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The "Techie" Vote?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the they're-just-starting-to-get-it dept.

Ironica writes "This Los Angeles Times article discusses a compelling trend: techies are making their collective voice heard in politics. Quote from the article: "After years as political agnostics, the programmers and engineers who orchestrated the technological revolution of the 1990s are trying to reboot government...They have money, earned during the boom. They have time, found since the bust. And they are using their technological savvy to recruit even casual Internet users to their causes." Perhaps instead of "boxers or briefs," our next presidential candidate will have to answer "POP3 or IMAP?""

5 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Boxers/IMAP by Trigun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is not a big news story. The internet has given everyone a voice, but those who know how to speak are genreally understood more readily.

    So we have this huge inter-connected network which spans the globe, now what do we do with it?

    Hey! Let's talk to each other!

    About what?

    Politics...

    1. Re:Boxers/IMAP by milosoftware · · Score: 5, Insightful
      So we have this huge inter-connected network which spans the globe, now what do we do with it?

      We could save the environment, we could find a cure for cancer, we could ...

      NO! Let's use it to play games!

      (free after an ancient 3DFx commercial...)

      --
      Musicians don't die. They just decompose.
  2. As a registered voter by malus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm going to be helping this former IT geek with his campaign:

    http://www.EmmonsForCongress.com:81

    this guy spent 18 years in the biz, only to have to train his 'less expensive' replacements.

    I'm sure I'll be in the same boat sooner than later, however, I refuse train anyone. If upper-manglement wants to replace me with some cheap labor, THEY can figure my code out.

  3. As /. has clearly shown by sielwolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The tech community is a fractious bunch and thus completely useless as a political group. Why? Because "Speciality in IT" != Any political agenda. The camps of liberal, conservative, and libertarian thinking are wide and diverse. Hell, look at any thread on the RIAA. Probably the only platform all tech folks are for is rational copyright law (i.e. showing SCO who's the daddy). But other than that, there is no cohesion.

    There's a reason why police unions, the AFL-CIO, and the Christian Right are all strong forces: they have a complete package of beliefs that they can get a large body of voters to agree on. Religion? Government? Taxes? The tech community could never get such a gestalt.

    I think it is one of the great tech-urban legends that IT is a uniformly liberal RMS-style social group or ever was.

    --
    What is music when you despise all sound?
  4. Re:if only... by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We mobilized to b!tch slap specific spammers.
    We mobilized to protest Turbotax spyware.
    We mobilized to protest the "Patriot" Act.

    /.ers are probably never going to agree on a particular candidate, but that doesn't mean we don't attempt to change the world because of what we read here.