alt Hacker NewsSilicon Valley is worse than average because they're mostly techies and techies are people that on average love things more than people and have low empathy. They also lean isolationist/libertarian and are the perfect victims for "bootstraps" mentality.
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You need to spend a lot of time publishing, studying etc to become an academic it's not a highly social pursuit. In fact techies in order to achieve anything mostly have to operate in a team and it's not the zero sum ruthless game of academic careerism (only so many tenured spots available).
Also the output of tech companies is ideally something tangible not just the careerist publish or perish mindset of academics. Academics are not exactly principled either they will go to exactly where the funding/grants are.
I'd probably be fine with the average opinion of silicon valley workers. Even accounting for the overabundance of priveliged white men that leads to a libertarian/fascist undercurrent. It's the sociopaths that rise to the top by fucking everyone else over that are a problem.
> love things more than people
Society hated techies until we started getting ridiculous amounts of money and women figured out that they could marry a techie and instantly go up the social hierarchy. Now that this isn't happening anymore, society is back to hating techies. Tech always attracted people who were in some ways social outcasts - I've spent my formative years being bullied and now I'm supposed to love the society? I pay taxes to maintain public infrastructure while normies vandalize and misuse it when bored and I'm supposed to love that? Truly baffling.
> low empathy
Blatantly false. Name one industry where a huge chunk of experts spend their time doing volunteer work, because that's what open source is (Linux, GCC, etc.). Have you ever seen a baker just giving out free bread on weekends and calling it a hobby? I haven't.
> "bootstraps" mentality
The expectation that everyone could just vibe through life and be perfectly happy is unrealistic. There will always be winners and losers, there will always be inherent unfairness, deal with that to your best ability.
I think it's very much a combination of American "you are what you do" mentality, combined with making money automating what other people do... Very much a frame where people are evaluated compared to the complexity of replacing them with tech.