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The Rise and Fall of the Geek
chilled writes "Tom Steinberg has posted this guest editorial on The Register bemoaning the decline of the Geek. He suggests that geeks in their alignment against for example RIP and Microsoft are losing their voice. I think he's right but the emergence of a common set of goals should be recognised as a very good thing. The geeks amongst us should use this commonality to rise up and use our voice for progress and not petty squabbling."
Who is this guy to define what *I* am like. Yes, I do disagree w/the DMCA, the RIAA, and Microsoft. I don't like the fact that the US is becoming more and more government controlled. I don't like the fact that the PEOPLE of the US are allowing this to happen w/o a fight.
I don't like the fact this this person believes we had strict boundaries. I don't like the fact that he calls us "pasty, long haired, UN*X t-shirt wearing" individuals.
I am against things that are wrong. Microsoft, the DMCA, and recent US policies are WRONG.
I don't have a pasty complexion, I don't have long hair, I don't live on pizza and Mountain Dew, and I certainly don't wear Unix related t-shirts.
He is the one setting boundaries on us, not the group.
Geeks stand up for what they believe in. We are typically young and brash and want to see change made. We are the protesters of the new millenium. We use a different medium than was used before. We are who we are, not what someone labels us as.
Please forgive the rant. He was just wrong for creating a false label for the "geek".
He says geeks used to argue over the standard stuff, vi vs. emacs, keyboard vs. mouse, X vs. console, PC vs. microcomputer. Fair enough. Now he says that nobody argues against DRM, the DMCA, and invasions of privacy.
I suppose Soviet Communists in the olden days would argue about whether rubber or leather boots were better in springtime, but nobody felt justified saying, "Those capitalists aren't that bad!" Likewise, these days in America, there is plenty of talk about whether N'Bizkit is better than Limp Korn, or whatever retarded ear-shit people listen to. Yet nobody stands up and says, "You know, we really should let the state run all of our industry."
So big surprise, we're all in agreement about things that threaten the foundation and definition of the group. What an insight, you might as well go write an internet editorial about it and get Michael to post on Slashdot.
Ya know, it really is telling when I got halfway through this post and thought to myself, "Well goddamn, this must have been another piece of drivel that Micheal thought was really clever, like that time he shared with us the story about adjusting your TVs brightness control to play PS2." What crap.
I've always been kinda fringe geek. Not really a great programmer, more an observer, plotter, and wannabe administrator. Not nearly as geek as many I know, but still geek enough to be considered by people who aren't geeky at all. Unfortunately, we've got one thing making "geekdom" feel polluted, and that's the cram-away certification crowd.
High school kids coming out with MCSE's, places you can get a CCNA quick, or A+ certification that just seems like a joke to any old-school type. These people are the "new geek chic" and they're anything but.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Conformity : Proudly serving painfully boring people since time began....
geeks are misfits, not some social group you can mobilize, the more mainstream the issue the more support you will lose and the more fragmentation you will see. The authors' failure to understand, just highlights the fact that he's not a geek but a suit trying to be cool. The sub-culture WAS NEVER tied together by commonality but by opposition of the homogenization of culture. Here this 'guest' editor is bemoaning the lack of just such a thing....
The counter culture is STILL there they've just shunned the icons proposed for them by the 'man' and those that would make a buck of them.
TGIF, and rant off......
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Since when has being a geek been political? Granted, I agree with the majority on Slashdot on certain issues, but not with others. I thought geekdom was about a love for technology.
If being a geek means I'm some kind of political activist hippie, count me out.
"Others, such as the hatred of Microsoft and the loathing of Spam come from a quite reverse philosophy - a principled distain of the side-effects of capitalism, betraying socialist ancestry."
Yeah, whatever. My hatred of Microsoft comes from the lack of stability in their operating systems, and their predatory, monopolistic practices (which have been confirmed in a court of law, thank you very much)
And Spam? Do I even have to address this point? I hate it because it wastes my time, it wastes internet bandwidth and storage space, and the people sending it don't even really have to pay very much to inconvenience the entire email reading planet. It's unbalanced.
"If none of this is making sense to you, try the following mental exercise. Could you sit in a pub with a group of geeks, defend the RIP Act, and convince them that you were still one of them?"
Yes I could. Perhaps I have more open minded friends than you, who are willing to entertain an argument without ostracizing someone with an alternative viewpoint.
I'm a geek because I've loved fooling with computers my entire life, have a profound desire to see technology used to improve the world, and have developed quite a bit of hardware, software, and programming expertise. My political affiliations don't enter into it. Neither do my race, sex, nationality, or religous beliefs.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
There are plenty of geeks out there who want nothing to do with Linux, prefering the tools of Sun, Apple and even (gasp!) Microsoft. The first article seems to make the case that all geeks demand open source exclusively, because if you don't make such demands, you're not a geek. (A classic falacy of logic).
I would even go so far as to say that the majority of geeks that I have known are aware of open source & Linux, and use both at least some of the time (particularilly some of the better GNU tools), but are not married to the Stalmanist ideology that all software should be free, and spend most of their time working with various closed applications. There are those who fit the description of these articles, but I don't believe they don't even represent the majority of geekdom, let alone a consensus.
The whole debate is downright Katzian, in that it assumes a cultural development that isn't actually happening.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
There is a popular misconception in today's culture that all geeks use and endorse Linux.
..."
"Geeks may argue about which Linux distro is best
I would classify myself as a geek and I never felt terribly comfortable using Linux. I've dabbled here and there, kept Linux boxen lying around, but have never used any as my primary machine. I've been a devout BSD fan...until OS X came along.
"...but they all know that a Good OS Has to Be Free. "
bullshit. A good OS has to be good. I'll pay for an operating system that I think is solid. I had no problems paying $129 for Jaguar a few weeks ago.
Geeks are people who are curious about technology and make a living and a hobby out of utilizing technology different ways. Oh wait.... I forgot what site I was posting on. Long live Linux and down with those imperial Microsuck bastards
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Back then geeks stayed away from politics because politicians stayed away from technology. That's no longer the case.
This on-target editorial is in tune with Lawrence Lessig's question a few weeks ago: What Have You Been Doing About It? (Lessig's answer: not much, if anything.)
When identification with a community becomes more important to each community member than the goals or shared behaviors of the community, that community is well on the way to becoming an irrelevant cult. Why? Because an individual need only adopt the accoutrements of the community to claim membership. The need to actually make a substantive contribution to furthering the community's objectives, goes away. In fact, the community's objectives fade away until the sole objective becomes reinforcing each individual's association with the group. In other words, it dissolves into a "us versus them" scenario, where the only thing defining "us" is "not them" status.
The evidence is here on Slashdot every day: Few expressions of commitment to do anything about DMCA/RIAA/DRM except pen denunciatory posts; Use of "lusers" in reference to "users" (if your an admin, they're really your "customers"); assertions that Unix users are more intelligent than users of other operating systems; unwillingess to consider other points of view; readiness to censor dissenting voices (known as "moderation" around here); a dogmatic belief that everything the "enemy" says and does is a lie and, therefore, unworthy of a second's thought; and, in the obvious case of many posters, an adopted posture of cynicism lacking the credibility of real experience.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
This is the most absurd thing I've read in a mod 5 post yet.
The first article seems to make the case that all geeks demand open source exclusively, because if you don't make such demands, you're not a geek
The author is a good journalist, and he's very impartial...but he doesn't understand the basis of the problem.
He started the article by saying that in the "good ol days" like the 1980's geeks disagreed on many things, but they all had one common characteristic...a love, a fascination with technology. The author seems to think that we've fallen from our true cause...and now are just a bunch of whining 2nd rate hippies.
My response to the author is this: There is no way to have a geek world with DRM. It is fundamentally impossible. There is no happy median, there is no compromise, it is impossible. Why? Because being a geek is about taking a general purpose set of tools(wires, capacitors, an instruction set, a programming language, etc) and casting those tools into something new. Show me one good classical geek "hack" that wasn't about doing something new and creative with ordinary hardware? That's the whole point; that was always the whole point.
DRM will only be effective by removing this capabilty from all technologies...not just computers, but all of them. There is no such thing as 99% DRM, or 50% DRM. If I find a way to hack my toaster's MPU to resonate the heating coils at sonic frequencies, and then play MP3's with it, then the DMCA has failed. What that means is that every microchip must be crippled into a "special purpose" device. There is no longer any need for a programming language...just hardwires "allowing" the appropriate functionality for the consumer. And ultimately excluding any other function.
If this happens, everything any of us have ever loved about technology will be finished...done. Sure you can still microwave your popcorn, check your e-mail, and order your pay-per-view...but that is all you will ever be able to do(and it's all your grandchildren will ever be able to do). It's the end of technological progress, period.
There is no middle ground on this issue.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky