
Recasting Silicon Valley’s role in society - mathattack
https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/23/recasting-silicon-valleys-role-in-society/
======
hueving
The author bashes ride sharing and home rental apps then goes on to talk about
how we should improve markets. Both of these served to discover the real
market value of things (taxis are garbage and people were forced to use them
so now people flock to uber/lyft/whatever, rent control is literally an
attempt to regulate that something is worth less than it is).

Then the author asks the ominous "do we want a 150mph thing driving itself"?
Self-driving cars are still in development and they are already safer than
people. Planes travel 500mph and they fly themselves. A spacex rocket flies
itself.

I'm starting to think this author is a bit daft and is just reducing things
to, "I don't like the change that is happening because it's scary. I'll stick
to my horse and buggy."

~~~
dilemma
>Planes travel 500mph and they fly themselves.

Case in point: Why Tesla's naming of Autopilot is misleading.

~~~
taf2
When looking at how autopilot is used in other industries like boats
[http://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/Selecting-an-
Autopilot](http://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/Selecting-an-Autopilot)

What Tesla uses as the name does not seem far off at all.

~~~
dilemma
The point is that the parent thinks planes fly themselves.

------
Kurtz79
I think it's a healthy discussion to be had.

Yes, the vast majority of problems startups aim to solve are really "first
world problems". All those "help us changing the world" snippets you find even
in job offers here in HN, are naïve in the best case, and insulting in the
worst.

On the other hand, it's unfair to expect them to take the role of "society's
saviors": many of the real problems should be the domain of governments and
policy.

Expecting for-profit, private companies to solve those it's a huge cop-out and
unrealistic.

(EDIT) More context:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/solving-
all...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/solving-all-the-
wrong-problems.html)

~~~
mobiuscog
For a long time now, entrepreneurs have been solving the 'convenience'
problem, as they have found that it what makes them the most money.

It's not about solving important 'problems' for most - it's about how they can
make the most money, and that is usually by providing more convenience to
people.

This is, of course, how business works in a capitalist society - the issue is
that the problems they solve are often marketed as being the most important,
whereas they're just selling a dream.

I'm sure they would solve the major problems if they could and there was
sufficient money in it - look at how the drugs companies operate - but this is
(and has always been) about money.

Amazon are running their competition for better robot picking - are they also
running competitions for how to help people whose jobs are replaced by robots
?

Silicon Valley has a single role - to make (more) money for those people
investing into it. That's all. There's little to no philanthropy, and when
there is it's generally from people who are already far wealthier than is
required to live (an excessively comfortable) life.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Halfway through your comment I thought of the analogy to drug companies, which
solve problems like impotence rather than Ebola because the people with
impotence have lots of money and the people with Ebola don't. Worse than even
solving the so called first-world-problems, they invest a fair amount of time
on "evergreening" which is basically fraud or at the very, very best rent-
seeking. Yet, you then used them as an example of an industry solving the big
problems.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I'm continually surprised at the minimization of impotence. Have you imagined
never being able to have sex again for life?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Appropriately enough, I've taken a medicine which as one of the side effects,
can cause permanent impotence or loss of orgasm, as well as suicide and many
other bad things.

It would appear that the evidence for that drug actually being effective in
what it seeks to treat is controversial. It seemed clearly better till they
realised that the drug companies weren't releasing the studies that showed it
in a bad light. Effectively tossing a coin and only revealing they had done so
when it matched their preferred outcome.

------
mseebach
"People sometimes build software that sometimes have undesirable outcomes, so
I have broad and vague concerns towards all software being build. Hey, why
can't people instead build software that contributes towards other broad and
vague (but this time good!) outcomes instead?"

~~~
return0
I think its more nuanced than you make it to be. To me the message is "improve
people's lives rather than disrupting them"

~~~
mseebach
It basically is, just without bothering to elaborate on why disruption is bad,
and what improvement actually means -- except in broad and vague terms.

------
jkot
I think SV first needs to solve its own problems: transportation,
infrastructure, homelessness, housing cost.

~~~
hueving
SV has these costs because people come here to work for tech companies solving
tech problems. A great way to eliminate those costs would be to force everyone
to work on those lame problems with known technical solutions (at which point
anyone looking for a technical rather than political challenge would just
leave).

The solution to housing problems is to build more housing. Period. There is
nothing interesting there. The only reason it hasn't been done is because it's
blocked politically by current home owners that "don't want the feel to
change".

~~~
flubert
>The solution to housing problems is to build more housing. Period. There is
nothing interesting there. The only reason it hasn't been done is because it's
blocked politically by current home owners that "don't want the feel to
change".

The interesting problem would seem to be convincing home owners to want the
change. Here's one innovative perspective on the issue:

[https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF](https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF)

Certainly there could be others as well. It seems like a lot of people are
locked-in to the position that nothing can change unless we get a political
coalition together to force the existing homeowners into a situation they
don't desire (without properly compensating them). What has been/could be done
to make them partners in the growth instead? What kind of new financial
structures/contracts could be invented to deal with the types of issues that
have been traditionally solved with "eminent domain"?

~~~
hueving
>What kind of new financial structures/contracts could be invented to deal
with the types of issues that have been traditionally solved with "eminent
domain"?

True, there is room to innovate there, but that's mainly political work. As a
software engineer I have next to 0 interest doing that.

~~~
flubert
>that's mainly political work

I was hoping to inspire thoughts of non-political solutions involving input
and new ideas from economics, finance, sociology, etc.. Maybe some of these
new ideas could come from someone with a software engineering background
looking at things from a new perspective (networking theory, distributed
systems, machine learning, etc.).

~~~
hueving
Economics and sociology require politics for anything meaningful to happen.
You might be able to develop some interesting financial instruments, but they
will still require politics to get them adopted.

What attracts me to tech is the fact that I can build things without regard to
all of that. I'll admit it's selfish, but frankly life is too short to waste
on something I don't care for.

~~~
flubert
I guess I've failed to express myself adequately, I'm looking for ideas that
minimize the politics needed to get them adopted. Like it doesn't take
politics to propose a $1 trillion buyout of least expensive homes in SF, which
you would then use as a starting point to get the zoning laws changed to
enable higher density construction.

~~~
hueving
>Like it doesn't take politics to propose a $1 trillion buyout of least
expensive homes in SF,

It takes politics to actually push the idea to anywhere beyond the back of a
napkin exercise. Once you even go into the question of who should pay for it,
that's politics.

------
dpierce9
I was almost hit by an Uber driver who shouldn't have been on the road so,
while I love this new taxi stuff, I have first hand experience with real
negative externalities.

I was almost hit the day after a blizzard in Maryland this past January. My
street had more than a foot of snow and was impassable for non-trucks. I was
out walking my dog and there were dozens of other people playing and shoveling
when an Uber driver in a small sedan came barreling down the street. I jumped
out of the way while he went another 20 feet before he got stuck. I took a
picture of his plate and yelled at him for driving recklessly. Before telling
me to f-off he told me that 'if he slowed down he would have gotten stuck'.
Being from a Northern state and knowing how to drive in snow, I was
flabbergasted by the recknlessness of this. I contacted Uber and they assured
me that despite endangering the health and safety of people, they gave the
driver a stern talking.

I haven't stopped using Uber (though I use Lyft more now) but it wouldn't
surprise me if that driver was operating an unsuitable vehicle in an unsafe
manner because of the incentives created by surge pricing. These are real
risks and costs which are not born by Uber and we shouldn't stick our head in
the sand or shout down those who point them out as Luddites. It also doesn't
mean we should get rid of these services.

