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Comment by bepotts | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley is responsible for most of the world's innovation, so as a consumer I'd rather we not dictate where firms wanted to set up shop.

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Silicon Valley is not responsible for most of the world's innovation. Not even within tech. If the internet started any one place it was at BBN around Boston. The web started at CERN. Microprocessors started at Bell Labs and Texas Instruments. Cellular phones started at Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia. Amazon's up in Seattle, next door to Microsoft, and even Facebook is an import. SV isn't even a player in biotech, clean tech, materials science, etc. The cult of Silicon Valley is getting ridiculous.

You're not going back far enough though — personal computers, the transistor, microprocessor....

Um, I did mention Bell Labs (transistors) and TI (microprocessors). PC is a good addition, though.

Liquid Crystal Displays at the university of a former fishing town in the north of the UK (my home town) [1].

[1] George William Gray - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_William_Gray

Facebook is responsible for most of the world's social networking, so as a consumer, I'd rather not dictate how it wants to run its shop.

> as a consumer, I'd rather not dictate how it wants to run its shop.

Think about that statement. Think about it carefully.

You're a consumer. You and people like you are the entire means by which this company earns its money. You really have no interest in how it does so? Even when it has massively significant (statistically speaking--if not you then hundreds of millions of people like you) influence on your life?

Silicon Valley was essentially funded by the US state, and particularly the military. GPS, ARPANET, computers, microwaves, networking, radio transmissions, all of this has been invented for the military, financed and pushed ahead by them. SV isn't a libertarian paradise.

Read the series https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

Which doesn't change my statement in the least. In the internet era, Silicon Valley has been the crown jewel.

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