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by ptelomere 885 days ago
Google's "don't be evil", removed when it was against profit. Silicon Valley's "We're all family" culture, screw that, company profit first, you're all laid off! Now this.

When did "liberal" becomes synonymous with liberally removing/adding a moral value when they no longer works for your profit ? It's not a wonder why half of the country no longer believe in "liberalism".

3 comments

Neither Silicon Valley nor Google have ever been "liberal." Both have always had deep roots in the military industrial complex. The "liberal" bias of tech is just culture war propaganda.
The people that work for big tech in SV are overwhelmingly liberal, in nearly all respects.

And sometimes they contain contradictions in their belief systems.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. In reality people are very frequently a wild mixture ideologically.

Just because you work for a defense contractor making cruise missiles, that doesn't mean you aren't / can't be a liberal. It means you're perhaps inconsistent in your values, which is more typical than not with people generally.

Our human history is filled with sayings and rules about these things, precisely because of how common hypocrisy, contradiction, irrationality are. Do as I say not as I do. Preaching the golden rule and routinely breaking it. Judging others by what they do and judging yourself by your (good) intentions. Pot calling the kettle black. And on and on and on similarly across all cultures.

I've never really associated Google, Silicon Valley culture, or OpenAI with "liberalism". I'm pretty sure all three have been primarily about making money from the very instant money got involved. It's the same with basically every successful corporation. Anyone with ideals and values beyond "more money at the expense of all else" gets forced out.
Liberalism has nothing against making money. The core value is autonomy. Liberty. Freedom.
When it no longer works in reality. A lot of values in incompatible with changing facts.