cbracy

To extend the analogy, expanding to the wild west eventually required a revolutionary war with Great Britian. That's a war Silicon Valley is woefully unprepared for.

Just because 30 million people are using it doesn't mean it "impacted" them.

CrowdTilt

No, I wasn't. I wanted him to win--and am so glad he did--and criticizing him on FISA would have been counterproductive at best. I don't agree with every one of the hundreds of positions he's taken, but I'm not a one-issue voter. Despite his flaws and disagreements I have with him on some issues, he's probably the best President I'll ever see in my lifetime. Helping to get him re-elected is one of the greatest things I'll ever do.

Sorry. You're right. But I don't think I'm throwing up my hands. I think there are many solutions and certainly not ones that are easily laid out as a final paragraph in a post like this. I'll definitely follow up when I think I have ideas (or share other good ones when I see them) but for me this post was an important first step to clarify my thinking about what the problem is.

Completely 100% agree with you, and have been mildly obsessed with Uber and other ride-sharing apps since I moved here because of their conflict with city government and the implications they have for public transportation.

One of the most jarring San Francisco experiences I had when I first got here was getting off Mission/16th BART and then walking a block to Valencia street. The difference that block makes is a good metaphor for what I'm trying to describe in this article, but I'm not creative or articulate enough to describe it in this context and have it make sense.

Yeah, as you can probably tell I struggled a lot with the term "Silicon Valley." I meant to describe more the culture than the geographic place, but since I'm based in SF it all kind of got conflated. Good point, I'm going to think a bit more about how to make that distinction clearer.

I'm a "she" by the way :)

I think you're misunderstanding. I think it's exactly that decentralized, networked approach to problem-solving that holds the potential for technologists to fix big problems. The issue is that in SV most are not focusing on those problems. I WANT the tech community disrupting those old institutions, and I'm frustrated we're not doing more of it.

It's my responsibility too. I'm working on it. Just coming off the Obama campaign and rolling into a new gig in the coming weeks. Not ready to announce it yet, but I'm proud of it and think it's part of the solution.

Leave aside that I don't think the analogy to African aid is quite relevant here, I agree with you. Charity alone isn't necessarily helpful nor does it define the good a person has done. But the lack of philanthropy in SV is indicative of the attitude and culture I'm trying to describe: individualistic, not integrated into a diverse community, divorced from a sense of civic responsibility.