Silicon Valley’s desire to escape the national domain is short-sighted and ill-informed, writes Farhad Manjoo in the Wall Street Journal. While many prominent tech entrepreneurs have expressed a wish to shed the chains of legislation and bureaucracy through such means as floating islands or, more realistically, putting servers in faraway jurisdictions, Manjoo reminds of the needs to sell to consumers inside the regulated markets and the fact that Silicon Valley’s success relies on government R&D and pension fund investment to a large extent (one could add free content from the entertainment sector). But it is easy to recognise the lust for not having to deal with the rest of the world, is that not everyone’s fantasy from time to time? If I could only be left to my devices, not having to consider other people, just as long as they keep sending me money, wouldn’t that be great? It has nothing to do with technology, it is only human. But most of us are reminded often enough that the world would be a boring place if we did not have interactions with other people, and those will inevitably have wills of their own. Compromise is required, and on a larger scale democracy, politics, institutions. All those things are only consequences of us humans having different priorities and wishes. What is that saying again? No man is an island.
