[allencoin]

I was referring specifically to the "culturally" part. The geographic difference between Silicon Valley and North Carolina is indisputable, but I'm curious about your take on the culture. I see a lot of similarities between Republicans and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, e.g. anti-regulation stances, anti-labor stances, etc.

[chrisseaton]

> I see a lot of similarities between Republicans and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, e.g. anti-regulation stances, anti-labor stances, etc.

I don't know any companies, anywhere in the world, that compensate, pamper, and accomodate their labor as much as Silicon Valley.

[allencoin]

Ah, yes, the people that make Apple's iPhones are very pampered.

[chrisseaton]

That's an argument reducing to absurdity. Every company has an long chain of transitive contractors, and for every company you can work all your way down to the poorest person on Earth, so it's meaningless.

I could similarly blame you for the labor conditions of these people - you paid Apple or whoever to make your phone so are you responsible for their conditions?

The people that Apple employs are extraordinarily well treated and compensated, and that's a credit to Apple and their labor relations.

[allencoin]

> you paid Apple or whoever to make your phone so are you responsible for their conditions?

Yes, absolutely, to some degree — do you think I'm not? Even if you don't think so, do you think Apple isn't to some degree responsible for the working conditions of nearly a million employees within the company that it knowingly contracts out to to produce about 200 million iPhones a year?

Follow up question: Which American political party do you think would be more likely to condone the above practice, Democrats or Republicans?

Basically I'm trying to figure out why you think there's a big cultural difference between Silicon Valley (50 square miles) and "The Carolinas" (85,839 square miles) and why that's meaningful to the wider discussion. Your original comment perplexed me as someone who is familiar with both regions. I agree that they are dissimilar but I definitely don't think they are "as far as you can get ... culturally." Happy to get back to that original subject if you are.

[chrisseaton]

> Happy to get back to that original subject if you are.

Original point is:

- RedHat has nothing to do with Silicon Valley - geographically nor culturally

- RedHat isn't representative of typical Silicon Valley companies

- IBM is more of a 'Silicon Valley' company than Red Hat, because it's an old traditional government contractor

Therefore the original comment had it backwards, which is confusing.

If you mean 'liberal young open-source company' then say that! Because that absolutely isn't what 'Silicon Valley' means.

[allencoin]

> If you mean 'liberal young open-source company' then say that! Because that absolutely isn't what 'Silicon Valley' means.

I didn't say that. I am a different person asking a different question. I recognize that it's a bit silly to call Red Hat a "Silicon Valley company" because they are not in Silicon Valley. Just like Microsoft isn't a Silicon Valley company.

My original question was in regards to this exact quote of yours:

> The Carolinas seem as far as you can get from Silicon Valley, culturally

And my question was:

> Why do you think that?

So far you have offered that "The Carolinas" are politically Republican and California is politically Democratic. However, (a) North Carolina's governor is a Democrat and (b) your original comparison was between Silicon Valley (a small geographic area) and "The Carolinas" (a much larger geographic area) — which does not seem like a fair or meaningful comparison.

Basically, due to the uniform nature of American culture and cities I think you'd be hard-pressed to identify many meaningful cultural differences between e.g. Raleigh, North Carolina and Mountain View, California. So I'm wondering if you have any unique insight to offer there or if you're actually just talking flippantly about something you don't actually know anything about, which is fine too.

[stale2002]

> If you mean 'liberal young open-source company' then say that

No. Most people are perfectly capable of understanding informal, non-literal definitions of words. And I see no need reason to bow down and change easy to understand phases, that nobody is confused about, in order to satisfy people who would basically have to have some sort of extremely hard to overcome language barriers or disorder such that they are not able to understand very common things that people say.

If someone claims to not understand what someone means, when they use informal, but common, words such as "silicon valley company", then it is very likely that this person either has some language problems (IE, they are just learning English as a 2nd language), or has some sort very serious autistic disorder such that they are unable to understand non literal definitions because of their mental disorder, or they are instead just being a troll.

And none of these reasons are a good enough reason for people to completely change how they talk in every day life, all the time, when they are not dealing with such individuals.

[threatofrain]

What about the company known as Finance? Or Medicine?

[chrisseaton]

My peers in finance are expected to be at their desks in the city twelve hours a day wearing a suit, and they earn a basic salary for it.

My peers in medicine work 24-hour shifts and earn a quarter of what they do in Silicon Valley and the only catering they get is a dirty microwave.

People in Silicon Valley are driven to work, work eight hours, get three catered meals, and take home more money.