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<the uncanny valley>
<p> The communities in Silicon Valley have undergone historical change throughout the last century, morphing from what were once the wide and anonymous orchard towns of Los Altos and Palo Alto into the booming tech powerhouse of the world. With its sky-high prices and dead, discolored fields stretching as far as the eye can see, Silicon Valley’s gilded image attracts and repels hundreds of people a year. It is both famous and infamous for its prestige and intense competition. The Valley became recognized nation-
<By: Natalie Emerson> ally for the development of silicon processors in the 1970s (“History of Los Altos”). Since then, big business and affluence have flooded the once small and desolate California Valley. Companies like Apple, Google, Tesla, and Meta are nestled hardly a freeway apart from each other. In spite of Big Tech’s claim that it is making the world a better place, the system is beginning to cause problems larger than itself. Its growth has caused a major division
between the priorities of the economy and the urgent issues that need attention, but are being swept under the rug. While the world focuses on Elon Musk and the fall of Silicon Valley Bank, the environmental, industrial, and academic emergen-
cies caused by Big Tech’s unmonitored expansion are in the process of spiraling out of control. All around Silicon Valley, individuals work to protect the beauty and Silicon Valleys humble roots that have been overshadowed