Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit
Right now, among all industrialized economies, there is a crisis happening as deindustrialization is taking place. This has fundamentally altered the assumptions of steady and stable middle class economic growth that was an anomaly mostly between the 1940s-1970s.<p>As a result, people are mad &quot;at the system&quot;, what what we&#x27;re seeing is political movements redirecting public anger at whatever target they wish. In the US, anger is being redirected at Mexicans, in the UK, apparently, it&#x27;s Immigrants and Brussels.<p>But realistically, how is tinkering with trade or immigration policy going to fix the underlying issues that say, a retired Mill worker cares about? He&#x27;s being told that regaining sovereignty, or stemming the immigrant flow will &quot;make Britain great again&quot;, but there&#x27;s no logical connection between A and B.<p>What&#x27;s happening is, we seem to be coming apart at the seams. We are facing an economic transition period perhaps more important than the transition from agriculture to industrial economics, and it may leave vast numbers of people with no recourse, especially as more and more automation happens in the future.<p>There are policy changes we could make, like figuring out ways to tax automation productivity and supply a basic income for those displaced.  We can argue over specific remedies.<p>But building a &quot;wall&quot;, either a real one (Trump), or a virtual one (an isolationist Island), is not going to restore the former economic compact that the 65-and-over crowd grew up with.<p>I really see whats happening as quite exploitative of people&#x27;s anger and fears. Our politicians are preying on our worst tribalist instincts peddling non-solutions in order to punish people and institutions who are not at fault.