If you do a root cause analysis of this election's result, much of it points back to Silicon Valley in one way or another.
Workforce automation created millions of unemployed people in places far away from economic hubs, with no hope of employment in their hometowns or re-skilling for the new roles, leaving them desperate. Proliferation of mobile apps lead to an explosion in use of social media. The wild popularity of this democratic social media encouraged a culture that allowed misinformation to flourish without a lot of consequences.
Bad actors took advantage of this, and reinforced distorted false narratives. Desperate people latched onto the messages presented to them, that gave them solutions repeatedly reinforced by social media, and many took an enormous risk - they voted against their best interests in order to solve their problems with the information they had available. And that is how we got here today.
>Workforce automation created millions of unemployed people in places far away from economic hubs, with no hope of employment in their hometowns or re-skilling for the new roles, leaving them desperate.
So did the Industrial Revolution.
We may mock the Luddites for breaking the Jacquard looms. But do you know what the punishment for frame-breaking was? Execution.
The Industrial Revolution made way for the tertiary-sector economy. When the tertiary-sector economy becomes redundant, what is next?
Agreed. Though personally I believe Silicon Valley shares a responsibility - tech companies should encourage more remote work and smaller hub offices in less dense urban areas. It would save them money and help distribute economic gains outside of just the major urban centers.
This was a root cause of Brexit in my opinion as well - all of the UK's best jobs are stuffed into London and London only.
Workforce automation created millions of unemployed people in places far away from economic hubs, with no hope of employment in their hometowns or re-skilling for the new roles, leaving them desperate. Proliferation of mobile apps lead to an explosion in use of social media. The wild popularity of this democratic social media encouraged a culture that allowed misinformation to flourish without a lot of consequences.
Bad actors took advantage of this, and reinforced distorted false narratives. Desperate people latched onto the messages presented to them, that gave them solutions repeatedly reinforced by social media, and many took an enormous risk - they voted against their best interests in order to solve their problems with the information they had available. And that is how we got here today.