I picked out this singular point of yours, because it seems like a very common issue getting worse over time.

The professional class has been rather successful at pushing a definition of "progressive" that is in line with their own interests. It's now mostly restricted to social issues, with SJW being the fringe element of it. Economic issues? Gone. Welfare issues? Gone. Foreign policy issues? Gone.

If you look at it that way, Obama has been good to the managerial class, the credentialed class, the professional class, the Silicon Valley types, the affluent liberals, everyone who was already profitting from the neoliberal status-quo. The rest, not so much. The opiod epidemic in the US, born out of mass despair, combined with your excuse of a healthcare system, is class warfare, plain and simple. "Die faster" is the message coming from not just the establishment, but also the professional class, aimed at the plebs, the servant class, the deplorables, the white trash, everyone not inside their bubble.

I've had more success in discussions by making it clear from the get-go that social victories mean very little when you are too poor to enjoy any of them. Your progressive issues mean nothing to me if you still insist on neoliberal economic policies that are a tool of class warfare against the poor.

It's as clear as day in France this days. The liberal intelligentsia calls you scum if you don't support Macron, the darling of the elite, who is liberal on social issues, but a hardcore neoliberal on economic issues. A spokesperson of the Melenchon campaign described his policies as "the Uberization of society", something in clear opposition of what the left stands for.

Describing my views as left rather than progressive or liberal has also helped in these discussions.

Matt Stoller had a good piece on the destruction of Silicon Valley, with this horseshit as a prime example. Without antitrust enforcement, this is what you end up with: playtoys for the oligarchs.

I feel like this is the equivalent of people who live in their car in America. People who's work is enough to feed them but not to house them. I live in the heart of Silicon valley when I go out at night I inevitably see car after car with someone sleeping in it, and the back seat filled with what I can only imagine is their only earthly possessions.

There are so many people living like this even in one of the richest places in the US, I can only imagine what it's like in areas with a lower concentration of wealth.

Blame presumes guilt. There's no guilt in voting for your interests, even if others don't understand them.

Reasons for those voting decisions are interesting, but also very hard to get since the media ignores everything between the coasts, and even the diverse internet is so full of filter bubbles that you're basically funneled straight into echo chambers. At least on my end, the Silicon Valley/Hollywood culture is drowning out everything else -- and I'm a commie outsider who doesn't give a shit about celebrities or "save zones".

That said, the election is just the most recent culmination of an ongoing, decades-long development. But that's beyond the point, so...

Populism trumps business as usual if business as usual leads to Detroit, Cleveland and Camden. Or the rural areas on the coast of Louisiana, which were hit much harder than New Orleans and still look worse than Chernobyl, 11 years after the fact.

So the question is: did you a) fail to provide an alternative, b) fail to make a convincing case for that alternative, c) decide against trying to convince those that think differently, or d) not even realize that not everybody shares your perception of reality.

Given the tone of the reactions, the collective damnation of Trump voters as (insert any insult in the book), I'm thinking that d) is a much bigger issue than anyone is willing to admit.

In short, I blame George R. R. Martin. If he had published The Winds of Winter by now, all would be well.

Have I mentioned how much I like reading pieces by Thomas Frank?

He had a piece in the Guardian two days ago about the Podesta emails and it's just brilliant. Excerpt:

This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids, points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she appears to think that any kind of bank reform should “come from the industry itself”. And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another’s careers, constantly.

Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the “Global CEO Advisory Firm” that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.

But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it’s all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren’t part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don’t have John Podesta’s email address – you’re out.

Thanks man,I replied.... I decided that I am going to move to the Sonoran desert, get away from Cali and focus on health, space and money Ayahuasca/DMT definitely influenced that decision. SF/Bay Area/Santa Cruz/Silicon Valley... it's too unwieldy for me to deal with anymore. Shit, is out of control in terms of risk & cost of living.... 15 years, brah, I'm finally off into the wilderness... will be riding my bike across a seemingly infinite wasteland of beauty every day

Your video, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, And The Bay Area Explained, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 55 Badge!

IBM Research? located in south SJ in 1952, 'cause of Stanford, Berkeley (HATE how he says it), UC Santa Cruz , & Moffett Field (NASA-Ames Research, but at the time was NACA).

Personally, I think Facebook is outside of Silicon Valley Proper, instead in AMPEX territory. Menlo Park (Stanford/HP) is the northern-most edge of Silicon Valley, whereas IBM marked the southern-most. and don't forget about Cisco & Silicon Graphics, whose machines were the bomb.

I grew up blocks from IBM and half my friends parents worked there (mine for NASA). I'm back here again in the Santa Cruz Mtns, Los Gatos.

Does anyone say Marin or Berkeley the way he does? How do you get Berkeley wrong? I can't imagine he's from the area or even heard anyone say those names before.

Also Id personally define Silicon Valley as Most of Santa Clara County(not all). Palo Alto to San Jose. I don't think of it as including the cities of Milpitas, Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Although, i think of it this way due to when it was first being used and the area in encompassed at that time. It's probably been ever changing depending on how the tech areas expand.

Wiki describes it "Geographically, it encompasses all of the Santa Clara Valley, the southern half of the San Francisco Peninsula, and southern portions of the East Bay. It includes parts or most of Santa Clara County, San Mateo County, and Alameda County."

Wasn't this idea stolen from the 1st season of the Silicon Valley TV show?

Your video, LSD Microdosing in Silicon Valley, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Yes they did.

Found a press release.
http://www.renovomotors.com/marty-press-release/

"MARTY was built in collaboration with Renovo Motors, an automotive start-up based in Silicon Valley that specializes in building advanced electric vehicle technology. Working closely together gave the Stanford team early access to a brand new platform derived from Renovo’s electric supercar that delivers 4,000 pound-feet from on-motor gearboxes to the rear wheels in a fraction of a second – allowing precise control of the forces required to drift."

Not true, and that's why I posted the actual definition, rather than my personal feeling on what the word means. Then we can all start from the ACTUAL definition(s) rather than just making some up and arguing about it.

Your second paragraph/sentence makes no sense at all to me, and sounds like a disjointed red herring/straw man/bad attempt at creating a false argument you can shoot down....but it's so all over the place it's unfollowable.

You continue to confuse feminism with Feminism, and also continue to paint all Feminists in the worst possible light based on a few overboard examples rather than describing the normal, average Feminist.
For instance, many Feminists see pornography and prostitution as empowering and taking control of their own sexuality, and it was actually prudish anti-feminist men who tried to censor it in the courts.

In fact, there ARE many people in the civilized world who still think women don't deserve the same rights as men in many areas, and insist they are unable to perform tasks men can perform, must be coddled and subservient, and are lesser beings based purely on gender, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It's only because of this continuing misunderstanding on your part that you claim anyone said anything like "The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank... "...you are again confusing feminist with Feminist, and using the wrong one. We don't have Feminist advocacy to thank, we do however have feminist advocacy to thank for the advancements in women's rights...it's what the word means.


It doesn't sound at all like you 'appreciate the attempt at consensus building', or even understood my point, since you continue to conflate feminism with Feminism. I can't be certain, but it seems you are doing that intentionally in order to argue a moot point.



EDIT:sorry, I thought I quoted you @gorillaman, so I'll cut and paste....

gorillaman said:
Everyone has a different definition of feminism; that is to some extent the problem. Rather, this is the final bulwark to which its advocates retreat when their main arguments have been punctured and deflated.

"But surely," says the distorter of domestic violence and rape statistics - says the agitator who runs dissenting professors off campus - says the censor of allegedly harmful pornography - says the fascist who criminalises prostitution or BDSM - says the conspiracy theorist who sees systemic sexism in places it couldn't possibly exist, like science and silicon valley (and videogaming, and science fiction) - says the proponent of patriarchy theory in societies in which men are routinely sacrificed to war, to dangerous jobs, to extreme poverty; whose genitals are mutilated; whose children, houses and paychecks can be taken away essentially at the whim of their partners; for whom there is vanishingly little support in the event of domestic abuse or homelessness; who are assumed to be rapists and wife-beaters and paedophiles; and who are told, throughout all of this, that it is their privilege - "I'm just claiming that women have rights. How can you disagree with that?"

The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank and to which there is actually anyone in the civilised world who objects, is a laughable and insulting one.

Still, I'm sure we all appreciate the attempt at consensus building.

Everyone has a different definition of feminism; that is to some extent the problem. Rather, this is the final bulwark to which its advocates retreat when their main arguments have been punctured and deflated.

"But surely," says the distorter of domestic violence and rape statistics - says the agitator who runs dissenting professors off campus - says the censor of allegedly harmful pornography - says the fascist who criminalises prostitution or BDSM - says the conspiracy theorist who sees systemic sexism in places it couldn't possibly exist, like science and silicon valley (and videogaming, and science fiction) - says the proponent of patriarchy theory in societies in which men are routinely sacrificed to war, to dangerous jobs, to extreme poverty; whose genitals are mutilated; whose children, houses and paychecks can be taken away essentially at the whim of their partners; for whom there is vanishingly little support in the event of domestic abuse or homelessness; who are assumed to be rapists and wife-beaters and paedophiles; and who are told, throughout all of this, that it is their privilege - "I'm just claiming that women have rights. How can you disagree with that?"

The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank and to which there is actually anyone in the civilised world who objects, is a laughable and insulting one.

Still, I'm sure we all appreciate the attempt at consensus building.