Slate Podcast shows the five degrees of Google workers seperation from the common folk

Terry Blue

Slate.com has some wonderful podcasts on their channel and recently I heard an interesting discussion about the tech industries impact of the city of San Francisco. Working people have been driven out of the Bay Area into shitty Oakland for a long time as wealthy tech elites have flocked to the region taking advantage of the cultural amenities and beauty of the Bay Area.


Basically this slate discussion talked about how these wealthy tech people are bubbling themselves from everyone else who is not part of the San Francisco tech scene and I don't just mean in terms of friendship and parties. These people are going to network with whoever they think it will benefit them. What really got me is how google employees have their own segregated transportation system of buses where they can avoid the common people and have even more reasons for feeling like the left coasts nobility. The ability of a class of people to basically wall themselves from everyone else is a sudden development in society and something the high end tech industry has been doing all these years with little acknowledgment. They are just now expanding it to the public sphere and the in your face exclusion of google workers from having to deal with outsiders is catching notice. As an urbonalogist yuppies separating themselves from mainstream workers is not new but now they are actually going for total income segregation. The fairness of  society where already highly pampered employers are given total benefits in society that non-googleites are not able to enjoy particularly shows inequality spread by the tech industry in cities.  The over value of google workers and resources enable their workforce to enjoy the fruits of life at the expense of others and the people Google is so trying hard to separate its workforce from having ever to deal with.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html?pagewanted=all

 http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/gabfest/2013/12/the_gabfest_on_the_ryan_murray_budget_deal_obama_s_lowest_approval_ratings.html