The staggering social costs of gun violence in the US

This was a good interview about a Mother Jones article on the indirect costs of US gun violence: http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201504300930

The author's team performed an established economic analysis to estimate the total costs of gun violence - not just the direct costs of law enf., ER visit, and justice/penal system processing, but also lost productivity and diminished quality of life from long-term disability, incarceration, and death (affecting not just the victim but their family, workplace, and community). The article estimates that of the ~30K gun murders each year, on average it costs America $500K each. Add to that the ~80K cases/year of serious injuries from guns, and the total price tag is over $200B/year. That is 1/3 the value of Apple's stock, and more than US medicine spends on obesity each year. It's freaking huge.

But we're not talking about this because the NRA and others make the data so hard to access. And if people do try to study it (like the CDC and Harvard School of Public Health and Obama's recent nominee for Sgn. General), the gun lobby paints them as gun-control activists with a political agenda. Conservatives want to cut waste and spending left and right (social programs, research, etc.), but somehow the military and guns are exempt?

BTW - the study also found a correlation between states with weak gun laws and higher gun violence costs per capita (LA, WY are the worst, while HI and MA are some of the best - also with stricter gun laws). It's a no-brainer to us, but the 2nd Amendment crowd clings to the myth that more guns make you safer. They might also argue - what about the economic savings from all the crimes prevented by conscientious citizens with guns? Well there's just no data to support that claim, if it's even true (which is doubtful). You're much more likely to hurt yourself or a loved one than prevent a crime with your gun.

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This is pretty heartbreaking stuff about the effects of violence on Oakland's youth:

http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/04/29/violence-causes-ripple-effects-for-thousands-of-oakland-students

For a kid who turned 18 this year in Oakland, he or she lived through 111 kids getting killed in that city, not to mention the trauma that caused for everyone else. At least Alameda County is deploying more mental health resources for them now - but really this is an issue that no kid should have to deal with. Especially if they're under 10, children often can't deal with the difficult emotions generated from experiencing violence, so their ability to learn is impaired and they may lash out in negative ways.

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NPR did a story based on this article and the most persuasive outcome, to me, was that there needs to be science and data applied to this stuff.  One of the guests was talking about the idea that if you even ask for data you are anti gun.  That there is this all or nothing approach.  Why wouldn't the dates show all the loves being saved if guns are great?  Couldn't we also find that, for example, people with lots of gun training have better outcomes related to fun violence?  It seems weird to assume data can only be anti gun.

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Agreed. I guess it's like climate change and cop racism issues - if one side of the argument is confident in their position, they should have no problems whatsoever with full data transparency. When you are "trying to hide something" and suppressing info, that is a tell-tale sign that your argument has a problem. Actually if those folks really love gun rights and "freedom", then they should welcome data transparency to help improve gun use and gun culture in America (like a majority of NRA members favor better background checks, but NRA leaders don't). Or do they think that everything is OK? Don't they know that the most successful (legit) companies and gov'ts in the last 50 years are obsessed with data to help them succeed and improve?

Bottom line, the gun industry/lobby's only goal is to sell more product. Gun ownership in the US (as % of households) is on a huge decline since WWII, partly driven by urbanization, less interest in hunting, and I would like to believe social progress. But the # of guns in circulation may have gone up, so someone is buying them. There are fewer gun owners now, but they own more guns (and more deadly ones) per capita. Police departments upgrade their guns more frequently, and lord knows where their used guns go (I think there are accounts of cartels/gangs using former US police firearms).

So to accomplish their goal, the gun lobby has to oppose anything that would potentially hurt sales, and of course social costs data is a big threat. And when the costs are so obvious (even without hard data), they pull the freedom and liberty card. Sure guns are destructive, but the costs are "worth it" because we have to sacrifice to keep the communists from taking our freedoms. We have to tolerate the side-effects of guns because I need to protect my family from the bad guys. And when it's poor/black people shouldering most of the costs, it's easier to ignore - until incidents like Columbine and Sandy Hook happen, which affected affluent whites and jarred the nation.

I use data to put food on the table, so I'd like to think that I have some sense of "data ethics" and best practices. When the pro-gun side decides to actually use data in their arguments, I can honestly say that they are the worst in terms of ethics and rigor. Total intellectual dishonesty (or maybe ignorance). I have not read any NRA white papers (if there are any non-laughable ones), so I am basing my judgment mostly on the sound bites you hear in the gun debate.

Examples:

• "Chicago has strict gun laws, but they still have plenty of gang violence and murders, so gun laws don't work!" Because we don't have borders. Thugs just have to buy a gun 30 miles away in easier places like Indiana, and then drive back to the city to shoot someone.
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• "Since the Brady Bill/Assault Weapons Ban expired, there have been fewer mass shootings, so assault weapons in the hands of 'the good guys' is an effective deterrent." Not enough sample size to assess a trend, and what defines a "mass shooting"? Public mass shootings are fortunately still pretty rare (it's much more common for someone to slaughter their family in a private residence). But Mother Jones and Harvard ran a statistical analysis to handle rare events, and they concluded that mass shootings are actually more frequent after the loosening of gun laws. Of course correlation is not causation, but it invalidates the pro-gun claim.
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• "Guns don't kill people; people kill people - address the mental health and anger issues instead." But guns kill people A LOT more effectively than a knife or bare hands. Yes there will always be a baseline level of violence and murder intent in any society, but if you restrict access to the murder tools, people won't be able to carry them out as effectively. Look at AUS/UK vs. US. Fairly similar culture, demos, etc., but we have all the guns and murders. Canada is an exception (many guns, few murders), but there will always be outliers.

"What ISIS really wants"

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201502251000

This Yale prof and Atlantic editor, Grame Woods, studied comms from ISIS and interviewed experts to try to understand the group better in order to recommend the best strategy to defeat them.

As before with the communists and the Axis of Evil, the US gov't and mainstream media (mostly FNC) have totally mischaracterized what ISIS is (and the actual threat they pose), which has led to some calls for stupid escalations. Fortunately we haven't gone off the deep end like with the 2003 Iraq invasion, but who knows what the future will hold?

I am not knowledgeable enough to really vet the author's conclusions, but from his interview he came off as extremely cogent and fair-minded on the issue. Basically, for Obama and some Muslim groups to dismiss ISIS as "un-Islamic" is a disservice to the cause of defeating them. In fact they are fanatically Islamic, and their playbook almost perfectly follows some Koranic verses about the end of times (or course they practice extremely militant/strict interpretations of Islam that most Muslims have eschewed). It's like if a fundamentalist Christian cult took over some land in Israel to try to bring about the events in Revelations. By trying to be PC and un-bigoted, these voices are ignoring a strategic opportunity that we can use against ISIS: if we know what they want and how they propose to get it according to their dogma, we can better deprive them of it.

It's also wrong to dismiss ISIS as just a bunch of murder and torture junkies who believe in nothing more than that. Yes they engage in those crimes, but that is not what motivates them (they are means to an end). Those atrocities are part of their larger vision for how to deal with the enemies of Islam (including "bad Muslims") and bring about the Apocalypse and afterlife rewards. Purge the Middle East, topple Rome, and bring about the end of days when the Crusaders fight back (and I guess Allah intervenes, vanquishes them, and rewards his loyal jihadists).

ISIS is not really a state (they don't care about land and political power), but more like a prolonged jihad (similar to the early days of Islam, historically). In fact they govern horribly (like most regimes in that region), and have promised recruits/residents a righteous welfare state that they can't possibly hope to deliver. The Taliban govern much better than them. They succeed through propaganda and battlefield exploits. As long as they are advancing, scaring the heretics, and struggling heroically, they look good. In fact the author compares them most similarly to the Nazis of the 1930s (the righteous chosen people are suffering due to the treachery of evil inferior oppressors, so they must rise up and settle the score). Western societies dangle the promise of freedom and a good life (but in order for some to have that life, many other poorer people in the world must suffer). Reactionary groups like the Nazis and ISIS sell the righteous struggle instead. They romanticize the hard life because it is worth it to fight the Crusaders/Zionists/apostates, and your reward for your sacrifice will be eternal glory. For marginalized, frustrated, and impoverished people in the Middle East (and some in the West), they are more likely to embrace that goal versus the democratic capitalist ideal that seems more foreign and unattainable to them than Star Trek.

So how do you beat them? Let their hollow and fragile marketing pitch blow up in their faces, and eventually their subjects and recruits will see through them and shun them. Take away their true strength, which is their propaganda built on their blitzkrieg victories and "mein kampf" narrative of righteous struggle against evil. "Contain, degrade, and wait it out" may be the best we can do. Halt their expansion, cut off their funding, and diminish their war capacity, similar to Obama's initial military response. It's even better if we help local moderate Muslim forces defeat them (well, if you can call the Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi regimes moderate). The worst thing we can do is fight conventionally, as that plays into their narrative of resistance against Crusader oppression. They can't wait to die fighting against Americans and Jews, as that could be used as glorious recruiting material.

America is not that good at waiting patiently, and unfortunately many innocents could die within ISIS lands while we wait for them to fail. But it is the least bad option of the ones we have in front of us. Or does anyone have a better idea? Clearly we could bomb their forces to the Stone Age if we wanted, but then what? We'd leave a vacuum in 2 nations facing civil war and lack of governance. The traces of ISIS would just return later, even more motivated because of our violent campaign against their predecessors. Remember that ISIS more or less emerged out of the ashes of the Ba'athists and Al-Qaeda in Iraq. They waited years for their chance, and they took it. We can't afford to give them another.

Student suicides at Gunn High in Silicon Valley

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201501290900

3 student suicides this academic year (one was a recent alum), and 9 since 2009. Most of the cases had some element of stress/pressure to meet very high academic expectations. I didn't hear the whole program, but an interesting comment from a former teacher said a peer counseling class and less stressful vocational courses (like wood shop) were recently eliminated to make room for more AP courses.

The school is considering modifying the class schedule and homework levels, but I think those are just band-aids. Failing to meet the sometime ludicrous and frankly perverse expectations/goals in that community is not an indication that the student is a failure at life and should die. I would hope that the rabid competition and obsession to achieve (or fit some template of what success looks like) do not overwhelm students and make them forget that there are other ways to feel happy and successful in this life. That message has to start with adults, who should encourage balance over excess and set healthy examples that Silicon Valley Values are not the only values in the world.

Recent perspectives on income and the wealth gap

Bill Maher: the super rich have an oversized egotistical victim complex. Libertarians and conservatives can cut the crap, because most of the founding fathers commented that concentrated wealth is a danger to democracy (and back then the existence of a billionaire capitalist was less plausible than the Fountain of Youth). 

A caller on KQED: debating the minimum wage is a straw man until America implements more humane labor practices and expectations. Otherwise we're not much different than Tsarist Russia.

The SF Bay Area housing crisis

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/10/30/kqed-launches-priced-out-the-high-cost-of-housing-in-the-bay-area/

This is probably he most important social issue for the area. It's strange that SF has a proud history of inclusion (and a pretty good record in overall today), but this housing crisis is driven by exclusion and privilege, not necessarily "normal economics."

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Well if you average the entire Bay Area, places like Brentwood and Antioch will bring down the average. But SF is #3 priciest per sq. ft. in the US behind NYC and HNL. Versus the whole world, SF is not that bad, but real estate is really messed up in older, more cramped cities in the EU and Asia.

http://curbed.com/archives/2011/09/27/heres-a-chart-of-the-worlds-cities-by-price-per-square-foot.php

It's not even about rent vs. own. Renting is very pricey too, obviously. I think one aspect of the problem is that landlords are taking rent-controlled (or regular) units off the market in order to convert them to TIC/condos for more $, or sell the whole bldg to speculators because there is no much insane pent-up demand and high willingness to pay from the upper classes. So rental supply is going down, which causes rents to rise too.

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If you hit Wikipedia for median income by city in ca you'll find that those areas are also quite rich.  Housing doesn't happen in a vacuum.  More a function of income and the real problem is income inequality

It also happens with respect to density. The more houses/apartments available = the cheaper the rent. Nimbys in the Bay Area would like to still have their .5 acre ranch houses on some of the most valuable land on earth, meaning that the poors have to live 2 hours commute from their jobs.

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Totally agree. The social justice element also comes into play that historically lower income, blue collar, often minority neighborhoods (Mission, Castro, etc.) used to be less desirable for yuppies and therefore more affordable and off the radar of speculators. But now they are hipster paradises, and with gentrification, the "traditional residents" can't even maintain their old lives and are priced out of the market. I guess that is like economic eminent domain.

Measures like rent control or mandated affordable housing are often economically inefficient and flawed (because they are written and implemented by flawed bureaucrats, like healthcare.gov), but sometime optimal economics must take a back seat to concerns about fairness and social values (see taxes, labor laws). I'd rather have confusing rent control laws and too high minimum wage than a total lack of regulation (at least imperfect laws are a springboard for iteration and improvement). Because as you said, with the huge inequality gap, what is the point for the poorest 60% to struggle so hard trying to fit into the rich man's world (yet not really be allowed to live in the rich man's world... I guess like the "Elysium" plot, which I did not see)? Most people with a shred of heart would probably agree that there is something inherently unjust with greedy politicians/companies and wealthy invaders "annexing" and developing suddenly desirable land, which leads to the economic eviction of the residents who were there before (through legal market mechanisms and the landlords/property owners). Pardon my melodrama, but it's scarily similar to the Trail of Tears.

I heard an interview about the subject a while back, and one new SF resident and tech employee said something like, "Assholes (his word) like me can afford $3K/1BR rent and are making it hard on the previous residents, but hey, I want to live here." At least he had clear eyes. It's just sad because everyone has one life to live, and we don't want to compromise or suffer if we don't have to - even at cost to others (esp. when others' suffering at our hands is mostly invisible). Sorry for stereotyping, but I think the Gen X-ers and Millennials especially (present company excluded) really fixate on what I like to call "life maximization." Similar to their work habits of optimizing, achieving, and disrupting everything, in life they want it their way and they want it all. Best job, best home, best network, best gear, best marathon time, best family... best, best, best. When that is not really the goal but the status quo expectation in SF/Si Valley (when excellent becomes average/normal, what do all the sub-excellent people do?), then that doesn't really encourage a culture of togetherness and SHARING. We don't need the best life... can't we just enjoy our regular life? Isn't enough enough? Can I give a little up and still live a plenty comfy life so that more needy people can get a break? People don't ask these questions of themselves enough (myself included).

Sharing is the key I think. This isn't my world, it's our world. There is PLENTY of food, money, and room for everyone if we share reasonably, but the problem is the fucking 1% and the institutions who advocate for them just don't want to (and don't have to). Americans and some other cultures really fixate on fencing off what's yours and amassing/diving the pie, so that breeds an adversarial, zero-sum attitude that conservatives really eat up. Therefore, it's especially sad when educated, young, open-minded "liberal" West Coast people do the same and may not even realize it. At least liberals don't bad-mouth and hate the people they marginalize, but that doesn't leave them in the clear (myself included).

The best teachers I have had in my life (not necessarily in school) really cared about expanding the pie rather than dividing it. How can we make everyone happier? Any asshole with a bit of smarts can compete and beat others. But a truly smart, wise person goes out of his/her way to cooperate, find ways to align incentives, and make everyone better off - not just him/herself. For all the smug talent and genius brains and big money in the Bay, that skill is scarily absent. Don't get me wrong, some people practice it faithfully and I am in awe of them, but it's not enough to stem the tide. That's why I probably will leave this place next year, as much as it makes me sad and for all I am leaving behind. I don't want my kid to grow up in such a culture. At least I will make room for another person/family to have my stressful job and little slice of condo.

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Sorry I realize that I was unclear about one point in my last rant (unclear about at least one point, haha).

The Google buses are often scapegoats but not really the problem. By no means am I placing the bulk of the blame on the young, techie hipsters invading the Bay. They are not really the 1% and not the real driver of the problem, they are just a "symptom". Except for Zuck who bought a whole block of SF for privacy haha.

As usual, the problem is the old rich Nimby fucks that A alluded to. They are the ones who gobbled up all the choice land decades ago, and who currently occupy all the seats of political power and business influence. They are the ones who invested/profited from the tech boom (more than the current workforce), and stand to profit from real estate development and appreciation. They took so much that the current hipsters are practically forced to gentrify the Mission and maybe Hunter's Point soon. I bet most hipsters would much rather live in Nob Hill or downtown Paly, but all the old rich pricks there are just cramping their style anyway (and even a Twitter engineer still can't afford a $5M Nob Hill pad).

As A alluded to, we are not in the '50s Levittowns anymore, or not even in the '90s nouveau-riche gated golf communities. But the assholes want to keep us in the past, because they like the status and lifestyle they have, and don't want to give up even a shred to others. The city of Paris (and many other ancient cities) is like a 10-layer cake. New generations tear down the old crap that isn't working anymore and rebuild to fit the needs of the current people. We aren't really doing that, because the old fossils control the bulldozers. So all we have is SF Elysium vs. Vallejo. 

But "the people" are fighting back, and at least voted down a luxury condo development on the Embarcadero. It's a small victory in a long war that the good guys will almost certainly lose. But we might as well smoke a blunt and celebrate while we can. :)

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Following-the-bankroll-for-SF-s-Propositions-B-C-4961999.php
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=243537913&ft=1&f=2&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NprProgramsATC+%28NPR+Programs%3A+All+Things+Considered%29&utm_content=Yahoo+Search+Results 

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i once heard someone say cities are either places to live or places people come to make money.  he was talking about SF and that we were at a crossroads.  it was when matt gonzalez was running for mayor against gavin Newsome.  The speaker was making the case that if Newsome wins, the city will lose its soul, it's artist community, it's diversity of culture and class.  that's what you're looking at here….plain and simple.  and, you know what?  the city sucks now.  It's filled with people who are in a hurry, who lay on their horns, who yell.  

George Packer on the socioeconomic contradictions of Silicon Valley

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201306061000
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/27/130527fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2013/05/silicon-valley-taxes-and-libertarianism.html

"Move fast and break things."

- Zuck

"The Valley is a little bit at risk of moving in the direction that Wall Street went in... Losing sight of the real purpose of technology, just as Wall Street lost sight of the real purpose of finance. And instead looking at that little narrow way to a big payoff. But that can be very short-term and not particularly productive."

- G Packer

When financiers say that they’re doing God’s work by providing cheap credit, and oilmen claim to be patriots who are making the country energy-independent, no one takes them too seriously—it’s a given that their motivation is profit. But when technology entrepreneurs describe their lofty goals there’s no smirk or wink. “Many see their social responsibility fulfilled by their businesses, not by social or political action,” one young entrepreneur said of his colleagues. “It’s remarkably convenient that they can achieve all their goals just by doing their start-up.” He added, “They actually think that Facebook is going to be the panacea for many of the world’s problems. It isn’t cynicism—it’s arrogance and ignorance.”

- G Packer, New Yorker

Joshua Cohen, a Stanford political philosopher who also edits Boston Review, described a conversation he had with John Hennessy, the president of Stanford, who has extensive financial and professional ties to Silicon Valley. “He was talking about the incompetent people who are in government,” Cohen recalled. “I said, ‘If you think they’re so incompetent, why don’t you include in a speech you’re making some urging of Stanford students to go into government?’ He thought this was a ridiculous idea.”
- G Packer, New Yorker

In New Yorker style, a very long but detailed and thoughtful presentation of Packer's argument that the "Siliconization" of the US economy/culture is not necessarily good for everyone. The interview on his book The Unwinding is interesting too. I was surprised that he didn't get more rebuttal call-ins, since KQED is a Bay Area station after all.

I am too tired to properly summarize the story, but basically Packer is saying that the features that make Si. Valley great are also leading to some negative social effects. Innovation requires boldness, unorthodox thinking, and almost a "F it" attitude about consequences. Si. Valley embodies that paradox of socialist-Utopian desire to make the world more connected and better vs. the cutthroat, libertarian pursuit of riches unfettered by any regs or CSR (VC culture, Foxconn, avoiding taxes, FB IPO scam, you name it).

You can't be great and rise above the pack by playing it safe and by the rules. But that's the big difference between the Great Expansion of the '50s and '60s (blossoming of the US middle class), and the Great Divergence of today (the widening wealth gap and shrinking middle class). In the past, a WASP with a HS education and decent intellect/work ethic could have a job for as long as he wanted it, and earn enough to be middle class, provide for his nuclear family, retire in comfort, and set his kids on a path for the upper middle class. That hasn't happened too often in human history. But that was probably an outlier era, as Reaganomics/globalization put an end to that.

For Gen X and the Millennials, we get the sense that only schmucks and working stiffs believe in that old system of playing by the rules, working hard, and making a decent living. Now it's all about getting that mad loot ASAP, and stepping on whatever is in our path. Packer uses the example of Jay-Z to describe this attitude: he came from nothing and with little hope of achieving the American Dream. So he unabashedly sold drugs to finance his music career, and he used his music riches to build a corporate empire. Of course he needed a lot of hard work and luck too, but Jay-Z "skipped the line" to the upper crust. In interviews, he is surprised that more people don't hate him. But instead, we cheer for him, because his story makes us believe that we can be him too. He is both hero and villain, and 100% modern American. So for the rest of us who aren't blessed with entertainment, athletic, or drug-selling skills, basically we have to find a way to succeed in finance, tech, or medicine... or be just another chump.

But getting back to the Si. Valley paradox, it should be telling that Gates didn't engage in philanthropy until he was the richest man on the planet, and Zuck didn't either until "The Social Network" came out and his company went public (but to his credit, Zuck has now become one of the most socially-conscious CEOs in the Valley). For tech guys who are obsessed with efficiency and creative problem solving, it's awful convenient to believe that you are saving the world while you're getting rich and helping yourself. But we know what the order of priorities is.  Though if Si. Valley was so public serving, then why are some of the most economically depressed and violent zones in the Western US (Richmond, Oakland, East PA) located just short drives from the Google and Apple HQs? Their geniuses can figure out how to put the Internet on eyeglasses and revolutionize what a mobile phone is, but they can't reduce crime and poverty in the Bay Area?

Let's be honest, tech companies make the world better for rich people - they are invested in solving rich people problems (and they do it really well), because obviously there is a market for that. There is nothing inherently wrong with that - the business of America is business. But then don't act so superior. Remember those older Apple commercials showing images of Gandhi and MLK with the slogan "Think Different"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzvwkR1RYU

Despite their marketing intentions, such a commercial is basically comparing a for-profit company to heroes who devoted their lives to fight injustice, and died poor. That is frankly outrageous. As Packer said, the hypocrisy is evident in Apple's calls for immigration reform, so they can get more visas to hire cheaper Asian engineers. They say they can't find enough qualified candidates domestically, yet their tax-evasion tactics have served to starve our public education. Don't complain about the quality of workers here when you aren't investing in them. And of course it's not just Apple.

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The buses—whose schedules are withheld from the public—have become a vivid emblem of the tech boom’s stratifying effect in the Bay Area. Rebecca Solnit, who has lived in San Francisco for thirty years, recently wrote in The London Review of Books, “Sometimes the Google Bus just seems like one face of Janus-headed capitalism; it contains the people too valuable even to use public transport or drive themselves. Right by the Google bus stop on Cesar Chavez Street immigrant men from Latin America stand waiting for employers in the building trade to scoop them up, or to be arrested and deported by the government.”

One question for technology boosters—maybe the crucial one—is why, during the decades of the personal computer and the Internet, the American economy has grown so slowly, average wages have stagnated, the middle class has been hollowed out, and inequality, has surged. Why has a revolution that is supposed to be as historically important as the industrial revolution coincided with a period of broader economic decline?

I honestly despise living [in the Valley], in many ways. I detest the "Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe" narrative and all the fuckers in BMWs who tailgate me on my way to the grocery store. I hate the fact that people around here go on and on about "innovation" yet spend their lives on yet-another-bullshit-useless-copycat-web-startup, instead of actually working on solving real, hard problems (many of which, as you point out, A, can't really be solved with software, or even hardware). I hate the fact that said bullshit web startup can get millions of dollars in funding with comparatively little effort, while people working on actual hard problems have to beg or fight tooth & nail for fractions of that amount from governments or foundations. I hate the cognitive dissonance of the inequality experienced by the line cooks, baristas, waiters, and janitors who serve all of the self-important pricks around here; some of them have even been forced into homelessness, as reported on Bill Moyers' show not long ago.

The Valley desperately needs this kind of takedown, repeatedly. Bring it on.

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This stuff is so spot-on and poignant that I have to stop thinking about it or I'm going to start destroying work equipment in rebellion. But I think the Millennials are in general more conscientious, so I hope enough of them will see things for what they are and try to fix them. Of course some will become selfish pricks like their parents, but I have hope. It's great to see that fast riches are not a major priority for a lot of young people (despite their possibly spoiled upbringings). They want to be happy, better themselves, and help others - which we need very desperately today.

The FB thread brought up a good point - since the PC/internet revolution, why hasn't the average worker gotten richer? If anything they have gotten poorer due to job insecurity and rising prices as you said. The only sector that has consistently profited is the 1% and corporations (or those who had the disposable income to invest prudently). So the promise of tech making our lives better/easier may be anecdotally and superficially true, but actually empty. As you also said, tech gets co-opted by business interests anyway, so the "good potential" is often diminished. 

I wonder if the Masters of the Universe were born during a previous era, what would they be doing? Guys like Jobs, Zuck, Gates... would they have been as great as Edison or Ford, or at best a middle-manager chump? Clearly Zuck and Jobs don't have what it takes to be anything but the boss. But people change with the environment, and maybe they would be a lot different without such great opportunities available to them (especially as a Jew and a half-Lebanese orphan). 

KQED stories about political switchers

http://blogs.kqed.org/election2012/2012/10/31/political-switchers-raised-a-democrat/
http://blogs.kqed.org/election2012/2012/10/31/political-switchers-republican-since-childhood/

Dear KQED,

I was disappointed by your November 1 story about the Marin County lady who switched to the GOP after 9/11. I know that she is entitled to portray her personal political evolution as she wants, but I think your coverage was softball and misleading. The take-home message seemed to be, "Don't just blindly follow the political views of your family or community; form your own opinions." That is fine, but she seemed to imply that Marin County people need to "wake up", think for themselves, and then of course they would choose to be conservative. I don't think that is an accurate characterization, especially because many Marin County liberals are much better informed (and get their info from much less biased sources) than Mrs. Wolters.

Like many Americans, 9/11 changed Wolters' worldview. But a decade later we know that many Americans (and our government) felt so fearful and vulnerable after 9/11 that they over-reacted and embraced controversial policies that weakened America, made the world more hostile, and could actually compromise our future safety. She recounted extreme cases of ostensibly liberal Bay Areans making insensitive comments after 9/11, and that somehow validated the GOP claim that the left despises America? Wolters admitted that she was politically uninformed prior to 9/11, so maybe if she researched US foreign policy history in the Middle East, she would realize that the US is not the only victim of foreign terrorism.

She then started to listen to "talk radio" (I assume she is referring to right-wing radio?) and Bill O'Reilly. So it's no surprise that she turned conservative if those were her only sources of info, without exposure to counter-arguments. Was she truly persuaded by superior conservative views, or was than the inevitable outcome of her exposure to those media?  

I am sorry that she felt alienated by her political beliefs, and I commend her for becoming politically active, but I disagree with her implicit dismissal of those who see things differently. I don't think that she should complain about political intolerance against her when she is not really empathizing and extending the olive branch either. Contrast her to the other political switcher, Mr. Patrosso. Biased media didn't persuade him to "wake up" and realize his "true beliefs". He was a die-hard Republican for most of his life, but his party left him - straying from its fiscal conservative traditions and embracing religion-fueled intolerance. Unlike Wolters, Patrosso wasn't speaking ill of conservatives as people, and made his decision to switch based on facts and the conduct of GOP leaders.