Trouble on the horizon
A new Bank of America report has some very worrying news for the tech industry. Titled “Occupy Silicon Valley,” the report is a sort of socio-economic risk analysis study that warns of troubles ahead.
Except, the troubles will not come from foreign hackers, or an encroaching federal government, but from Main Street America.
Occupy Silicon Valley
The report highlights how the hugely profitable tech industry’s sheer wealth juxtaposes uneasily with the sluggish growth of rest of the economy. Huge salaries, unthinkable bonuses and a very wide income starkly contrast with teachers, police officers, and young tech engineers.
Backlash to this growing inequality, now largely directed at politicians in DC and investment bankers in Wall Street, will soon engulf the Valley billionaires and their tech minions, the study warns.
Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist with Bank of America, put the issue in perspective by noting that the market values of tech giants already surpass the gross domestic product of large cities. “Google is bigger than Chicago[‘s GDP], Amazon is bigger than Washington[‘s GDP],” he wrote.
American companies also far outstrip the value of its competitors internationally.
For example, just Google and Apple put together is worth more than the combined market value of Japanese and Eurozone financial companies.
The future is only going to get brighter
In fact, by all accounts we are on the verge of a revolution in AI that would unleash more automation—from self-driven cars to Wall Street betting bots to auto-coding. Seismic shifts will disrupt jobs on a massive scale, and even high skilled laborers are at risk of losing means of employment. Wealth would further flow to the hands of a few.
The stock market reflects this bright future: NASDAQ Internet Index is up 25.6 percent this year versus about 7 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
The report predicts that this scenario would “ultimately lead to populist calls for redistribution of the increasingly concentrated wealth of Silicon Valley as the gap between tech capital and human capital grows ever wider.”
Here and there
For now, the protests have been scattered and momentary flairs—the Google-bus blockades, protests against Uber’s presence in Oakland, and so on.
There has also been populist backlash against the tech industry for its lack of accountability.
Many see this as the struggle between the new, modern America versus the old, backward America. Silicon Valley vs. Ohio Valley. However, that scenario will change soon. For worse, much worse.
An already highly area of tension between the long-term residents and new tech wave is over the issue of rent control. Voters in Mountain View (Google’s headquarters) and Richmond approved rent- and eviction-control measures in November. Santa Rosa will vote in June. San Jose’s City Council voted last month to implement eviction controls, and Pacifica’s council approved a temporary rent- and eviction-control ordinance that will take effect Wednesday.
Rent control may necessitate higher taxes, which would mean policy responses inimical to the tech interests: “When the government is short of revenue, they will look at places that have a lot of revenue. We know where a lot of that is right now,” the report notes.
Round two
The disconnect between an S&P 500 led by technology and the global economy “is ultimately unsustainable,” warns the report. Occupy Silicon Valley may not be far away.
Whether the protests lead to useful policy prescriptions is an entirely different question.
#SiliconValley
Bryan See
June 23, 2017 at 12:59 pm
I think these protests will be made by Donald Trump supporters, the chunk of Americans that has been whipped into frenzy by Brexit, Trump’s appeal to reduced circumstances and a ripple effect made by a clear signal sent by the absurd episodes on Russia’s Phobos-Grunt mission and Russavia from 2012 to 2015. They will surely use violence at anyone who’s making science and tech progress, in addition to holding placards saying messages ranging from “computers complicated the world very greatly” to “digital is no good” to simply “that’s it for science and tech” (which means “it’s over for [and the end of] science and tech”). Their clear targets are Silicon Valley, as discussed in this article, and other places like it, be it General Dynamics, the contractor responsible for the Navy EMALS system which drew the angers of Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
These neo-Luddites, or modern-day Luddites will surely band together to express their anger and unleash their violence, helping to save Putin; it is only a matter of time before this anti-tech/anti-science backlash goes global. It is interesting to note that Putin has no idea about Silicon Valley, but its destruction, through Occupy Silicon Valley, could benefit him because not only he’s a technophobe, just like Trump, he wanted to rule the world with money as predicted by right-wing and reactionary and xenophobic Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga, who predicted about Russia and Putin himself that when the permafrost thaws and floods come, nothing will survive on Earth but Russia.
“Everything will melt away like ice yet the glories of Vladimir, the glory of Russia, are the only things that will remain. Russia will not only survive, it will dominate the world.”
Also, during her meeting with writer Valentin Sidorov, Vanga said: “All will thaw, as if ice, only one remain untouched – Vladimir’s glory, glory of Russia. Too much it is brought in a victim. Nobody can stop Russia. All will be removed by her from the way and not only will be kept, but also becomes the lord of the world.”
Right-wing religious fanatic Edgar Cayce had a similar message related by rabid racist Vanga and he mentioned the possibility of third world war resulting in troubles related to Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Libya.
“In Russia there comes the hope of the world, not as that sometimes termed of the communistic, or Bolshevik, no; but freedom, freedom! That each man will live for his fellow man! The principle has been born. It will take years for it to be crystallised, but out of Russia comes again the hope of the world.”
(Edgar Cayce, 1944, No. 3976-29)
Cayce said that these events could be averted if humanity changed its behavior – but in the 70 years since his prediction, mankind has not changed at all. Thus, World War III is on the way, and it may signal the end of life on earth.
Cayce foresaw the third world war even before the end of the second world war. He spoke of strife arising near the Davis Straits, and in Libya, and in Egypt, in Ankara, and in Syria; through the straits around those areas above Australia, in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.
Horacio Villegas foresaw such conflict. He reportedly told the Daily Star: “The main message that people need to know to be prepared is that between May 13th and October 13, 2017, this war will occur and be over with much devastation, shock and death!”
All of these, coupled with anti-research and anti-science budget cuts, and propaganda from Trump and Putin, as well as a third World War, will likely stop humankind from achieving milestones, like landing an astronaut on Mars. Therefore, the phrase “Everything will melt away like ice” is something that is warned about by many, including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, filmmaker Michael Moore and Wikipedia user BatteryIncluded.
In 2014, asked in an interview whether he would visit Mars in his lifetime, Musk said “I hope so, if I don’t get assassinated by like, some Russian assassin, which is not out of the question. They’ve done that before!”
In his GQ interview in the following year, he noted there is a window of opportunity when the technology necessary to send astronauts to Mars becomes available; however, it could rapidly be shut down because of religious extremism, anti-technology movements or the eruption of a third World War.
He commented, “I don’t think we can discount the possibility of a third World War. You know, in 1912 they were proclaiming a new age of peace and prosperity, saying that it was a golden age, war was over. And then you had World War I followed by World War II followed by the Cold War. So I think we need to acknowledge that there’s certainly a possibility of a third World War, and if that does occur it could be far worse than anything that’s happened before. Let’s say nuclear weapons are used. I mean, there could be a very powerful social movement that’s anti-technology. There’s also growth in religious extremism. Like, I mean, does ISIS grow…?”
Musk sees the colonization of Mars as a moral duty to ensure the survival of mankind the same way a USB drive is meant to preserve data in case a computer crashes. A Martian colony could guarantee humanity survives in the event of a debacle that destroys life on Earth. “You back up your hard drive. Maybe we should back up life, too?” he asked.
Michael Moore condemned, “Trump just committed a crime against humanity. This admitted predator has now expanded his predatory acts to the entire planet. USA to Earth: F— YOU. America First! Earth Last! My name is Michael Moore. I am an American. And I live in a Rogue State.”
He also stated, “Historians in the near future (because that may be the only future we have) will mark today, March 28, 2017, as the day the extinction of human life on earth began, thanks 2 Donald Trump.”
BatteryIncluded once said, “Now that Trump has been elected, it doesn’t much matter … human civilization on this planet is soon over.”