11 September, 2013

Fear And Loathing OF Silicon Valley | TechCrunch

Fear And Loathing OF Silicon Valley | TechCrunch: The fallacy of the tech industry is that we think our “change the world/connect the world” intentions are enough, or at least that they should shield us from reproach, much like our gated communities of Ubers, Airbnbs, and TaskRabbits. We revel in our massive concentration of wealth, private-public transportation, private tech-heavy schools, and the underlying ideology that the government is stupid. We are exempt.

Well, except when the NSA asks for cooperation in programs that the companies we’ve founded should probably comply with — or else God knows what will happen the next time we get sued for antitrust violations.

Silicon Valley is suffering from an acute fallacy of composition: Just because it does some good doesn’t mean the whole is good. Tech isn’t above harming society. Just because change (i.e. Disruption) is inevitable doesn’t mean it’s always welcome.