But that was only one part of the story of cocaine in Silicon Valley in the mid 1980s. The drugs themselves Blandon sent south from Silicon Valley to Los Angeles, courtesy of the hustler “Freeway” Rick Ross. We process coca leaves to make cocaine, cocaine to make crack, and numbers to make software – all to meet human needs and desires. Cocaine isn’t just a racialized technology; technologies are racialized in the same way as powder and crack cocaine. To think through these racialized technologies we need to admit that, at least metaphorically, Silicon Valley still has a cocaine problem.

Source: The Guardian January 30, 2020 10:52 UTC