FWIW, "Silicon Valley" is only a subset of "hacker culture".

That sort of anti-social and anti-societal aspect has actually become more and more mainstream, as we see the success of YCombinator and the greater popularity of reddit, etc. but there definitely is a dark side to it, which goes beyond passive or active promotion of "jailbait" and to the core of our own identities as human beings.

I think you're over-generalizing. There are plenty of hackers who are total hippies (see: rms), and plenty who like to make money but also like finding other ways to make the world a better place (see: most Open Source hackers).

Many software engineers I know seem far more concerned about the precise incoming dollar volume than very many people I know from my ostensibly "elite" background

"software engineer" and "hacker" are not synonymous, FWIW.