Do Geeks Have a Political Voice?

ion asks: "The software community has been putting up with a lot of political turmoil lately (patents that should never have been considered, DVD decryption, copyright issues left and right). My question is: 'How is it that some of the best-paid workers in the world marketplace have almost no political voice?' We have all sort of software advocates like ESR and RMS, but where is the US Congressman or UK rep in Parliament (or other representative in some world government) that have pledged to support the ideals of our community? How can we form some sort of world geek lobby? How can we help the people like Jon Johansen who are victims of the outdated system?" (Read More)

A good question. Geeks are suddenly finding themselves in positions of wealth and power, and with that comes the burden of politics. Many geeks seem to think politics below them, or consider it something best ignored and left to those who can handle it while they concentrate on 'the real work' of solving the problems that need solving. However, I think the 21st century will usher in a time when those who were once shunned and cast out start flexing some formerly-unused political mojo.

How that mojo is used -- and for what -- depends entirely on us.

Comments

So -- what does the ``geek lobby'' stand for ?

[elflord]

This is precisely the problem. Geeks are not a homogeneous group, and there are a lot of issues that they don't agree on. The problem is, I doubt you'd ever see them as a voting bloc. You're not going to get a democrat geek voting republican ( or vice versa ) over a few tech issues. Moreover, there is a lot of contention about many of these so-called ``geek issues.'' For example, not all geeks are opposed to copyright. Not all geeks want``open everything''.

Before you even talk about a ``geek lobby'', you need to decide what this lobby stands for. There are clearly some issues ( say, gun-control; republican-or-democrat-or-other ) where there'll never be agreement. Perhaps it's possible to create some kind of manifesto and/or policy platform, but drawing widespread support for it, even among geeks, could prove difficult.

Re:Janitors

[warpeightbot]

Geeks have no voice as it stands right now.

And whose fault is that?

And who's going to have to change that?

We are.

We have to form a consensus on the issues (maybe borrow Taco's polling engine), figure out which candidates support them or might be willing to, Slashdot the hell out of them (and not just with email, but with face time and with treeware), in short, we have to get it in gear, here and now.

Or we're going to get squashed.

I'm serious, folks, with DMCA and DeCSS and CyberPatrol in the courts, we stand a good chance of getting promoted to outlaw. The time to act is now.

Let's Do It.

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This was the year everything changed.
-- Commander Ivanova, 2261

Re:We'll say it AGAIN and AGAIN until you get it..

[goliard]

In other words I'm kind of equating saying "Geeks need a special political lobby" with saying "rich white people need a special political lobby". Geeks are not being oppressed or left out. What need have "we" of a special political lobby.

Ahh. There is the confusion. You have been expanding "lobby" into "political force for special protectionist privileges." I can see where you could come by that idea; certainly the press loves to paint lobbies in that color. However, "lobby" need not be just a racket for getting goodies or protections for a subset of the population.

A much better expansion of "lobby" is "political force to make the world as we would like it to be." Clearly for many groups, "as we would like it to be" is "more goodies for us". But that need not be the case.

Since many geeks feel similarly strongly about such issues as free speech, intellectual property law, etc., we could, theoretically, have a lobby to advance those causes.

Of course, practically it would be very difficult to do, because geeks are such a minority it would be hard to get them to rock a vote....

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Geeks have no power because we're not organized

[sjames]

While I an certainly not the sort of person who wants to see an org chart or any such crap, some sort of organization (like a union)is needed. For example, when the rank and file cops want to be heard, they come down with the blue flu (most all of them. Too many to simply replace the 'malcontents').

Imagine how quickly the economists and big money interests would pay attention if the message was: Unless this is cleared up, On Monday, 27 March, .com will will cease to exist. It will return (this time) on Tuesday 28 March.

Keep in mind that the announcement itself could drop the Dow 100 points. Actually doing it could easily cost 500-1000 and a good month to recover.

That action would be very extreme, and a last resort. Lesser actions could well have a positive effect. The problem is, if Monday 27 March came around, how many techs would actually shut the routers off? If it's not close to 100%, there will be a lot of lawsuits and fireings, everyone else will just laugh, and the geeks will have no political clout whatsoever.

Janitors

[Signal 11]

We're not politically or economically powerful. We're not bastioning in the power-base of this country. No, we're the janitors of the e-commerce 'revolution'. We work 60 hour days, are on-call 24/7, many of us aren't payed overtime because we're on the "excempt" listing for full-time work. No, we're definately not in the powerbase.

I'm sorry, but while the above paragraph is unflattering, it's sadly true. We do control some of the best tools ever created to effect social change in this country, nay, the world at large. But the same personality attributes that allows us to spend 12 hours staring at a computer monitor making those tools are the same personality attributes that relegate us to relative obscurity in the public eye. The general public admires the earning potential of this line of work, but little else.

Geeks have no voice as it stands right now. When l0pht went to Congress to testify over security, they were ignored. We submitted proposals for using open source to make the government work cheaper and faster, those were rejected. We're not being taken seriously. Those of us who, in frustration, take to their keyboards and engage in hacktivism are labelled criminals and locked up for dozens of years. Our only recourse - civil disobedience, has already largely been headed off by draconian legislation like the DMCA, or the dozen other acts which make even looking at a computer menacingly a felony.

No, we don't have them - they have us. Our only tools right now are the internet and it's massively distributed architecture, designed to make sure that information that gets out there stays out there, and excercising our technical abilities to route around the damage caused by bad legislation, corrupt politicians, and massive corporations stripping away our rights for additional profit.

Yea, welcome to the 21st century.

Ralph Nader for President

[CokeBear]

Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader is running for president. He has been largely ignored by the mainstream media, even though his views are fairly mainstream (a wee bit to the left of Bill Bradley...). CNN interviewed Pat Buchannon, who is more extreme to the right wing than Nader is to the left, but the mainstream media works with the establishment to keep outsiders out. Thats why only a Democrat or Republican will ever be president.

Slashdot could work to change this... in a big way. If we unite as a force of change, it may be possible to introduce some diversity into the presidential race. Slashdot as a whole should endorse a candidate (decided by the slashdot poll), which everyone on Slashdot will work to get elected. Obviously we would become one of those special interest groups, but one which is composed of individuals who all have a say in the collective policies that we support.

Slashdot polls on all the major issues, and with our sheer numbers, we would be able to influence the campaign platform of our selected candidate. I put forward the name of Ralph Nader only because he happens to be the candidate that I support, but it could just as easily be David McReynolds, or anyone, other than Bush or Gore.

The best way to determine who your views are most in line with is at the Presidential Candidate Selector: http://www.selectsmart.com/PRESIDENT/

Ralph Nader is here, and David McReynolds is here

Re:Doing it today

[Wah]

I got there at 12:58 for a 1:00 appointment. He met me about 1:15. Khakis. blue shirt, tie.

I started off with a couple questions about privacy and the FBI. He was against most of their efforts to gain administrative wiretapping permission, instead saying there should still be a judge involved (although he mentioned there were both good and bad judges, IHHO)

Then I went on to some patent issues. This was where he was most responsive to some of my ideas. Having read up a bit on the history of the patent system, I was able (I think) to illustrate to him that it was not, at least in the realm of software, fuctioning as originally intended, and was now inhibiting the progress of an industry. I said that often the physical task of writing software was inexpensive (at least froma a starting point), and often it was prohibitively expensive to do a thorough enough check to make sure someone hadn't used the same obvious of even slightly trickly method you were planning on implementing. Thus creating prohibitive barriers of entry into a burgeoning industry. I mentioned Bezo's letter, and suggestions, but how he felt his hands were tied given the current system.

Then I went on into DMCA, IP, and copyright. I used the DVD case (which he had heard of) as an example on why you might need to circumvent copy protection as a means to fair use, and how that action was now a felony in the U.S. I mentioned how I download MP3s as a way to try new music, and how various industry groups have tried to fight new technology every step of the way. Instead of fighting in the marketplace, they have moved to fighting in the courts. Since he didn't recognize the DMCA by name, I think a lot of this went in one ear and out the other. He was playing with his pen and fingernails during this one.

Finally, I got to explain (in under two minutes) the Linux/Open Source phenomonem and how it differed from traditional product design and distribution,i.e. the differences between an M$ EULA and the GPL. I mentioned how I felt political websites (including his) were not being used as the community centers they might be, and directed him to /., as a sample site for a community meeting place (hehe).

Finally, I ended with a quick bit about my fears as a current 'Net user that big (international conglomerate) money and government interference would erode and eventually destroy this wonderful medium and everything it makes possible.

I don't know how much he grokked, or even tried, but that was 10 minutes of time he wan't lobbied by the RIAA ;-) I would strongly urge you to try and do something similar. I have the rather useful advantage of working in the same building as my congressman, but you might be surprised how accessible some of them might be.

There ya go. (oh, and thanks to 348 for the final push, no link, I post too much :(

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Doing it today

[Wah]

I have an appointment (in about 15 min) to meet with one of my state's congressmen. After mentioning it to a couple people here (physical), I've gotten "good luck, he's a ___", none of which was good. I'll let you know how it goes. Basically I just want to see what the knows/thinks about the Net and some of its issues.

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How to Rock the World

[goliard]

The religious right gets it. It's time for geeks to get it. The following is from a salon.com article on how The Christian Coalition does it:

Lack of interest from the mainstream press didn't bother [The Christian Coalition] at all; to the contrary, they routinely barred reporters from their meetings.[...]

At one of those closed meetings, Guy Rodgers delivered a speech to coalition activists that exposed what is still a critical weakness of the religious right. As he explained with a smirk, they relied upon mobilizing a relatively small group of sympathetic voters in elections that most Americans simply ignore.

"In a presidential election, when more voters turn out than in any other election, only 15 percent of eligible voters actually determine the outcome. How can that be? Well, of all the adults 18 and over eligible to vote, only about 60 percent are registered ... Of those registered to vote, in a good turnout, only half go to the polls. That means 30 percent of those eligible are actually voting. So 15 percent determines the outcome in a high-turnout election. In low-turnout elections ... the percentage that determines who wins can be as low as 6 or 7 percent."

Although Rodgers didn't mention presidential primaries, those contests too often attract only a fraction of eligible and registered citizens. "Is this sinking in?" he asked. "We don't have to persuade a majority of Americans to agree with us." Most of them, he said, stay home and watch television.

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Electronic Frontier Foundation

[billstewart]

The EFF www.eff.org has been around for about 10 years now! It's primarily dealt with civil liberties issues - court cases on censorship and crypto export, court cases for accused "hackers", lobbying against really bad proposed laws such as the FBI's constant wiretapping proposals, Clipperphones, crypto export laws, keeping up to speed on Copyright and Patent law changes, etc. They'er starting to address privacy laws, a complex and rapidly-changing controversial topic.

Digital Millenium Copyright Act comments due by March 31! EFF has information here.

We'll say it AGAIN and AGAIN until you get it...

[Dirtside]

"Geeks" are not a singular group like "African Americans" or "women". Part of the problem with questions like this is that it assumes that there even EXISTS some easily defined, discrete group of people called "geeks" who all believe the same things and want the same things. It should be trivially obvious that this is NOT true. There are quite a lot of people who share in the views of free software, or open source, or what have you, but I think it's a mistake to assume that people who are technologically apt (or who share in "geek-hood") necessarily have the same political leanings. I know that I am less libertarian than many here; and I am more so than others.

Also, I think that highly-paid technical workers are a relative minority in the world, and even in the United States. Since when do we need political advocacy? Maybe we will in the future at some point, but certainly not now.

The causes that "we" (read: "I") are commonly perceived as supporting -- the free exchange of information, open source software development, keeping it legal to embarrass corporations who do stupid things -- are good causes for everyone (except big business, of course, and I don't think anyone will rationally argue that big business needs ANY MORE POWER than it already has). I can see lobbying for such causes, but not on behalf of a mythical "geek" group that is, in reality, about as well defined as "Christians".