So, libertarianism and Google glasses are basically the same thing?
I liked that article, but I looked at the website of the tech guy he admires, and my immediate impression was that he (the tech guy) was a moron.
That's sort of supporting his thesis then.
I don't understand how "tech guys" are supposed to be opposed to marketing. Some sort of description of the "tech nerd" mentality isn't useful anymore. You're sticking with the Dilbert approach of generalizing about the people who do Dilbert's job. Ignoring all the people giving Ted Talks, and all the people who make a living out of convincing others that they are visionaries, and all the people who depend on "elevator pitches" to dazzle VCs into funding them, and in fact all the executives and bosses who Dilbert thinks are phonies and who are the people with enough money to actually be political kingmakers.
The only convincing thing in the article is the perception of the government as slow-moving. Generally businesses try to bribe congressmen to give them advantages over other businesses. For tech companies, by the time their congressman gets their bill through, their situation has already changed and it's not useful anymore.
Also, they look at Uber, Airbnb, etc. and realize that you don't need to change the law, you can just make it so that all million people who use your service are breaking the law. Suddenly the law only applies to your competititors.
4 seems to confuse marketing oneself with marketing one's product. None of the things you list get consumers to pay money for your product.
How do we know [rich] tech nerds actually want to improve the world, as opposed to wanting to be seen supporting vaguely good causes in their own particular metier?
How do we know [rich] tech nerds actually want to improve the world, as opposed to wanting to be seen supporting vaguely good causes in their own particular metier?
That's why I thought the article made a good choice in trying to appeal to nerds' desire to understand the world, as opposed to a desire to change the world (not that the article is purely directed at nerds, of course).
I started reading this yesterday but didn't get beyond the love letter it opens with. I don't know why the author didn't just start with the political analysis.
I don't know why the author didn't just start with the political analysis.
Politics, that's why.
https://entrepreneursunite.com/ was hosting an event in the co-working space my bootcamp uses, and I suffered a serious moral dilemma as to whether it was worth the shame of signing their petition to get their free food.
Was it just a "you should do this" petition or an actual legally relevant petition like putting a candidate or question on the ballot? Because I think bribing people with free food to sign the latter is illegal.
Following the link, yeah, it's just some bullshit petition. Sign/eat away!
6: often those elevator pitches are selling to other businesses. The "consumers" are, as attention or metadata, the product.
if you google the "California Ideology" you get a 20yr old essay British media studies piece that did this first; lots of debate on that piece since--and Wired hated it!
Some brief commentary from Krugman on the piece.
As readers might guess, I face some personal frustration here.
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OT: Did anyone see the Politico article by Michael Brown "Stop Blaming me for Katrina"? Any opinions. The bit I saw sounded sort of convincing, but I'm not equipped to evaluate it.
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I haven't finished reading the Vox article, but the two paragraphs NickS quotes in the OP, if they're an at all accurate characterization of the tech nerd mentality, show an annoying lamentable naivete:
Since the loudest voices in politics are partisans, people who have chosen a side,
No, the people perceived as loudest are partisans because the media present it that way. The "both sides do it" narrative is strong; if tech nerds are supposing that dedicated liberals and dedicated conservatives are equally extreme (both in the Crazy Zones), and rational thinking lives in the zone created by splitting the difference, they're just dumb. Sorry.
if tech nerds are supposing that dedicated liberals and dedicated conservatives are equally extreme (both in the Crazy Zones), and rational thinking lives in the zone created by splitting the difference, they're just dumb. Sorry.
They aren't necessarily dumb, just not paying attention. Which has similar impacts, but isn't the same thing. A couple of thoughts, first, here is the bit that he quotes from Urban about politics:
This is a highly politicized issue, but this post has no political agenda. I'm not political because nothing could ever possibly be more annoying than American politics. I think both parties have good points, both also have a bunch of dumb people saying dumb things, and I want nothing to do with it. So I approached this post--like I try to with every post--from a standpoint of rationality and what I think makes sense.
I wonder if that is, at all, a faux-naivete. If Urban wrote that not as a complete representation but to ward off an acrimonious political discussion. Doing so weakens the post (as David Roberts points out) and I have no idea what sort of mechanism there is for comments on Wait But Why but I do know that when there is discussion of climate change in internet comment sections it is almost always terrible.
As a side note, I had actually read the referenced Wait But Why post before reading David Roberts article, and so was excited by the opening paragraphs talking about the article. I hadn't heard of Wait But Why prior to that, but I saw the article on Google+.
One other thought, people often talk about the fact that the tech community is disproportionately rich and male, and that both of those contribute to the political and apolitical parts of the culture. But I wonder if an equally important element is that the tech community tends to be young -- and that young people have less reason to engage with politics (many young people are extremely active politically, of course, but apolitical young people have less to connect them to politics than older people). When Roberts gives his examples of people in the tech community getting involved in the political process:
Actually, that's too sweeping. Bill Gates is showing up. Google is showing up. The tech industry is waking up. But tech nerd engagement with politics remains sporadic and inconsistent at best.)
Those appear to be older members of the computer industry.
The a bunch of dumb people saying dumb things guy might try looking in the mirror.
20.3: It seems to me that the problem with the 'both sides do it' is at least half in failing in to recognize that what the media (and the members of the group generally) call "moderate" or "centrist" or "pragmatist" or whatever is in fact its own, separate ideology and group, with its own weird belief system, and not just some sensible-grownups-all-agree space in between crazy people along some continuum. Large chunks of the media are indeed fierce (and often genuinely demented) partisans, they've just gotten away with pretending that they somehow aren't by claiming that the other two groups are the only groups.
After reading the article, I wonder how quickly the supposedly above the fray, neutral, not sophisticated tech business owners would rush into a Republican party of low taxes on business and wealthy individuals, poor protections for labor, grudging acceptance of the need to address climate change but almost no other environmental issues, and relatively progressive social views. A bunch of companies did join ALEC and then leave in disgust, didn't they?
I guess we should thank the social reactionaries in the Republican party for keeping it from taking all the big money from all economic sectors.
24.1 Did they leave in disgust or were they embarrassed into leaving by activists pointing out the company they were keeping? I seem to recall it being the latter.
Having now read further in the Vox article, I apologize for the fact that my 20 just says stuff David Roberts says there. Oops. Will that teach me to read the whole thing before shooting my mouth off? Maybe?
25: Yeah, it was the latter, and it was only after having been ALEC members for many years, under the radar, of course.
I don't think those companies would have particularly cared what activists think if ALEC policies didn't include things like denying climate change.
Depends on which companies we're talking about, I guess. Quite a few companies left after the killing of Trayvon Martin, given that ALEC also successfully pushed so-called Stand Your Ground laws, in case we need a reminder. That pre-dated by a couple of years the climate change anxiety experienced more recently by some members who'd apparently continued to donate/subscribe after Martin's death.
So I guess the corporate conscience is fickle.
I'm talking about specifically tech companies that specifically left in 2013/2014 and specifically talked about climate change as a reason.
It was my impression that they only left after the climate change denialism had been brought out into the open by activists and they were shamed into leaving. If that had never happened they would have continued to be members.
Got it. I confess I didn't pay much attention to that, since I thought they should have left much earlier.
There is no excuse, ever, for anyone ever having supported ALEC. Nor for anyone who supports ALEC to pretend that they are apolitical because "both sides do it" or politics has a bunch of dumb people saying dumb things.
32 to 30. For 31: that wouldn't be surprising, but I don't know. Any links, Barry?
CC gets it right, of course, though I don't know if the tech nerds who allegedly eschew politics support ALEC. It's quite possible they have no idea what it is.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/09/12608/facebook-joins-google-and-microsoft-dumping-alec
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/25/3572195/companies-dropping-alec/
Just a bunch of stuff you can find by googling.
36: Right, I just wanted a link that suggested that the climate change droppage was due to public pressure. PRWatch says so - thanks.
In fairness, both parties really do have a lot of people saying dumb things. The Democrats that make it through the media filter are largely incapable of making cogent arguments.
For those interested in overall ALEC-related news, though (since I have been googling), it looks like Huffpo's dedicated page is actually the most up to date. (!)
35: Yes, there may be distance between what tech companies do and what tech nerds think.
(I hope there can be a distance. In my case, I work for a small company in which both my coworkers and the business itself are generally apolitical, but most of our business is with multinational corporations who do support political positions that I disagree with.)
My larger point was that I suspect most of the allegedly apolitical tech nerds would be conservatives if conservatism as politically represented wasn't so abhorrent.
And I don't think you'd see companies leave ALEC if the issues were more like classification of labor as employees vs independent contractors rather than something like climate change denial.
I think 39 is quite wrong. But then I'm not looking at national media all that much, mostly because it's curated by and for morons.
But 'media filter' has to apply to more than just the cable news networks. Eg if Sen. Tester wants something in the media, it's going to get covered, even if not by the stupid people. Gov Bullock isn't going to be covered at all by the national media, because who cares about a small state, but he's covered by media every day. And fully capable of supporting his positions.
42: Incapabable, or unwilling.
45.1: Throw in NPR, PBS, and local news. If all you learn about Democrats is through the soundbytes, roundtable discussions, and interviews in these media they aren't going to seem very impressive.
My larger point was that I suspect most of the allegedly apolitical tech nerds would be conservatives if conservatism as politically represented wasn't so abhorrent.
Indeed. Just look at how common it is for tech nerds who do become interested in politics to become libertarians, which puts them pretty close to the ideology you outline in 24.
Who are you talking about, really? What elected Democratic officials are saying dumb things?
I'll match your Gov. Bullock with my Gov. Nixon. Maybe I'll do a transcript search for recent NPR interviews with Democrats tonight and see if my impression matches reality. But do you really disagree that an intelligent but politically naive person will get a negative impression of Democrats from the most commonly consumed media?
Yes I do.
OK, you can find a bunch of people who will tell you that Obama has destroyed America, based on their consumption of media. I think it's completely ridiculous to say, based on that, that the President is unable to make a cogent argument. Rather, I'd say that we're not actually dealing with "intelligent" people here.
Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner.
Claire McCaskill or Todd Akin.
Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders.
Who's the Republican Robert Reich?
Not only are both sides not more or less equal, it's not even close, when it comes to taking serious ideas seriously.
I think there's decent evidence that, yeah, people really are pretty dumb. Also those media sources actively do their best to create that impression, for reasons that, I assume, made sense a long time ago and have now become institutionalized.
I started out studying political polling. There's whole journals devoted to how dumb people are.
49: But do you really disagree that an intelligent but politically naive person will get a negative impression of Democrats from the most commonly consumed media?
I'm really curious about this, and like CCarp, would really like some examples. The original claim in 39 was that Democrats who make it through the media filter are largely incapable of making cogent arguments. This is so wildly different from my own experience of the Democrats I see that I suspect it's a matter of which media you consume.
I find, e.g., John Kerry's arguments in favor of the Iran nuclear deal quite cogent. Julian Castro, Sect'y of HUD, has been on the teevee a number of times lately talking about urban issues: he's exceedingly cogent. Claire McCaskill is terrific.
I've been searching my memory banks for Democrats who are just flat-out babblers, and at least one springs to mind: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Man is she bad. Some of the Democratic spokespersons (not office holders), whose jobs are to press the Dem agenda, are pretty bad at what's transparently spin: maybe you're thinking of them.
I'm not going to defend DWS or Nixon -- presumably they have other talents than convincing people of something. But even they look good compared to, say, Steele or Brownback.
MHPH got me to click on the link in 52, dammit, and sigh.
For "people really are dumb" you have to go to the videos from the last few years showing people declaring that they really like the Affordable Care Act, but they can't stand that Obamacare. Or the one from Texas Tech asking students who won the Civil War.
For what it's worth, and I meant to mention this in connection with NickS's 21: I tend to distinguish between "dumb" and "stupid". Purely a personal usage on my part, but dumbness is ignorance. You can be perfectly intelligent (not stupid) and still be dumb, which is where I'd put some of the tech nerd community discussed in the OP.
If people can't watch the whole thing, at least skip forward to about 5:20 for a truly great moment.
The original claim in 39 was that Democrats who make it through the media filter are largely incapable of making cogent arguments.
Yes, that is my claim. Not that there are no capable Democrats, not that the Republicans aren't far worse.
So, last week my brother mentions he's dating somebody. Today, he reposted a photo she put up of him. Once I can link to that, I see that the photos of her and him on her Facebook go back to early summer. The first set starts out at the pool in swimsuits and the last but one set is in a restaurant with an older couple I take to be her parents.
Is he engaged without telling any of his family? Because I can't think what else it could be. If so, hats off. I thought I had internalized the family habit of talking to everybody but my family, but I was never that evasive.
I mean, my sisters talk to people. It's gendered.
You can't think why he'd meet her parents without their being engaged?
And ethniced. I thought my brother was always too Italian, but lately he's been beating the 100% Irish relatives at having really long conversations with no exchange of information.
62: He met her parents (I'm assuming, but maybe he just double dates with senior citizens) in July and then a month later mentioned her to his family. "Engaged" is probably a bit strong, but it sounds relationship-y.
Anyway, it's been ten years since he mentioned somebody else. I've never been able to rule out that he's a serial killer.
A number of serial killers were married; others, single. I can only assume a few have been merely engaged.
Do the pictures show rings? I mean that in both the Shadow of a Doubt and "I hold your hand in mine" senses.
No rings. But really he's past 40. If you're in a serious relationship, you may as well get married. Death isn't a distant thing and 401k assets are taxable if you're just shacked up.
Unless he's already got an ex and some kids and is paying support. If he never mentioned that, he's the master.
The only way I could top that would be if I could casually reveal that I've been leading a double life and that Ted Cruz is actually my performance art project.
He's actually married to your wife and the people you think of as your wife and kids are actors and so are you. In fact you don't have a brother or exist, but he doesn't have the heart to tell you.
That's too complicated. Nobody would be able to follow that.
Denial is an understandable response to learning of your non-existence.
It's less unseemly that existentialism.
That sb than. I blame my phone and Yuengling.
Apparently, The Verge pays a dollar a word, which is way more than I expected.
Many newer outlets offer fifty cents per word or more--sites like The Verge might pay a dollar per word--as do established publications, including New York's blog network and The Guardian.
So David Brooks gets $800 twice a week.
That sounds pretty good, but probably doesn't go very far in D.C., especially if you have to buy a bunch of suits and get them dry cleaned all the time. I bet he has other money. PBS probably gives him $50 a show. Maybe he gets some alimony.
I'm pretty sure he's on salary, and not being paid by the word. If he was I'm guessing his columns would have a lot more, shorter words. Or we'd see a lot more of him in the press/television/etc.
I guess I won't send him my old neckties. I never need to wear them anymore.
Oh, for sure. Regular, "name" columnists are not going to be on freelance rates. In the UK, they're on anywhere between c. £100k (eg Toynbee at the Graun) and £1m (eg Littlejohn when he was at the Sun, though that also included some TV work).