holding up Paul Graham's essays as a paragon of essay virtue, just as
a readily available example that people in the community will be familiar
with. The difference between Paul Graham writing from personal experience, and
the Salon author writing down some personal experiences, is real. Conflating
the two ignores the distinction between expertise and mere rhetoric.

I never stated that there is some minimum level of evidential firmness below
which evidence can't be considered, but I am absolutely establishing a
continuum in which statistical evidence, properly interpreted, is higher than
random collections of stories drawn from the author's life by convenience to
prove his conclusion once the bottom line has already been decided.

I'm not a "hard discipline fetishist" if such a thing even exists, but
anything which defies empiricism almost by definition can't have any impact on
the material world. There are many areas wherein I agree that statistics is
not currently applicable, and I implicitly acknowledged them in my post,
although perhaps without sufficient emphasis.

As for postmodernism, ye shall know them by their fruits. The hard sciences
have borne iPhones, cancer treatments, space flight, psychiatric treatment,
and cetera.

~~~
melaina
"but anything which defies empiricism almost by definition can't have any
impact on the material world."

Hah. Like religion? Like philosophy? The non-empirical world does and always
has had a bigger impact on the material world than anything else.

Science itself--the methodology as a concept--is a non-empirical metaphysics
that draws conclusions about truth concepts.

I think I only come to HN so I can feel smug when 20 year old millionaire
entrepreneurs (this is my imagination talking) say dumb shit. Yes, the tech
sector is destroying the world and making millions while I slog away in some
underpaid ivory tower... but at least I know the first thing about science!
(This is what I tell myself to avoid crying)

~~~
tptacek
But you are here, and not only that, but you're here _writing and
contributing_ , so the East German judges award you a low score for ironic
detachment.

------
mdakin
I... want Rome to burn. The authoritarian, hierarchal power structures that
exist in this country/world ("Rome") are in need of re-formation or collapse.
I'm not interested in participating in that process though. I certainly would
never have architected a system of the manner that exists, and I'm not
interested in helping the a-holes who did do that debug it. I'd rather just
live awesome, think, feel, and make cool stuff when I'm in the mood to do
that.

The thing that concerns me about SF Bay Area Startup Ecosystem is that it is
def. neither a meritocracy nor a technocracy. (Those systems, properly
implemented allow great new things to come into the world, without the side
effect of king-creation.) Right now, California is dynastic. Dynastic money,
flowing into the hands of people who adopt a dynastic culture, and creating
the weak sort of creations that dynastic people end up creating. It makes
people rich, and dynastic, one startup team at a time. That's a problem for
the world! Once the bulk of the genius-level people now tied up working on
dynastic projects or on online advertising/email delivery for some behemoth
company wake up to the true nature of the reality and start operating in it as
true creators things will start to actually get interesting and awesome.

In the mean time I'll enjoy the delicious beer, food, and weather. And Tahoe
once there's enough snow.

------
gaius
He makes the "elephant in the corner of the room" point that disruption is
really, how much money can we make if we just ignore these laws? That doesn't
scale.

------
ryanobjc
I am always a little frustrated at the Salon articles, I dont even know why I
read them anymore.

There is a few choice sentences I'd like to rebut:

"And while there is much to dislike about how Silicon Valley is rewriting the
rules based on little more than the authority of its own arrogance"

While I get the sentiment, the problem here is that blind appeal to authority
of existing laws and figures is a well known civilization anti-pattern. It
causes real problems in even the medium term. The "arrogance" judgement is
also subjective, since it presupposes a mindset of "Silicon Valley" (which is
hardly a singular entity) that may or may not be actually there.

"This is our emergent culture: an onslaught of newness, disrespectful of
status quo, law and propriety. "

There is a lot to dislike about this sentence. First off is the negative
judgement of 'newness' \- we KNOW from neuropsychology that novel inputs to
the brain are an essential ingredient to neural plasticity. New isn't just
always new, but it's part of what it means to be young in the brain.

The second part of this sentence is problematic to me. This almost reads like
the author is advocating that respect to the status quo, laws, and propriety
is a major virtue. Again, this is another strong civilization anti-pattern
(well the same one basically). If the author isn't saying this, then what is
he saying?

Look I get it, change is scary. But the reality is we as a species have wedged
ourselves into a weird place. We must proceed technologically to solve our
problems. That is what Silicon Valley is about - moving tech and science
forward to solve problems. Yeah not all problems seem essential (snapchat),
but there is plenty of people who are doing way more interesting things. But
also the pro-rationality, pro-new things, pro-science culture of the bay area
is one worth extending and expanding. Because the alternative truly really is
fist-bumping while rome burns. Certainly don't look at Wall Street to solve
these problems for us.

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hackaflocka
Salon: home of liberals who enjoy mocking and fat-shaming "people of Walmart,"
but will lecture you on class, morality and "climate change."

~~~
jbooth
FYI, you don't actually need to categorize everything you ever read into
"liberal/conservative" and then cheer or boo depending on which side you've
declared allegiance to.

In fact, you'll be happier if you don't.

~~~
4891
Having spent far too much time lately reading politics discussion online, your
comment made me smile. Enough pointless tribalism, back to producing...

