
Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton - edward
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/22/google-tech-elite-living-in-a-parallel-universe-john-naughton
======
buro9
My view is that the industrial revolution devised machines which, whilst
increasing the efficiency of production, helped to increase the efficiency by
which states and key individuals were able to extract wealth from others.

In that case, as time progressed, the people started to become aware of the
inequality and the leaders and states started to see the result (in Russia and
other countries) of this inequality being challenged. To protect themselves,
the states and key individuals devised to funnel a portion of the benefits
from the industrial revolution back down to the wider populace, to offer
comfort through more spare time, better health, better living conditions.

The industrial machine operated at only slightly below the potential level of
efficiency it promised, but now the machine was able to sustain itself and
ensure it's future.

Where we are today is that the digital revolution has created machines that
achieve an even greater efficiency. The "sharing economy" it has brought about
is little more than an externalisation of corporation costs of production,
allowing those corporations to reap greater benefits with very little cost.
The inequality technology has brought about is staggering to behold.

What I believe has yet to be achieved is a balancing of the externalisation of
costs with the need to build a system that is able to sustain itself. For the
current system to survive, those who have need to find ways to increase the
comfort and conditions of those who have not.

~~~
aragot
I'm worried about the form of the redistribution. In France, we have small
taxes in many places. Just one example: We dealt with copyright issues by
creating a tax on storage mediums, from a few cents to 20-40€ depending on the
container, the size and the volatility - more than 40 different tax levels
(see tables here [1]). Obviously they included the bureaucracy feature, where
if you're a company you can send back a form and be reimbursed. I'm confident
the same kind of insane level of tax compexity exists in pretty much any
country and it implements revenue equality by squashing entrepreneurship at
its root. Less innovation, less inequality ;)

So let's go ahead: Which forms of redistribution would do you see? Your
comment made me notice that taxes proportional to the number of ads already
exist (the VAT) and doesn't help redistributing. We need to take into account
the change of scale. Would it be a tax per number of available cars for car-
sharing services, then a tax per node in the friend graph for social networks?
Sounds insane, but is it what we're bound to implement?

[1] [http://www.culturecommunication.gouv.fr/Politiques-
ministeri...](http://www.culturecommunication.gouv.fr/Politiques-
ministerielles/Propriete-litteraire-et-artistique/Commission-pour-la-
remuneration-de-la-copie-privee/Questions-pratiques/Les-montants-de-la-
Remuneration-pour-Copie-Privee)

~~~
jdimov
Re-distribution?? Ex-cuse-me?? These aren't YOUR cookies, you bum! Make your
own cookies and THEN worry about re-distribution! When someone else has made
the cookies, YOU DON'T GET A SAY in how they are distributed, do you get that?

~~~
aragot
Whether you like it or not, redistribution is the basis for most of the laws
of my country (and certainly yours). It's not up to you or me, it's how the
People think. In fact, that's what the OP is about.

It is besides the point to know which side I am. In fact, I've just said tax
complexity squashes new enterprises. I've written an article about how an
entrepreneur in France loses 70% of his income in tax-and-administrative-
burden [1]. So guess whether I enjoy redistribution or not?

[1] [http://adrien-ragot.me/why-i-say-70-percent-tax-in-
france/](http://adrien-ragot.me/why-i-say-70-percent-tax-in-france/)

~~~
jdimov
Just because the majority think they are entitled to the 1%'s wealth, does not
make it so.

The French government might as well take 90% of that entrepreneur's wealth and
"re-distribute" it to the so-called "People" (I call them "Sheep") and guess
what? That one entrepreneur will still be wealthier than any of them and the
"People" will still mumble. In other words, NOTHING will change.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...except that 45% of the economy just got given back to the people,
mitigating the shameful status quo. Now the regular folk run 95% of the
economy.

There's no issue of having rich people or not; its ok to be wealthy. Its not
about punishing the rich. Its about them hoarding almost the entire pie.

~~~
jdimov
Not almost. I will hoard THE entire pie and I will not feel ONE bit of shame
about it, because it is MY PIE! You are the one who should be ashamed for
wanting to steal from my pie just because you are incapable of baking your
own.

~~~
terminus
> because it is MY PIE! Not always. Most "pie" bakers either inherit their
> "pie" directly in terms of wealth or education or healthy upbringing from
> parents. The ones you call incapable of baking their own, probably did not
> have all the advantages that you did.

There's also the aphorism about standing on the shoulder of giants (or indeed
standing on tax created infrastructure.) That applies to all "pie" bakers.

------
fenomas
I'm not unsympathetic, but this article seems like a hodgepodge of gripes in
search of a premise.

"These tech elites are like bankers, in the sense that they make a lot of
money, and in no other sense. Also they're mostly men. And they control
capital, if, uh, they own corporate shares. Plus, Moore's Law." Huh?

~~~
SandB0x
> hodgepodge of gripes in search of a premise

Welcome to The Guardian's opinion pages, where everything is a source of
outrage and the shadowy "1%" are always out to get you.

~~~
gaius
The ironic thing of course is that you can tell everything you need to know
about the readers of a paper from the brands that advertise in it, and the
readers of the Graun are second only to the FT in their opulence. They _are_
the 1%.

~~~
JonnieCache
[http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/guardian-
ordered-...](http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/guardian-ordered-to-
destroy-bourgeois-lifestyle-articles-2013082278865)

------
ukigumo
The scary part is that Google and other companies that are on the forefront of
the new digital age still operate under a strict post-industrialist mindset.
The cult of the busy man and the hinderance of personal life outside of work
is absolutely mind blowing to me.

Aren't we supposed to work smart instead of working long hours? Aren't we
supposed to improve ourselves spiritually and emotionally once we have reached
a plateau of physical and social security?

------
jnbiche
While there's a lot of inflammatory, and frankly unfounded, accusations here,
I do strongly agree with two major points:

1) Like Cameron, most SV tech workers are utterly convinced that they are
doing "good", even if that means replacing jobs with machines.

I don't necessarily have a problem with replacing jobs with machines, but we
have to come up with some means of sustenance and stimulation to replace jobs
for those affected (btw, these are not intractable problems: basic income
could address the sustenance issue, and for the stimulation part, I believe
that open source model has a lot to offer). That's urgent. Otherwise, no one
is doing any good, we're just knocking middle class earners into poverty.

2) The tech "elite" (not fond of the term) are living in a parallel universe.

This one is on display any time any economic article is posted on HN. It's
clear that many (most?) commentators are convinced that the economic recovery
is complete and everyone is happy. This is far from the truth. As well
documented by respected economists, at least in the US, most of the economic
gains since the great recession have gone to the top 1% of income earners [1].
The rest of this country's inhabitants are suffering still.

By the way, to be specific about what in this article is "unfounded", it's
calling tech workers in SV "elite" or "rich". Given extraordinarily high cost
of living in SV, the average wage among SV workers is frankly not enough to
support a middle class family at the level the middle class enjoys in the
small towns and cities in middle America (I recently researched this in
detail). The only reason the average tech workers has significant disposable
income is that they are young and single or married with no children. Young
people working professional jobs _anywhere_ have disposable income (it's the
only time in my life I had significant disposable income).

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/upshot/gains-from-
economic...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/upshot/gains-from-economic-
recovery-still-limited-to-top-one-percent.html)

Edit: small request for posterity: can the downvoters please indicate _which
part_ of my post you disagree with, since I have strong criticism for both the
writer and for tech culture? A simple reply of "techie" or "lefty" would
suffice. Thanks!

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>1) Like Cameron, most SV tech workers are utterly convinced that they are
doing "good", even if that means replacing jobs with machines.

I'm not convinced! I'm an ideological accelerationist! I think that I need to
push the automation process to act _more quickly_ in order to bring about the
severe contrasts between "now" and "then" that make human beings sit up, take
notice, and actually make social change. I think if we let the process move
too slowly, we risk winding up in a new Dark Age in which not only do we
suffer severe inequality and oppression, but we _rationalize and allow_ them
through a publicly-endorsed ideology that explicitly structures society
hierarchically.

I want people to get _shocked_ by exploitation and inequality, shocked into
_fighting them_ , before they get so damned _used to it_ that they just
_allow_ themselves to be exploited and oppressed.

------
swombat
_Dr Schmidt’s smart creatives work all the hours that God sends, and then
some. They are, to use his term, “overworked in a good way”. The concept of
work-life balance can, he thinks, “be insulting to smart, dedicated
employees”, for whom work is an important part of life, not something to be
separated. The best corporate cultures, he thinks, “invite and enable people
to be overworked in a good way, with too many interesting things to do both at
work and at home”._

A very good philosophy, that I also discussed here:
[http://danieltenner.com/2014/11/19/work-and-life-balance-
and...](http://danieltenner.com/2014/11/19/work-and-life-balance-and-
imbalance/)

I had not read Eric Schmidt's book at that point, though.

The author continues, however:

 _But it also highlights the extent to which our world is bifurcating into
parallel universes._

No it's not. It's evolving into a new universe. There's no reason why
everyone, yes, _everyone_ , can't be in that new universe where they work on
what they're passionate about. And when we figure out how to fix our screwed
up economic systems to enable that (one possible solution is the Basic Income
idea), we will derive, as a species, productivity benefits that we can't even
begin to comprehend right now.

At this point in time, the majority of humanity toils for subsistence. A
sizeable minority work to pay for their lifestyle (aka the work-life balance
level), and they are a bajillion times more productive than the subsistence
workers. A tiny slice of us are now able to work with passion, on what we want
to do. Like artists working on a song or a painting or a book, they do not
draw a clear line between work and play. They're always working and always
playing. With this they achieve a level of enjoyment of life and of
productivity that the work-life balance crowd cannot touch.

Let's all work together to get everyone into this last category. It's easy to
point to the fact that we're not there yet. Harder to make tangible progress
towards this goal.

~~~
littletimmy
The problem with what you're saying is that the people who "do not draw a
clear line between work and play" are not nearly as romantically satisfied
with their work as you claim.

Do you not see how this "passion for work" argument is often employed to make
employees work the maximum they can? If you apply to work at Goldman Sachs, or
McKinsey, or Google, the message is clear: it is not enough that you sell your
time to us, you must sell your soul as well! You have to be "passionate" about
investment banking, consulting, or software engineering to get a job at these
places. Consequently, young grads who are looking for jobs now have to make a
genuine effort to work ungodly hours in an effort to demonstrate their
"passion" to these firms. Now maybe that is because some of them are genuinely
interested in their work (although how you get a "passion" for excel modelling
I do not know), but it is more likely that it is something these new workers
feel they _must_ do in order to be successful. What is the outcome? Elite
companies can make talented young people work insane hours without
compensating them for the extra profit that they create. The notion that Eric
Schmidt is saying his workers should work round the clock out of sheer concern
for their fulfilment is absolutely laughable.

Btw, this form of thinking is quite uniquely American. Perhaps it springs from
the puritan ideal of deriving meaning in your life from work. For the rest of
the developed world (Western Europe, for example) the notion of working harder
and harder because you have to be as "passionate" as everyone else sounds
ridiculous. There is more to life than work. Truly. You are on earth. You can
read fiction in your spare time, also hike, and perhaps volunteer to socialize
feral cats for adoption.

TL;DR: Please stop with your propaganda that it is a noble thing to find this
mythical level of enjoyment with working to increase shareholder value.
Leisure time is cool.

~~~
swombat
Let me clarify: I totally do not think that this state of mind is a reality at
banks - and probably not at many tech companies either. I truly abhor the fake
"passion" demonstrations required in the typical corporate environment. They
are one of the reasons why I hated my time there. It is a tragedy, a travesty
of the good things humans can achieve through their work.

However, this concept is a reality in my life, and I am observing it in people
other than me as well, at work. In no cases does it involve people "working
round the clock" \- though sometimes it does involve people thinking about
work-related topics even when they're not at work. And it also involves them
thinking about non-work things while at work. From time to time, people might
choose to work late, but there's no external pressure to do so.

This philosophy is best explained in a book called "The Seven-day weekend" by
Ricardo Semler of Semco fame. Note the emphasis of letting life take over and
blur the lines from that "direction", rather than just trying to fool people
into working longer hours, which is indeed a disgusting approach to business.

PS: I'm European. This notion of work being an evil biblical curse to be
avoided is just as backwards as the american-style attempts to convince people
to work all the time and "show passion".

PPS: That said, thank you for highlighting a way that my arguments in this
matter can be misunderstood.

------
jcfrei
I don't mind soaring returns for owners of tech companies as long as the state
run redistribution of wealth allows everybody to live a life in dignity.

~~~
imjustsaying
> as long as the state run redistribution of wealth allows everybody to live a
> life in dignity.

I'm not really sure what you're proposing here.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Sounds like what we try to do in Europe.

------
sixQuarks
Here's a wild idea: What if it were free (or cost pennies) to get any
materialistic good besides food? Imagine owning a 300 foot yacht or a jumbo
jet for a penny. And everyone in the world can have their own with unlimited
supplies.

I believe we're in the middle of an adjustment period that will take 15 to 25
years. At the end of this period, virtual reality will be a sufficient
replacement for reality, and as affordable as a cellphone is today. When all
goods (besides food) are virtual goods, all of a sudden the cost doesn't
matter. The rich divide gets shattered.

You could be living in a cardboard shack, but in VR, you're living in a
mansion. I know it's a crazy idea, but I just don't see wealth being
associated with real materialistic goods in the future which will change
everything.

~~~
Lambdanaut
I'm a futurist optimist and yet I REALLY don't see VR reasonably replacing
reality in 15 to 25 years. There's too many sensory parts of reality to
replicate. At best it'll be a shoddy ripoff for a long time. Not to mention
the health benefits that come with interacting in the real world that you
don't get from VR. You're not going to be soaking up those sun rays or
enjoying that tuna you caught off the side of your yacht in Second Life VR.
You'll be watching your avatar enjoy these things. At the end of the day
you've still gotta log off and enjoy the real world, or you'll atrophy.

VR might supplement reality just like watching TV does, but it'll be a long
time before we're living our lives in VR.

~~~
sixQuarks
I don't think VR needs to replicate reality perfectly. 80% of reality will be
way more than sufficient when you consider the fact that you can do impossible
things in VR (like flying, travelling instantly anywhere, etc).

When you say "at the end of the day you've still gotta log off and enjoy the
real world" \- why? When VR is replicating the real world, why must you log
off to "enjoy" it? You could essentially do anything in VR that you can do in
"reality", with way more magical powers. Who would want to go back to "boring
reality" anymore?

~~~
Oletros
> You could essentially do anything in VR that you can do in "reality",

No, you're not doing anything in "reality"

------
lifeisstillgood
Err, maybe it's me, but this seems to be a unfocused rant with no redeeming
traditional features like sarcasm.

Yeah we know there is a Great Hollowing Out. We know that some lucky talented
people start to rationalise their success through "doing good works must be
the reason for success"

And we know that Piketty is right about capital beating out labour.

But I was hoping for some insights - some idea of what to do about it.

~~~
buro9
> But I was hoping for some insights - some idea of what to do about it

For that, you'd need to read Marx.

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, because it worked great in Cuba, the USSR, Eastern Europe, etc

"But nobody was unemployed" sure, and if you live in a hut by the Amazon river
you'll never be in need of water, but it pretty much sucks otherwise.

~~~
Qwertious
Cuba's doing pretty well, except for the fact that the USA has put an embargo
on them (due to political reasons), making it extremely hard for them to trade
with anyone, and massively driving down the value of their currency.

~~~
gaius
You probably wouldn't say that if you had been to Cuba. The real problem they
have is that when the USSR collapsed, no one was willing to pay 10x the market
price for their sugar. They have plenty of people to trade with, oil from
Venezuela, and lots of cars, refrigerators, etc from China. They have a
parallel tourist economy, with two different currencies. And in downtown
Havana you will see 3 families crowded into a single apartment with cardboard
over the windows because they can afford neither curtains nor even glass, and
a mile away gorgeous ex-colonial villas in landscaped gardens, for the Party
elite.

Don't believe the propaganda, go see for yourself.

------
fluxtemp
I was open minded when I saw the title of this piece, but now I still don't
understand what it was trying so hard to say. The author seems to be mad at
reality and is hard at work promoting envy. Inequality is a legitimate
concern, but this sort of emotional agitation is helping no one.

~~~
netheril96
Might I ask why your name appears green? I have seen some green names on HN,
but never know what it means.

~~~
cwyers
Believe it's new accounts.

------
hownottowrite
I'm not sure if the Naughton is trying to incite populist rage or evoke some
sort of self-conscious shame. Maybe both? Either way it is ridiculous.

Tech elites have always existed in a parallel universe. Careful tending to
their needs and acceptance of their peculiarities has been part of the bargain
with those in power.

~~~
happyscrappy
Indeed, the look of horror from the Oracle suits at programmers in shorts and
sandals when the other elevator broke.

------
lscore720
Reminds me of a prospective engineering candidate I tried to recruit from
Google. When I politely pitched an opportunity, he insulted both me and the
opportunity over e-mail, claiming how wildly successful he is. This is largely
an exception to the rule: almost all other engineers have been kind &
respectful!

------
slowblood
Hard for me to feel anything other than sympathy of anyone who has to ride a
bus to work.

"Elite" and "riding a bus" are two concepts that are "living in a parallel
universe." Not the same one.

------
kbutler
> technology has certain characteristics (zero marginal returns, network
> effects and technological lock-in, to name just three) which confer colossal
> power

Should be "zero marginal costs"...

------
whoisthemachine
I'm not sure what I just read - it seemed like a bunch of disparate points
drawn together with a tinge of rage at something, for the sake of having rage
at something.

------
revelation
Why would the tech firms be responsible for jobs lost to technology? They are
the ones having to hire people to create all that neat technology.

The blame falls with the firms that _use_ technology to cut out whole job
titles from their operation.

It is upon them and primarily politicians to ensure that the gains from
technology benefit all people in less time spent working and a guaranteed base
level of living that is certainly well above what we have now in social
security.

~~~
gaius
... Except that they are _specifically not_ hiring people. An Uber driver is
not an employee with all the protection and rights afforded employees. An
AirBnB host, is not an employee either. This is not just about tech automating
jobs away, it's about it facilitating a race to the bottom.

------
rwmj
I'm intrigued by what the alternative would be. Google can't _stop_ developing
better search / self-driving cars / etc because some other company would do it
instead. It seems as if the author wants everyone to hold back on change
voluntarily, a kind of digital Luddism.

------
JoeAltmaier
That's a lot of sour grapes. People doing great things and getting rewarded -
means they are 'ivory tower' I guess. They have to be taken down a notch by a
blistering cynical blogger. Blowhard.

------
raldi
pg jumped into a time machine and wrote a response to this piece eleven years
before it was published:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html)

------
jdimov
I honestly don't understand why bitter, unaccomplished people believe that
someone who creates wealth has an obligation to share that wealth with them. I
believe that's commonly called "jealousy" and no, it doesn't give you a moral
high ground, nor will it solve any of your problems and it will certainly not
make you richer any time soon - quite the contrary, it ensures that you will
remain miserable for the rest of your life.

~~~
sz4kerto
This would all be true if we could easily identify who's creating wealth.
Hint: it does not completely equal with individuals who receive the money in
the end. Over the couple of thousand years societies realized this, that's why
the societies try to smoothen things out a little. It is nice to think that
we, technologists in our 20s, 30s have figured it all out because we read
Atlas Shrugged once, but reality is slightly more complex. :) (Disclaimer: I
consider myself a libertarian, but I am already too old to think that a few
simple rules could save the world.)

~~~
Tycho
But it seems totally uncontroversial and obvious to me that some people will
generate vastly more wealth than others. Like think back to your class in high
school. Some people were intelligent and industrious and went on to have
creative jobs. Some people did just enough to get passing grades and went on
to have repetitive, non-creative jobs. Extrapolate this differential in
productivity over their entire working lives, what would you expect to happen?
You cannot easily identify who created any given piece of wealth, but you can
conduct thought experiments like the above that tell you something about the
wealth generating process. Of course, the nice thing is, all of society gets
the benefit of improved technology and scientific knowledge, regardless of how
much they contributed in that direction.

