It feels extremely cynical to me. How can you not open your eyes? Every time I visit SF I see people who are so obviously going through hard times. It's not only the people living a pastoral fantasy sipping phosphates at the soda jerk who are worth thinking about.
Edit: I see that I didn't understand your comment actually, I agree. Privation is a rural/urban problem.
I'm not sure you read my entire comment. As I said toward the bottom, income inequality is a serious concern to me. I'm from a rural community and the individual struggles I see there are very upsetting.
But most people I talk to in tech are not in a bubble. They are aware of how hard it must be for people and want solutions.
The problem is we have two roughly equally sized political factions with mutually exclusive ideas on how to solve it that are pretty hostile to compromise.
I don't think it's the two sides that are the problem. They're symptoms of multiple problems. The voting system itself created a duopoly. One side of that duopoly has moved to extremes over the last 30+ years and dragged the other side with it. We need a way out of the two party situation.
The US has no extreme in the mainstream political left - Clinton, Obama, even Sanders are no more extreme than Macron or Blair. You don't even have a Corbyn figure, let alone someone like Maduro.
> One side of that duopoly has moved to extremes over the last 30+ years and dragged the other side with it.
Actually, I think the tactical move to the center of the Democratic Party (which didn't start with Bill Clinton, but his nomination was a pivotal moment in it) is he real key factor in the sharp rightward shift of the Overton Window that really led to the extremist takeover of the Republican Party, which has been increasingly radicalized.
Our communities are collectively organized to separate the haves from the have-nots. Capital acts as a gravity well so the wealthy tend to cluster together, and people trying to access their capital do everything they can to make the lives of those with capital easier. I can definitely see how it would be easy to become out of touch if you live in a wealthy community where the city and state affords you extra protection, services are organized around your needs, and most people you talk to are either in your employ or want to be. Eventually the wealthy begin to distrust the poor and the system becomes self-perpetuating.
This community organization problem stems from poor urban planning, suburbia, and what Jane Jacobs called the "Radiant Garden City". I'm still trying to tie all the pieces together for my own understanding but I know the solution is in there somewhere. There's an interesting movement called StrongTowns that elucidates this problem much better than I ever could.
