What I learned so far is that Silicon Valley doesn't actually believe in anything. Ideas get adopted if they're profitable. That's it. There's no morality involved in this machine. It's genuinely wonderful that ideas about inclusivity and diversity are being accepted, but it's because of the understanding that people can do great work regardless of their background or sexual orientation that it happened, and not because of some moral imperative. It's how we can justify and talk up diversity while working on AI tech that can identify homeless people or ex-convicts. It's how we can condemn actions by the Trump administration while criticizing labor activism in Asia by coldly crunching the numbers to demonstrate that you can save money by putting your factory in a country that doesn't allow its people to protest.
And you know what, fine. Just keep tossing anyone who doesn't play nice to the wolves. But please just stop pretending there's morality involved. Let's accept it: we're here in pursuit of profit. Any good that we do is just a nice side effect. The sooner we understand that the sooner we can actually do something about it.
This applies to the media too, of course. I love the manic obsession with stability and morality combined with a lot of corporate and government money in a lot of US journalists' stories. You get great gems like hit pieces on privacy and encryption painted with a moral coat of paint that are better than anything the alphabet soup agencies could come up with - the Silicon Valley nazis are using Clubhouse, the pedophiles are using Signal, we must let the government monitor communications now! You get stories about reddit users in the stock market that somehow try to paint them as the alt-right while completely sidestepping any discussion of wealth inequality. Love it!
And you know what, fine. Just keep tossing anyone who doesn't play nice to the wolves. But please just stop pretending there's morality involved. Let's accept it: we're here in pursuit of profit. Any good that we do is just a nice side effect. The sooner we understand that the sooner we can actually do something about it.
This applies to the media too, of course. I love the manic obsession with stability and morality combined with a lot of corporate and government money in a lot of US journalists' stories. You get great gems like hit pieces on privacy and encryption painted with a moral coat of paint that are better than anything the alphabet soup agencies could come up with - the Silicon Valley nazis are using Clubhouse, the pedophiles are using Signal, we must let the government monitor communications now! You get stories about reddit users in the stock market that somehow try to paint them as the alt-right while completely sidestepping any discussion of wealth inequality. Love it!