Stop Bashing Silicon Valley Nerds

They've become scapegoats: Noah Smith
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 23, 2014 10:55 AM CDT
Stop Bashing Silicon Valley Nerds
This Feb. 24, 2014 file photo shows Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a conference in Barcelona, Spain.   (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File)

Silicon Valley has taken some serious heat lately on many fronts; in fact, as Noah Smith puts it on Bloomberg View, it's effectively been branded the new "Mordor." Among its evils: "venture capitalists who trick bright young people into throwing their lives away on hopeless startups; sexist 'brogrammers' who treat objects like women (or is it the other way around?); tech companies that are raising rents for normal folks; plutocrats who are going to replace us with robots and make Thomas Piketty’s nightmare scenarios a reality," and much more.

Sexism, Smith notes, is an actual problem. But the rest of these concerns are way over-hyped. The real problem, he argues, is post-financial crisis anger: We can't do anything about the guys who caused the downturn, so we're taking out our frustrations on the rare industry that's booming. "Silicon Valley happens to be where the rich, successful people are right now. So we’ve turned on the nerds." This needs to stop: Tech is great for our economy, and what's more, "it’s relatively clean, it’s safe, and it gives us things we want—often for free." Let's not drive the nerds away when we need them. Click for Smith's full piece. (More Silicon Valley stories.)

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