Ed Driscoll has an interesting post up on the anti-tech Left in California:
When I moved out to Silicon Valley from New Jersey in 1997, Internet fever was just about to peak (literally so, in the form of the bursting tech bubble that decimated the NASDAQ three years later). Silicon Valley was seen as the next big thing, ushering America into the wonders of the 21st century — and possibly saving the increasing bloated state government of California in the process. Wired magazine, based in San Francisco, was still owned by founder Louis Rossetto, and maintained its quirky but libertarian vibe, before Rosetto sold the magazine to the mammoth reactionary left Conde Nast publishing empire four year later. For those of us who had started computing on Altair 8800s and TRS-80s twenty years earlier, the mid-to-late 1990s was quite a ride.
It was fun while it lasted.
Basically, what’s happening is that when it comes to productive activity California is largely known for three things: agriculture, entertainment, and the tech industry. Of the three, the entertainment industry is currently beyond the reach of the Activist Left; and the Left’s War on Farmers is going sufficiently ‘well’ there that there’s no real need to put more resources into it. So the professional fearmongers and would-be revolutionaries among the progressive movement have apparently decided to start raiding the tech companies.
The fact that your average progressive activist neither knows nor cares about how to operate any business more complicated than a lemonade stand (I am being charitable) doesn’t signify; neither does the pesky detail that, absent Silicon Valley, there’s pretty much no reason anymore not to burn down California for the insurance. The left’s pet agitators and bully-boys are fundamentally locust-like in their attitude; as they see it, their job is to eat up the resources that other people have accumulated, and if there isn’t enough? Why, the producers need to work harder! The system will provide, because it always has. Hence, it always will.
:holding head in hands: Yes, I know. I’m not entirely happy either about the fact that the Activist Left these days more or less forces us to take Atlas Shrugged more seriously than any of us might want to. But the truth of the matter is that we have to tell our children the story of The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs for a reason.
Moe Lane
PS: When the tech companies start abandoning California for (probably) Texas, let me note two things: one, they need to remember why they left. Two, if they move to Texas and do forget why, Texans will remind them. Pointedly.
Worth noting that what got Sillicon Valley started, back in the day, was hardware…
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Inertia has kept it more or less together, but .. Seattle has Microsoft an a large-ish Google and AT&T presence.. Same with New Jersey and Chicago .
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Thing is, the internet is damn disruptive, and the next generation are very used to collaborating online. (What did you think World of Warcraft was teaching?)
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So. The corporate HQ may be in Washington State Texas for tax purposes, the techies ourselves can likewise live where we choose.
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Mew
I’m currently sitting in my home office in Utah writing code for a company in New Jersey on behalf of a middleman in California, who got the job subbed from a firm in New York. The Internet is awesome.
I could say something similar except Illinois, server management, Missouri, and .. look at that, New York’s on both our lists, and yet neither of us pay them a dime in tax.
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Yes, the internet truly is awesome.
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Mew
“Bring me the goose that lays the golden eggs!”
And throw it at a solar collector array?
So the problem is that if they move to Texas, they’ll most likely move to Austin, also known as ‘Moscow on the Colorado’. I currently work in a tech startup that has exactly one native working for it – me, and the tech scene here is very liberal, unless you get to the old farts like me.
The tech scene in Silicon Valley is very liberal too, they’ll feel a hell of a lot more at home in Austin than Houston.
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Again, though, why the assumption that they’ll move as a monolith? The tech industry itself has, to a large extent, obviated that need.
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Mew
You’re kidding, I actually thought Houston was more liberal than Austin.
You may substitute Dallas if it makes you feel better, Garfield.
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The Texans I’ve asked assert Austin is the most liberal city, but I’m not a Texan so am taking their word for it.
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Mew
My first computer at home was a TRS-80 Model III.