What's Wrong with San Francisco?
Note: This was originally written while in San Francisco during the summer of 2018.
Visiting San Francisco directly from Uganda is a dizzying perspective shift. There are lots of differences, from the rainbow flags everywhere to the functioning public transit. The common elements jump out at you pretty quickly as well- the hyper wealthy living next to the homeless; the massive inequality and division along class lines. SF in theory prides itself on inclusion and tolerance, but it's still an American city. Tolerance is universal unless you're poor- in that case you can go die in the street.
As I sit in a series of restaurants and coffeeshops, watching the people and appreciating the food, I find myself reflecting on how we got here. Silicon Valley is right next door, relatively speaking. The richest, most high tech country in the world- and I'm stepping over homeless men, women and children to go buy expensive cookies at an upscale coffee shop. We have the technology, but that's not enough. The myth of prosperity through technology (the best examples show up in old sci-fi like Asimov or Heinlein) is only partially true. Technology can make the world a better place, but not on its own. Technology is a set of tools, and tools are neither good nor evil- they reflect their owners. What of the men (and historically it has usually been men) who create them?
All around the bay area I see reflections of my past self: fresh-faced college students, optimistic entrepreneurs, duplicitous tech bros that I might have (and may yet) become. I'm of the opinion that a good tech worker has to be slightly robotic- you have to be able to focus on abstract problems and concrete things to the exclusion of humanistic concerns. I also believe that the majority of engineers are driven by unmet expectations- we were never the popular or cool kids. When your primary motivation is "I'll show them, I'll show them all!", the idea of wealth and power within easy reach is tempting indeed. So many startups chasing unnecessary inventions, so many talented people wasting their skills on financial technology or weapons design... how can so many well-intentioned people have completely ignored the problems in front of them?
The more pressing question is "where do we go from here?". I don't have an answer, just a vague set of impulses. I think that the techno-utopianism described by Asimov, Clarke and other early science fiction authors is only half of the reality. All the best technology won't help people if it's not distributed equally. The head can dream and build fantastic machines; the heart must be involved in making sure everyone can use them. Walking through SF the schism between the head and the heart is blindingly obvious- this isn't right. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we live and everyone knows it, but it is far more comfortable to ignore the homeless vagrant camped under the overpass than it is to question how he got there.
I would love if some technological solution existed to our societal ills- if only there was an app that could fix poverty or a gadget to end racism. Unfortunately there isn't and there never will be- the head can only do so much. Without more influence from the heart, we are doomed to walk the same path over and over again.
Visiting San Francisco directly from Uganda is a dizzying perspective shift. There are lots of differences, from the rainbow flags everywhere to the functioning public transit. The common elements jump out at you pretty quickly as well- the hyper wealthy living next to the homeless; the massive inequality and division along class lines. SF in theory prides itself on inclusion and tolerance, but it's still an American city. Tolerance is universal unless you're poor- in that case you can go die in the street.
As I sit in a series of restaurants and coffeeshops, watching the people and appreciating the food, I find myself reflecting on how we got here. Silicon Valley is right next door, relatively speaking. The richest, most high tech country in the world- and I'm stepping over homeless men, women and children to go buy expensive cookies at an upscale coffee shop. We have the technology, but that's not enough. The myth of prosperity through technology (the best examples show up in old sci-fi like Asimov or Heinlein) is only partially true. Technology can make the world a better place, but not on its own. Technology is a set of tools, and tools are neither good nor evil- they reflect their owners. What of the men (and historically it has usually been men) who create them?
All around the bay area I see reflections of my past self: fresh-faced college students, optimistic entrepreneurs, duplicitous tech bros that I might have (and may yet) become. I'm of the opinion that a good tech worker has to be slightly robotic- you have to be able to focus on abstract problems and concrete things to the exclusion of humanistic concerns. I also believe that the majority of engineers are driven by unmet expectations- we were never the popular or cool kids. When your primary motivation is "I'll show them, I'll show them all!", the idea of wealth and power within easy reach is tempting indeed. So many startups chasing unnecessary inventions, so many talented people wasting their skills on financial technology or weapons design... how can so many well-intentioned people have completely ignored the problems in front of them?
The more pressing question is "where do we go from here?". I don't have an answer, just a vague set of impulses. I think that the techno-utopianism described by Asimov, Clarke and other early science fiction authors is only half of the reality. All the best technology won't help people if it's not distributed equally. The head can dream and build fantastic machines; the heart must be involved in making sure everyone can use them. Walking through SF the schism between the head and the heart is blindingly obvious- this isn't right. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we live and everyone knows it, but it is far more comfortable to ignore the homeless vagrant camped under the overpass than it is to question how he got there.
I would love if some technological solution existed to our societal ills- if only there was an app that could fix poverty or a gadget to end racism. Unfortunately there isn't and there never will be- the head can only do so much. Without more influence from the heart, we are doomed to walk the same path over and over again.
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