Going to San Francisco is like stepping into the future. A future where everyone wears tech sponsored hoodies with products you've never heard of. A future where every square inch of the city is documented and cataloged on the internet and easily accessible by your pocket rocket. A future where people speak primarily in tech jargon.

But the culture in the bay area is more than just a place where brilliant ideas are generated, it is also the place that most dramatically influences modern culture. It literally controls the way we interface with our digital lives. And to put it bluntly; The Bay area doesn't have enough cultural diversity to represent all of mankind. Sure they travel and they do research. But much of the tech that they develop is solving their own problems.

So what?

So what? There is an unfortunate side effect; in order for other cities to function in this new Bay area driven augmented reality, they need to be a bit more like San Francisco... or maybe a lot more like it. We've seen it with Uber, we've seen it with AirBnB and we've seen it with Google in Europe.

What's wrong with that?

San Fran' seems like a pretty peaceful place. The hippy movement in the 60s, the organic/whole food trends, the yoga studios on every corner. They seem pretty cultured and pretty conscientious.

But when you're there you can't help but think that something is missing.

In 2010 I was considering a move to SF and I wanted to take in some of the local culture. I decided to see what the bar scene was like. I sat down at the bar and struck up a conversation with the guy next to me. It turns out he is a programmer at a tech giant. Hey that's cool! How about the guy on the other side? He's looking for angel investors for his startup. This happened night after night. Now-a-days I go to SF all the time and it is always the same story. I'm hard pressed to find a plumber or a fashion designer or even a teacher. Maybe I'm going to the wrong places.

These techies may come from cultures around the world but their culture is internet culture. Memes, GIFs, Video games.

So when it comes down to it. One culture, one subculture of humans is imposing structures on how we communicate, how we organize, how we prioritize and how we are productive. It seems like a lot of power for one metropolitan area of the world.

If our culture is homogenizing... do we really want it to be homogenized into SF brogrammers?

The Centralization of the Tech Industry

So what?

What's wrong with that?

But when you're there you can't help but think that something is missing.

These techies may come from cultures around the world but their culture is internet culture. Memes, GIFs, Video games.