A “Silicon Valley” actor is terrified by what’s happening in Silicon Valley
I got into a conversation once that I think frames this well. We had WILDLY different views on whether going to Mars was a good idea (like, violently polar opposite views). The strength of our disagreement surprised me.<p>I was arguing that we should “race to Mars”, mainly because the value of having a second planet dramatically increases the odds of survival for our the human race, as a whole. Thus Mars is one of the highest importance activities we could possibly be focusing on.<p>My friend was countering that all the rich people escaping to Mars made them not care about Earth and their fellow citizens, and was just about the most abhorant act he could think of.<p>He’d rather see everyone die together on Earth than a small group people live (at least it’d be fair). I’d be happy to sacrifice 95% of the humans alive today as long as some live somewhere (I’m ambivolent about who they are, I presume there’s a formula to be found?).<p>I think my view is more that of Silicon Valley&#x2F;entrepreneur&#x2F;programmer types. These people (me, etc) want the best long term outcome and will take big actions towards that, even knowing it’ll cause some short term pain.<p>I don’t think ‘regular’ people think like that. They generally care more about the people around them, their own pain, their tribes, their cities, etc. (But not at all about trillions of as yet unborn humans.)<p>I think it’s easy to label Silicon Valley as “unethical monsters” who’re out for themselves. But Assuming we’re talking about the crime of “innovation without regard for effects” (as opposed to ACTUAL rulebreaking, like theft, assault, fraud, which I assume the Valley is no worse for than anywhere else in the world), the intentions of entrepreneurs aren’t evil or unethical, they just care more about the survival of the entire race than, today’s people.<p>I also think a lot of hackers&#x2F;builders&#x2F;entrepreneurs, for all the optimism they have about growth and innovation, are simultaneously very realistic&#x2F;pessimistic about all the various ways our race is fundamentally screwed, and kinda recognises they need to be more powerful and have more resources in order to do anything about that.<p>Startups are more about “getting us out of this fine mess were in” than money.