One thing I dislike about articles like this is that they get you to agree on some basic point, such as, "Hey did you notice that there is a lot of wealth AND poverty in San Francisco?" Yes, I agree with that. "Well, actually, it's libertarians' and techies' fault!" Oh okay, you were correct about the first part so you're correct about the second too.<p>"Also, by the way, they're just like Hitler / Stalin / thinly veiled shout-out to something really bad!"<p>> Earlier attempts to create a rationalist Utopia failed for interesting reasons, and since we bought those lessons at a great price, it would be a shame not to learn them.<p>I do agree that San Francisco has this strange juxtaposition of impoverished hellscape versus obscene wealth. It's the main reason I plan to leave here within the next couple of years. But I'd do myself a disservice if I latched onto a thought that this is the fault of some political ideological minority in the area, or even the majority (bleeding hearts). This "poverty and misery" is the techies' fault in the same way that alcoholism is the fault of bartenders.<p>All that said, I agree with the conclusion about data. There <i>should be</i> a moral obligation to limit or stop this storage. It creeps me the hell out, and it's why I don't use Facebook or Google any more, knowing that this doesn't fully solve the problem. I'll add that the metaphor he depicts is really great:<p>> As a technologist, this state of affairs gives me the feeling of living in a forest that is filling up with dry, dead wood. The very personal, very potent information we're gathering about people never goes away, only accumulates. I don't want to see the fire come, but at the same time, I can't figure out a way to persuade other people of the great danger.<p>I just wish the writer were mature enough to make that argument without the scapegoating of ideology, or the wrong ideology. This isn't about libertarianism or "trickle down" (from HN comments) or capitalism or a dislike for politics, it's about technological progress. Ideologies that are opposed to the writer's scapegoats will also act in service of technological progress when it is convenient for them.