Another way of looking at that, is "gentrify the vibrant neighbourhood by trucking in techbros to displace the artists". It's not new (1)
I don't necessarily agree with that framing, but it is understandable and coherent, not a misunderstanding
To me, it shows haters' level of intellect. And perhaps explains why they feel left out. They're attached to an ideal of what 'art' (additionally, activism[1]) should be. An outdated, 20th century one.
I personally don't like Google. And I understand your framing is hypothetical.
But why is tech framed the opposite of art?
Why is tech equal to techbro?
Yea there are always bad apples. But I wonder what Da Vinci would think about holding art in the opposite category as tech?
I'd argue they're more synonymous than opposite. To me, there's creativity. Both art and tech are creative. Applied creativity pertains to both code or a paint canvas.
Either way, the best, most valuable work to society is often never been done before.
Can anyone name an art piece (or if I'm being generous, an art movement) in the last 15 years that's made the level of impact as Google? Or cryptocurrency?
Ultimately, to me, the 'artists' need to up their game. Big time.
[1] Protest city hall if you feel gentrified. Especially in SF where it's largely illegal to build housing. Also, regarding gentrification, you don't hear the positive stories of immigrant families whose businesses flourish because of increased capital in an area, or those who feel safer, or even those who cashed out and sold their 50k house for 1.2 million. Again you hear a largely misdirected, dated and one-sided argument.
Also it sucks for "the good guys" - literally - that tech has a bad reputation in that sense and on the other hand this is improving only so slowly.
On the other hand it's of course naive to say that artists are good people per se, that is just not true. This is almost biblical, considering that artists are always poor and thus good. We all need to progress, not only people in tech.
>But why is tech framed the opposite of art?
You are fundamentally misunderstanding the issue. It's not tech vs. art. It's a "here's these people that make a lot of money and end up just being really big consumers" vs people that are the "creatives." The type that give a neighborhood flare.
Consider a programmer who perhaps love the "art" of programming and spends the majority of their time coding/tinkering without compensation (a rare prospect these days, admittedly), versus someone who works at a corporate job, does what they need to do, and goes home. Neither is better than the other, but they will end up creating radically different communities.
>Why is tech equal to techbro?
Because it's just the type of people it attracts these days. Name one neighborhood where a group of IT people came into that neighborhood and made it a creative space. Without fail, it just becomes a giant consumer hub with absurd rent prices. Artists tend to congregate in areas with other artists and areas that have cheap rent. Tech tends to drive up rent, and it certainly isn't an industry that attracts artists not centered around digital design.
>Or cryptocurrency?
The technology that did absolutely nothing, soaked up huge amount of raw resources, so techbros could play a game about who's going to be left holding the bag?
This is exactly why I used the term myopic. You might find it interesting and cool, and that's great! But it hasn't done anything for anyone else outside the tech sphere. In fact it's actually pretty easy to argue it's been a net-negative across the board.
I've lived in these communities of 'creatives'. For years. I know its a lot of drugs, idealism and not a lot of action.
Except for complaining about how wronged they've been by the system. Is that your 'another world is possible'? So maybe I am bitter...
Don't get me wrong, the system is fucked up in many ways. And I agree with your distinction of a grey blandness that permeates the tech culture.
I'm more interested in how all the enlightened 'creatives' can engage with this boring grey techbro community. Because frankly, they're the ones paying for most of their free shit.
>Except for complaining about how wronged they've been by the system.
You're still operating off of stereotypes instead of actually talking about the people that live in these communities and the work they do.
>I'm more interested in how all the enlightened 'creatives' can engage with this boring grey techbro community.
I think the techbro community needs to be the one doing the engaging.
I hate to be the one to say it, but in some cases I can see why some people might be reluctant to engage. I know that for my own part, I am generally disinclined to engage in genuine, kind, compassionate, and empathetic ways with people who treat me with what can feel like open hostility. It's almost always less emotional labor to tell them "Have a nice day" and walk away, putting them out of my mind. My making this choice does nothing at all to further any kind of constructive engagement, and certainly nothing to improve their lives or alleviate their pain and suffering, but it does make my life easier that day.
Again, you're completely right. Techrbos need to engage! It's just that at times it can be challenging to convince people of this basic truth when they find unfriendly receptions.
Within the tech community, it's really just ego and myopic view points and experiences.
>convince people of this basic truth when they find unfriendly receptions.
As a matter of practicality, it's easier to deflate the obstacle.
I definitely understand that. Tech people are too self-centerd and shortsighted to look or care about others! If they tried, they'd surely find it a highly rewarding experience. It's patently obvious that none of these asshole techbros has ever actually tried at all, right?
After all, if they had stepped outside their narrow worldviews and bubbles of greed and privilege then it would be obvious. They would think differently. Act differently. Believe differently. Value other things than they currently do. It's not possible that someone could be exposed to the glory of art, creativity, and expression without being moved to value it!
They'd stop acting as locusts, devouring all they come across because it looks tasty and destroying everything in their paths. They'd start acting in considered, conscious, intentional ways. They'd value community.
> As a matter of practicality, it's easier to deflate the obstacle.
I confess, I'm really not sure what you mean by "deflate the obstacle". Or what this means beyond a metaphor I think I don't understand. Could you please help me here? I would very much like to be able to engage substantively with whatever it is you are trying to say.
It's also pretty obvious when techbro's lack any kind of liberal arts education, or general praxis around the various subjects encompassed in liberal arts. You typically see this in discussions around government or social policies. But it can rear its head in literature to, like when the usage of satire is so out of place and crudely crafted one can't help but wonder how self-aware the person misusing it is.
> It's not possible that someone could be exposed to the glory of art, creativity, and expression without being moved to value it!
Well it certainly is possible and even likely. No one ever made any kind of point insinuating that, or even broached that subject about changing hobbies or what you enjoy. So you've definitely just misunderstood the entire discussion. I recommend rereading the topic post and this thread.
> I'm really not sure what you mean by "deflate the obstacle".
The obstacle being ego.
>I would very much like to be able to engage substantively
Well you can help yourself out by not wasting an enormous amount of energy and craftsmanship around... whatever it is you are doing.
Ah. Well. At least I now understand what you mean. Though I've found deflating the egos of every person in a discussion to be a difficult task. Telling a person getting a hostile reception to get their ego out of the way tends to come across a lot like telling someone to take the licks they deserve, complete with generally being discarded out of hand. Telling a person who feels righteous anger to deflate their ego tends to be seen as telling them their feelings aren't valid.
It's definitely possible for it to work! But I've rarely seen it accomplished.
> Well you can help yourself out by not wasting an enormous amount of energy and craftsmanship around... whatever it is you are doing.
Trying to understand you, establishing myself as someone who isn't your enemy, so we could have an actual discussion. And maybe help you understand the people you appear to viscerally despise as human beings with wants and needs and desires and goals and communities, just like the ones you love and wish to protect so that we can work towards what's best for everyone.
I'm sorry we couldn't have that discussion. I felt like it could have been productive for everyone. Have a wonderful day!
I'm sorry, who do I despise exactly? I'm not sure what you're talking about.
* Develop software on the side for free (art)
* Work on open source software during working hours sponsored by their host company
* Can afford to have families (I notice "vibrant" communities didn't include those with children in them)
> Or cryptocurrency?
Like it or not, Bitcoin is very artistic. Innovative, novel, spurs conversation and strong reactions...
I think it's you who's actually stuck in the 20th century mentality. Cultivating urban hipster hotspots full of "artists" is pure 20th century bohemian chic.
Your comment shows utter ignorance about what's happening — or already happened — in virtually every major city in every developed country.
The pattern I've seen (excluding SF) is that an arty area becomes trendy because of its culture, then a bunch of real estate developers kick out all the artists to build high-density housing while bringing in residential zoning laws (no live music etc).
The artists flee somewhere cheaper, build up the culture, rinse and repeat, until you end up with somewhere like Sydney Australia that's had all its culture surgically removed.
> Gentrification is a side effect of not building housing.
It's a much more complex than simply lack of housing. It's commonly described to neighborhoods, not cities.
That said, yes it would have still contributed to gentrification in a less extreme way than a true Google office.
But gentrification still happens without big dollar companies showing up. It's often a side effect of the success of the arts in the area. As the wealthy kids move in to be hip and cool, and the businesses that enjoy their money move in afterward, rents go up and creators are pushed out.
What makes Kreuzberg attractive for startups and a Google campus is that it's central and perfectly connected infrastructurewise. Most other regions like Schöneberg, parts of Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg and maybe Moabit, are all harder to reach from some other regions, even though more start-up employees live there. You can see on the maps of rental e-scooters like Coup how during the day there is a lot of activity towards Kreuzberg whereas after work the district is basically empty of their scooters. Imho kreuzberg is too dirty for most startupers. I guess they don't want to see the heroin junkies of Kotti when they do their grocery shopping.
In general I liked the sentiment of the activists against placing a Campus in Kreuzberg. Nevertheless I didn't like much of their public attitude ("bullets for google") and some arguments seemed superficial ("other Google campuses have increased rents" idk about the causality and factor here). I wouldve liked a Google campus in Schöneberg for example, just as I liked the Google campus in Madrid. In Madrid it offered a nice environment for work, some interesting talks and I didn't feel like it was in an artsy district that suddenly gentrified and turned hip. This could've added something to Berlin, but meddling with the activist scene in Kreuzberg was a poor choice.
Artists often live in different districts or even different cities than their gallerists, but they tend to appreciate their patrons.
However, it should be pointed out that there are really two different programmer cultures. There the corporate one, and then there's, for lack of the better word, "open source" one. The latter is very close to artistic culture but very different from corporate culture. The people are working on what they love, they don't have much money, often they are in precarious situations. I've seen them sharing working space with artists, I've been at parties that mixed hackers and artists without any friction. I've seen self-help institutions meant to help the artists going out of their way to host some kind of strange hacking event.
So while I’m not surprised (and very much not sad) that the plans didn’t work out for a host of reasons I really don’t think that the campus would have led to substantial gentrification in that region.
Disclosure: we (still) have our office in the complex.
Exactly my point. The rents are on the rise with our without google. I really don't think that the victory is anything but a symbolic win. It does nothing to push the city to solve that issue.
+ A global shift toward freelance and remote work letting people take a risk and move to a new place.
+ The first German renaissance back toward the east after the wall fell. The older generation in the west still remember Berlin and people from Berlin in a negative light, but their children have quiet a different impression and their parents are alltohappy to buy property for them in under-priced Berlin. Additionally reunification gutted all industry in the east causing a renter exodus to larger east German cities
+ A global debt surplus and rich people everywhere looking for stable places to stash wealth with Germany's open markets an attractive destination. In some odd way financially conservative Germans think they win with this, not considering how it increases costs of all social services and thereby their tax burden as well.
Focusing on overpriced jobs is definitely only one of many places to start. Google just made it very easy that people target them first because their products are so disliked for their lack of care for privacy: post-snowden I'm not sure I know of a single service Google has switched to being e2e encrypted.
That's the sort of thing that invokes the image of a "tech bro" and this is what people don't want in Berlin. People don't want the local scene replaced with overpriced chain stores and electric scooters and multinationals dictating city development policy.
The CCC has its roots in Germany and we've always had a hacker and nerd friendly culture.
What on earth are you talking about?
Who are these magical people who build castles?
And Berlin is not hugely more 'communal' than anywhere else.
Every company definitely has security, even small one's, and this has nothing to do with the FANGs.
Try to waltz into the UBS or Deutchebank building and see if you can just wander around.
Most banks have considerably more security than the FANGS and ever since 9/11 many NYC buildings have a ton of security.
You need to get a visitors badge with a photo they take of you on the spot to simply go to a meeting in some towers in the US. You need 15 minutes just to get in.
Not sure what you've been exposed to, but having wandered many office towers up and down the west coast, vanishingly few have any form of security beyond perhaps a receptionist or a maintenance man who may harass you if requested to do so. Some do have elevators that attempt to enforce access control during certain hours, but this is generally a non-issue in the daytime.
> You need to get a visitors badge with a photo they take of you on the spot to simply go to a meeting in some towers in the US. You need 15 minutes just to get in.
This is an extremely rare request, and complying with it is consistently not worth it in my experience.
* Gentrification is caused by landlords. If being a landlord was illegal it wouldn't happen (or at least the problems caused by it wouldn't).
It's basically the difference to people living off their parent's money (artists) vs. people living off money they make themselves (tech workers).
Or bring very high paying jobs that Germany desperately needs, and allow great students to actually do something with their education, which would in turn enable a poor neighbourhood to thrive with ancilliary businesses, restaurants, taxis etc. etc..
The good thing is that Google eventually understood their error (you can't buy the friendship of people who will despise you for trying) because any attempt to achieve this through regulation would have been a total shitshow for everyone involved.
It's basically the same story as the Chelsea Market building, but with gritty Berlin punks instead of cute but toothless Greenwich Village and in an environment where even rich conservatives agree with the left that money cannot overrule everything else. It's really not surprising that it turned out differently.
As an aside, I dislike the term "techbro." It's obviously pejorative and I hardly ever see anything kind used to describe men working in the IT/CS sector. Just that and "neckbeard."