A response to David Simon and E.L. Doctorow on 'the Potential for the Orwellian Nightmare'

The original article, and my response:

Realistically, we could get some of both worlds, the national security state in parallel with the marketing empires. With any luck we are heading for an extended period of social liberalism, so a harsh 1984 is unlikely, but so is a stratified society that mollifies us with soma. What seems inevitable is the middle ground dystopia of continual surveillance by corporations a la Minority Report, along with low-level harassment of people working for human welfare, often antagonists of corporations.

Comments

It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

#1 When a city is dominated by one industry, particularly finance, that can spell ruin for its inhabitants. Good for the wealthy and the people in the industry, mediocre for many others. Tech might smooth things out a bit, but there is no reason we need to give anything to a behemoth for coming here. Many are already make NYC home. Although not the only one, NYC has some of the best universities, many top-tier companies, pools of talented people, and the best cultural amenities. There was no reason to kowtow to a behemoth to come here. NYC is big and innovative, and it will stay big and innovative for the foreseeable future. Tech was here before and will it be here after, without being dominated by a single company. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/technology/nyc-tech-startups.html?comments#permid=30741436 #2 Why we would we want to be a tech town or any kind of single-industry town? Why would we want to trade one harmful kind of industry, finance, for an equally bad indust...

In Amazon Fight, Progressives Showed What They Want: A New Economic Agenda

In the end, the failure of this deal lays at the feet of Cuomo and De Blasio. It's a deal that should have never been made or should have been done in a way that wasn't filled with one-sided giveaways. As Amy Liu, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, describes, Virginia worked with local constituents to address concerns, negotiated a deal that required jobs from Amazon in exchange for incentives, and put more money into developing an education-focused job pipeline, rather than a simple giveaway to Amazon. Many people are going to blame a vocal minority for the failure when the problem was the deal itself. It could have been done to satisfy the critics, or at least mollify them, while still delivering for New York. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/business/amazon-economy-taxes.html?comments#permid=30664506

The Misadventures of an Idealistic Restaurant in Cut-Throat New York - Response

Consumers need to bear the brunt of a decent wage, mandated by law, a sufficient living one, and when enacted across the board, prices rise such that we are paying adequately. If left to individual restauranteurs it will always be a race to the bottom... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/nyregion/the-misadventures-of-an-idealistic-restaurant-in-a-cut-throat-city.html?comments#permid=29866833

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