Eric Schmidt: We Don't Talk About Occupy Wall Street In The Valley

And I agree with him. Talk to any startup about how hard it is to hire people and the insane sign-on bonuses/perks/referral bonuses some folks are having to resort to. Or look at the number of LinkedIn messages most people on HN probably get. It's a very small part of the 'big picture' but it definitely exists here in the SF Bay Area.

He doesn't seem to say that at all. In the article he recognizes that he and SV are in a bubble. He points out that the OWS reality is not his reality. In fact anyone who is good in tech has a completely different reality than OWS. It's not just SV where finding good people is hard.

Note that I'm saying "exactly" to the problems being localized, not that they don't exist.

I've dedicated my entire career to helping people who are wallowing in misery and are simply unable to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But it's an extremely hard job because the nature of the economic system is that the most valuable services such as healthcare, education, psychological treatment, healthy food, and child card are NOT available for the people who are desperate for them. You have any idea how many mentally ill people people, after much misery, have told me they simply cannot afford the treatment they need and they simply go without? If you saw these cases like I have you would have nightmares.

The easiest way to make money is to sell to the already rich who don't really need your services. The easiest way to be poor is to spend your time helping the miserable ungrateful masses who have nothing to give back.

For my own sake I wish I could just forget about the miserable poor because my life would be a lot easier. But the demands of conscience make it impossible for me to slide into the comfortable cognitive dissonance of silicon valley.

You're implying that I'm all talk, but I'm not. But talk does go a long way. Right now silicon valley elites have enough money, talent, and resources to reshape society into either a technocratic heartless corporate grinder, or into an egalitarian higg tech civil society that recognizes the inherent worth of all people ala Sweden.

I left the computer field years ago to enter the mental health field. From my new perspective, of being in contact with the underclass, I am continually horrified at the heartless elitism displayed by computer people who I used to consider my brothers and sisters in creating a better world.

Political change isn't a fucking mystery. You tell your politicians to take care of the poor, you tell them to fix crony capitalism, you tell them to stop their imperial wars of aggression, and if they accept bribes you tell everyone you know how corrupt they are. You build a positive vision of a society without ghettos. You hold up examples like Sweden - a social structure that mos Americans would prefer if they just looked into it.

TVs are not good things to have, they're brainwashing machines that make people stupid.

Wall street moguls run the government and own the media. They are more powerful than presidents.

We barely have a social safety net anymore.

It's sad that the people who came from poverty often have the least sympathy. What you are missing is that not everyone can be born with above average IQs and work their way out. You got lucky and the social safety net is quickly crumbling behind you.

What you miss about ghetto schools is the school board corruption. The school boards eat all the funding in salaries and perks and corporate pork projects.

I'm not telling you or anyone else to sacrifice their well-being. I'm saying you should take a look at the demographic trends and recognize that for your own sake you need to play a part in bettering the communities of the unfortunate. Because your own livelihood depends on an intact civil society with a functioning non-corrupt government that is not owned by a few corrupt industries.

The society that gave you the opportunity to enjoy wealth did not just spontaneously arrange itself. It was designed and protected by altruistic, honest, competent and intelligent people just like you. Except you aren't playing a civic role in your community but the corporate lobbyists and Christian fascists are, which threatens your lifestyle.

Your social mobility was enabled by the middle class, through hardwon political and social battles with robber barons. You inherited the social traditions that made you more than a serf, but are not passing those traditions on to the next generation. They are quickly going away through corporate owned lawmakers creating a neo-feudalistic corporate fascism.

All I want is for people like you to spend some of your time engaging in community leadership and politics, like my grandfathers did after the war to create and defend the middle class, the social safety net, and social mobility. You came from a poor background, but I come from an upper middle class background whose ancestors played roles in creating those social programs that kept you alive and gave you access to educational resources. They did it for future generations of poor children like you were, and I want you to pay it forward through civic participation. Don't just tell the poor to go wallow. Lend a helping hand.