<nettime> The age of Googlejugend ?

[Gando Antalcia <fantafzella@yahoo.com>]

The workforce in Silicon Valley is extremely young. Coders, engineers, product managers, marketing directors and other staff look like they are coming from young adult fashion catalogs.

What is so special about Internet industry to have such employee structure? The prevailing theory is that younger are cheaper and they learn faster. But this doesn't quite hold water: in many equally technically challenging industries middle aged professionals seem to prevail. ASIC designers, mechanical engineering, biotech, to name a few.

There is only one other arena where young are recruited en masse to do the adult work: military. Young are easier to indoctrinate and control, and the military understands that well. They are easier induced to kill, and ask fewer questions.

So, to put two and two together, is this a sign that Internet companies are stormtroopers of our times? These kids will figure out quickly how to execute faceted searches, but will not ponder the idiocy of the site that tries to sell more shit to those that don't need it. They will get free sodas and lunches, and buses with hairdressers parked in front of the company buildings, and shuttles to tenements. Just like the military.

The form is the essence.

Are we missing to spot the massive military forming in our midst, outside barracks, and not subject to The Posse Comitatus and other assorted acts?

Not everyone is. Few weeks ago, when Google bus was trashed in Oakland, this was distributed:

In case youâre wondering why this is happening, weâll be
extremely clear. The people outside your Google bus serve
you coffee, watch your kids, have sex with you for money,
make you food, and are being driven out of their
neighborhoods. While you guys live fat as hogs with your
free 24/7 buffets, everyone else is scraping the bottom of
their wallets, barely existing in this expensive world
that you and your chums have helped create.

You are not innocent victims. Without you, the housing
prices would not be rising and we would not be facing
eviction and foreclosure. You, your employers, and the
housing speculators are to blame for this new crisis, so
much more awful than the last one. You live your
comfortable lives surrounded by poverty, homelessness, and
death, seemingly oblivious to everything around you, lost
in the big bucks and success. But look around, see the
violence and degradation out there? This is the world that
you have created, and you are clearly on the wrong side.

Predictably, you might even believe that the technologies
you create serve the betterment of all humans. But in
reality the benefactors of technological development are
advertisers, the wealthy, the powerful, and the NSA
analysts running dragnet surveillance over email, phone
calls, and social media.

If you want a Bay Area where the ultra-rich are pitted
against hundreds of thousands of poor people, keep doing
what youâre doing. Youâll have a nice revolution outside
your door. But if you want out then you should quit your
jobs, cash out, and go live a life that doesnât completely
fuck up someone elseâs.

GET THE FUCK OUT OF OAKLAND!


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