Re: <nettime> tensions within the bay area elites

[charlie derr <cderr@simons-rock.edu>]

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On 05/13/2014 12:17 AM, John Hopkins wrote:
>> Even so, many people here, while disliking Google for some
>> things, also recognize that some of the tech giants are making
>> real efforts on environmental issues, and some of them are trying
>> to at least consider how they affect local communities.  But
>> sometimes it's hard to
> 
> Certainly any of these 'giants' that are running on (carbon!)
> cloud computing have no interest in substantive environmental
> 'issues' except for hypocritical nods at things that do not affect
> their bottom line or their 'owners' endless egomaniacal desire to
> expand their control and power ...
> 
> A massive corporation, as it rises, is a techno-social
> agglomeration that distorts existing flows and architectures of
> power. However, in our current case, as the pre-existing power
> flows are those of the military-industrial-academic complex, these
> 'newer' flows will doubtless not deviate from those pre-existing
> patterns and suddenly 'benefit' a local community. Is Silicon
> Valley really any different than the Niger Delta in this respect?
> 
> jh
> 

Perhaps your question was rhetorical, but even if that's the case, I'd
like to think the answer might in fact be yes.  After all, the
commodity our "new" giants are built around is information.  It seems
unlikely to me that an organization devoted to leveraging information
wouldn't also learn as it does so.  We certainly have major issues
around energy all around our society(ies) that we'll be needing to
solve one way or another.  I'm at least slightly optimistic that
enormous entities *without* the word "Oil" in their name (or their
'DNA') have the potential to improve on the past behavior of
multi-national giants. But alternatively it may be that I simply need
to shed my rose-colored glasses.

    best,
          ~c
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