The workforce in Silicon Valley is extremely young. Coders, engineers, product managers, marketing directors and other staff look like they are coming from young adult fashion catalogs.
What is so special about Internet industry to have such employee structure? The prevailing theory is that younger are cheaper and they learn faster. But this doesn't quite hold water: in many equally technically challenging industries middle aged professionals seem to prevail. ASIC designers, mechanical engineering, biotech, to name a few. There is only one other arena where young are recruited en masse to do the adult work: military. Young are easier to indoctrinate and control, and the military understands that well. They are easier induced to kill, and ask fewer questions. So, to put two and two together, is this a sign that Internet companies are stormtroopers of our times? These kids will figure out quickly how to execute faceted searches, but will not ponder the idiocy of the site that tries to sell more shit to those that don't need it. They will get free sodas and lunches, and buses with hairdressers parked in front of the company buildings, and shuttles to tenements. Just like the military. The form is the essence. Are we missing to spot the massive military forming in our midst, outside barracks, and not subject to The Posse Comitatus and other assorted acts? Not everyone is. Few weeks ago, when Google bus was trashed in Oakland, this was distributed: In case you’re wondering why this is happening, we’ll be extremely clear. The people outside your Google bus serve you coffee, watch your kids, have sex with you for money, make you food, and are being driven out of their neighborhoods. While you guys live fat as hogs with your free 24/7 buffets, everyone else is scraping the bottom of their wallets, barely existing in this expensive world that you and your chums have helped create. You are not innocent victims. Without you, the housing prices would not be rising and we would not be facing eviction and foreclosure. You, your employers, and the housing speculators are to blame for this new crisis, so much more awful than the last one. You live your comfortable lives surrounded by poverty, homelessness, and death, seemingly oblivious to everything around you, lost in the big bucks and success. But look around, see the violence and degradation out there? This is the world that you have created, and you are clearly on the wrong side. Predictably, you might even believe that the technologies you create serve the betterment of all humans. But in reality the benefactors of technological development are advertisers, the wealthy, the powerful, and the NSA analysts running dragnet surveillance over email, phone calls, and social media. If you want a Bay Area where the ultra-rich are pitted against hundreds of thousands of poor people, keep doing what you’re doing. You’ll have a nice revolution outside your door. But if you want out then you should quit your jobs, cash out, and go live a life that doesn’t completely fuck up someone else’s. GET THE FUCK OUT OF OAKLAND! # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]
