Who Pays for Silicon Valley’s Hidden Costs?
Magically convenient services and devices are often subsidized by exploitative labor arrangements
By Max Read
There’s a famous Ursula K. Le Guin short story called “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” about a fantasy city called Omelas, a joyous metropolis without guilt or violence, populated by “mature, intelligent, passionate” people who celebrate beautiful festivals and shop at (duh) a “magnificent Farmer’s Market.” Le Guin is short on political or organizational specifics; Omelas is whatever utopia you can conjure up for yourself, with one extra feature: Somewhere in the city, in a grimy basement underneath a handsome building, a 10-year-old child, “feeble-minded,” terrified, and starved, has been imprisoned, begging desperately to be set free. The people of Omelas are aware of the prisoner. But they will never free it, because — remember, this is a fantasy parable — “their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children … depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.” If a citizen were to unlock the basement and clean and feed the child, “all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.”
