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Political Leaning and Free Software
00_NOP writes "HateMyTory is the world's first political rating site and occasionally gets blasted or promoted by British bloggers on either side of the political spectrum. But here's something even more intriguing: when the right come visiting they hate the site but they are disproportionately likely to be users of free software, whether that is just Firefox on top of their Windows box, or all the way with some Linux distro. But when the left rally to the cause they are more likely than not to be proprietary software users, albeit with a big bias towards Apple. If Microsoft's defenders think free software is the road to socialism, why don't the left seem to agree? As a leftie, and a free software advocate, I find this pretty puzzling."
Some items a Democrat will mod up are generally the things a Republican will mod down. If you wanted to run a Slashdot style mod system and invite both Reps and Dems to your site, you should have moderation based on their political styles instead of an additive approach. For example: Dems mod an article up 77 points, while Reps mod it down 20. For Democrats, it will be a prime article to read. For Republicans it won't even show up. I think this may be the future of moderation on websites. It doesn't have to stop with just Democrats and Republicans, there are tons of groups that are at odds, or simply different than mainstream.
God spoke to me.
Left / Right leanings are utterly irrelevant to Free software - reasons for choosing free software vary enormously from person to person & are frequently based on traits shared by individuals with widely varying political leanings.
As a leftie, and a free software advocate, I find this pretty puzzling.
As a person, and a free software advocate, I'd be wary of anyone labelling something as left or right. Debate issues for what they are, instead of trying to categorise them as left or right.
than not to be proprietary software users, albeit with a big bias towards Apple.
Interesting. I wrote recently in my journal about Apple's support for the democrats. The funny thing is, from where I'm sitting, the Dems look right (it's just that the repubs look righter).
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Why do conservatives disregard conservation?
Why do right-to-lifer's support the death penalty?
Why do liberals promote loss of liberty?
Why do those who dodge military service advocate preemptive war?
A few more conundrums to ponder....
No, I think, it is more likely, that your sample (just the circle of people you know personally, right?) is just too limited to be statistically meaningful.
Would be interesting to get similar stats from a French site, that's visited by different sides, rather then just a club of people in agreement with each other.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Separation of Tech and Politics is as important as Separation of Politics and Religion.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Frankly, I think they're all fucking crazy. I would say that free software, if anything, is the realm of the more libertarian among us. Arguing left versus right is like a normal person listening to an anal retentive obsessive compulsive and a total slob arguing over housecleaning. I'm for free software, because I like not having to pay money for things if I can get them for free. I also like being able to modify them without restriction and I like the community. Frankly, the idea that we have to be subjected by the philosophy of one side or another (who both want to control our lives and restrict our behaviors, but regarding different aspects) is fucking horrifying.
Oh, yeah...and I'd totally be using an Amiga
Disclaimer - I am NOT a Randian anything.
*Theoretical* education correlates leftward with politics. *Practical* education correlates rightward in politics.
Try telling a Class A nuclear welder that he's uneducated. You won't get very far. It's also very likely that he and all his buddies vote to the right. They're also very likely to vote the same way as the engineering, business and finance faculties of any university, that is, those university people who have to produce ideas of practical value.
Higher education does indeed correlate to the left, but that's only because trades programs aren't counted and there are far more theoretical subjects in universities than practical ones.
While I think your idea would be interesting to try, and would probably even be helpful on a mainstream political news site, I think moderating that way is a Bad Thing in disguise. Such a system would very powerfully promote groupthink, which is a phenomenon that occurs quite easily even without "affiliation moderation" / "bias moderation" (for want of better terms).
Consider Slashdot, for example. There are occasions when groupthink can be particularly bad - take any article critical of Linux. What generally happens is that the points of the article (or points that other people raise) are refuted (sometimes not systematically, but even one line rejoinders), then modded up. Then someone disputes the refutations, and will be either modded down troll/flamebait, left as they are, and occasionally modded up. Then you typically have another round of refutations that get auto-modded up and the cycle continues.
It's discussion, Jim, but not as we know it. Now, to be fair, this doesn't happen on every story here; and it has been getting better in recent years, though it can be variable. In fact, the discussion is primarily the reason I spend so much time on /. - despite the trolls, frist psots, and Soviet Russia posts, there will be a good deal of genuinely intelligent discourse.
To get back to the parent's moderation idea. I think it could be useful in a couple of cases:
Case 1: Generic Political News Site - delivers headlines and articles based on party affiliation. Mainly there as a story aggregator, with little / no discussion. Maybe spits out a custom RSS feed based on a combination of the moderation and your preferences.
Case 2: Political News Discussion Site - hybridise /.-style editorial selection with moderation. Most stories will be those that the group wants, but editors can most stories that are important despite making a group uncomfortable.
Admittedly those scenarios are fairly similar, but someone could take them and spin them into a service a good few folk would use. Of course it depends on your objective - do you want to provide a selection of interesting stories that folk can read over lunch (case 1), or do you want to provide stories while promoting discussion (case 2). I'm firmly in the discussion camp. In fact, here on /. I recently friended a former foe because a post of his made me realise that he was making posts that went against the groupthink, but had 'truthiness' and were valid counterpoints. Note that I don't agree with all of his opinions, but I do think his expressing them is important. I might even just try and find the post that made me foe him in the first place...
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
Left wing or Liberals, are by definition a group of people who push change.
Right wings or Conservative, are by definition a group of people who want to keep the current method.
Someone who is more left is more willing to use Linux, just because it is an attempt to push change.
Someone who is more right is more willing to use Windows, just because it is what they used before.
Before some crazy debate on which side is better. I like to break it down to the following.
Liberals want to make the world better, Conservative want to prevent the world from getting worse.
Liberals in the attempt to make the world better could end up making it worse because they push change to fast and make mistakes.
Conservatives in the attempt to prevent things from getting worse will prevent a new and better idea from continuing.
Now that is fair and balanced without spin... I hope.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Or to put it a little more bluntly - many college students have not grown up and become conservatives yet. Some college kids never grow up. We call those professors...
What I found inspiring about the talk by a leading Conservative MP was that it emphasised not so much the savings of going Open Source, but that it embraced the idealogogy as a philosophy to run an entire government. I am not a Conservative, but this talk inspired my faith in UK politics as a whole.
I'm sorry but you are just plain wrong... it seems that you aren't thinking past 7 years ago and or political sound bites.
A classical democrat believes that the rights of the group is more important than the individual i.e.:
Gun control: believes that the individual right to bear arms is less important than protecting society from the dangerous gun owners
Affirmative action: believes that minorities as a group start so far behind that they need to be given benefits based solely on minority statis rather than by their individual achievements
political correctness/hate crimes: believe that certain speech and actions against an individual act at a nationwide group/race level
Taxation distribution: believe that the government can more efficiently dole out benefits at a national group level, being able to shift money from state to state and manage projects there
Wealth redistribution: believe that the government will effectively redistribute money from the wealthier group and give to the poorer group increasing the overall national economy
Business: believes that the government should be actively involved in regulating the business, to protect the group of consumers
A classical republican believes that the rights of the individual is more important than the group:
Gun control: believes that the individual's rights to bear arms is more important that penalizing all gun owners for the actions of a few individuals
Affirmative action: believes that people are all individuals and each person should be looked at individually
political correctness/hate crimes: believe that peoples actions against an individual are actions against an individual not a group and existing laws are sufficient
Taxation distribution: believe that taxation benefits should occur less at a national group level and more at a state/regional level where state/regional isuess can be more effectively identified and managed since they are closer to it
Wealth redistribution: believes that the
Business: believes that the government should have a hands-off approach in that individual consumers will be the determining factor in how a business is ran
You'll kind of see a trend as to where the two parties differences lies here and their actual historical laws back that up... group level vs individual level. This would be the reason why you are incorrect and the reason why I think you don't have a memory > 7 years ago, the current President isn't acting like a classical anything. He has a good mix of both going on.
Additionally, your statement "living your personal life" is a *moral* issue regarding abortion, gay rights, etc. and is not part of any classical political affiliation. Only very recently has these moral issues crept into party lines. Since it is a moral issue, it's very much an individual there are the gay republicans and there are the anti-abortion democrats and a bazillion shades in between as to the definition: i.e. abortion is legal until the 1st week, 1st month, 1st trimester, 2nd trimester, abort while baby is half out of the body, a week-month after it's actual birth (yes I've talked with people who actually believe that, in the case of birth defects).
Libertarians are awful humans, I'm surprised to have been labelled one twice already from the original question. I view Libertarians as people who desire freedom so that they can behave as poorly as possible without being called to account. The word is pregnant with a sort of ego-driven, selfish fuck-you, I've got mine attitude that I don't want to claim.
you obviously know nothing about libertarianism. it is entirely distinct from libertine, which would be people behaving as poorly as they want. libertarians know very much that freedom requires responsibility. and that's the problem today. people want to be able to do whatever they want, yet want none of the responsibility and desire to blame others. and, libertarians know that freedom can only exist when others act with Aristotelian moderation. Libertarianism is based on the belief that people left to their own will be the most prosperous and will be the most successful.
libertarians also want as little government as possible, but nothing close to anarchy. for example, consider the idea of same-sex marriage. it isn't that libertarians naturally support, but rather, oppose state sanctioned marriage. marriage is a private matter and needs no state imprimatur. issues like joint filing of taxes and property ownership are again, big government issues. there shouldn't be joint filing of taxes, and hell, it's your property, do with it as you please. If given the option in a ballot box, I would oppose same sex marriage, but I don't believe it is a public poliscy issue. and that's a huge difference.
libertarians also oppose government welfare because it is unconstitutional for the government to confiscate the property of one and give it to another. it is also crippling to those who recieve as well as it destroys their initiative.
as for the war, libertarians are split. I tend towards an internationalist though many libertarians tend towards isolationism. but internationals not in consistent with libertariansism as being strong and forceful abroad is fully within the consitutional authority of the government and certainly necessary to deal with enemies abroad to preserve freedom at home.
the attitude that libertarians are a "fuck you I've got mine" lot is one of ignorance and stupidity. they are nothing of the sort. socialism tends far more towards this as socialism is basically "this is all you're going to get, fuck you" system.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Albeit I consider myself left-leaning, a free software user, and a conservative (yes, that is right. I just look back to a different time in history from the right-leaning conservatives).
Free software is almost the purest expression of "socializing the means of production" I know of. Not in the Soviet sense, but in a different sense. Essentially, those of us who put our effort into the softrware own it. THose who want to use the software get a more limited sense of ownership just by virtue of using the software. But this isn't like soviet communism (what I call Neofeudalism because everything is centrally run by the state) but a real grass-roots communal ownership of the production process (closer in my book to what Marx was talking about anyway).
At the same time, this form of socialism/communism is actually more right-ward leaning than left-ward leaning in that it supports a sense of independance and self-determinism rather than a sense of obedience to legal frameworks built by large collectives (corporations) that we do not own simply by using their products (purchasing power is not ownership if we are afraid to use it).
So there you have it. FOSS is a great right-wing communist conspiracy aimed at world domination!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
No, libertarians (capitalist and socialist flavours alike) believe that the world has this tendency of magically getting better all by itself.
I will, however, contest the second part of your argument. I took welfare payments for about 9 months at one point. Far from "destroying my initiative", it gave me time to consolidate my skills and set myself up in business. Without welfare, I'd have had no option but to take a minimum-wage, maximum-hours job, which would have destroyed my initiative, robbed me of the free time I was able to capitalize on to put my business together, and basically condemned me to a life of poverty.
So, socialist welfare liberated me, while "libertarianism" would have enslaved me? I think I'll stick with socialism, thanks.