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Why Are So Many Nerds Libertarians?
BrendanMcGrail writes "Why do so many nerds seem to lean toward the Libertarian end of the spectrum? As a leftist, I know there are many people who share my ideological views, but have very little in common with me in terms of profession and non-work interests. Is the community's political bent directly tied to our higher than average economic success?"
If you see political ideologies as a one-dimensional spectrum, you aren't paying enough attention. Educate yourself.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Bingo. Libertarian is the opposite of authoritarian... not right or left. Libertarians can see that everything big government touches turns to shit. That's why they're libertarians.
Software patents delenda est.
The recent slashdot poll is one source, albeit dubious.
And that's why "teams" are so inefficient. And bands are science. They primeval sexual rituals.
Look, you want to understand quantum field theory, then no child left behind ain't gonna work for you. It's not about making sure everyone feels like a winner.
There's a difference between socialism and social democrats. Your typical socialists would have everything nationalised, under the control of politicians. Typical social democrats will see that it makes sense to nationalise a few things here or there but leave the rest pretty much alone.
There are no socialist governments left in Europe.
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It's not that there are a lot of libertarian nerds, it's just that the libertarians shout the loudest and, well, most dense, as they ignore all rational arguments that might discredit their views.
You're probably right about the affluence argument though, a disproportionate number seem to be the "I got mine" crowd, who know that they will be on the top of the pyramid, benefiting rather than suffering from the vast inequality that libertarianism will cause.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"To put it succinctly, the libertarian believes in the freedom of individuals to pursue their lives as they see fit, as long as they cause no harm to others, with minimal governmental interference."
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So Mod Parent Down, Mod Grand Parent Up.
I don't agree with everything that the Grandparent said, however he was well spoken and backed up his statements with evidence (however anecdotal).
$diff terrorists hippies
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$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
The Republican party as it exists right now has completely abandoned all conservative principles.
I would vote Republican every time if people like Tom Coburn or Ron Paul typified a Republican. Unfortunately, they do not.
In fact, I think those two would be quite at home in the Libertarian party, except that they'd never get elected.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
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> I have just spent way too much time googling for a comic that someone once linked in a
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>It was hilarious, and an extremely to-the-point comment on the shortcomings of Rand's "philosophy".
You're after Bob the Angry Flower.
BTAF is one of the funniest web comics I've ever read, but Stephen Notley mustn't have read the book too closely. The cartoon's still funny, but you have to ignore the fact that he got it precisely wrong.
*** spoiler warning ***
One of the key plot points in Atlas Shrugged is how John Galt (and other characters) managed to hide themselves when recruiting followers from the rest of society. They did so by working precisely the sorts of menial jobs that the BTAF cartoon implies they couldn't. They gave society what it wanted: their labor. They withheld from society what it needed: their mind.
Atlas Shrugged is about what happens when genius goes on strike. You can pass laws that force a man to work, but you can't pass laws that force him to invent. Suppose you're a nuclear researcher. If you're a capitalist (in the Randroid, "never take a dime from the government, and never owe it a dime in taxes" sense), a nuclear power plant provides you a much better return on investment. A nuclear bomb, by contrast, is only useful to a non-profit operation. To a capitalist, nuking a city is a terrible waste of potential (or actual!) customers, employees, and factories. To a government, it's just a policy decision to be made for the greater good.
Would WW2 have been lost (apart from a few million more casualties in the invasion of Japan) had the nuclear scientists of the day simply gone on strike, working at burger joints, riveting aircraft together, or casting bullets and turning shell casings on lathes, and passing on the really interesting jobs until after the war was over?
(Where Rand fails is that although she's half-right -- you can't compel genius to invent -- she's just as half-wrong, in that one of the hallmarks of genius is that not even the genius can compel himself not to invent. People like Teller had to invent the H-Bomb, even though WW2 was over, and the Cold War had barely begun. Open source developers had to invent Linux, GCC, and so on, and would have invented something much like it even in the absence of non-Free UNIXes and Microsoft.)
As for the literary criticism, it's valid -- but only up to the point. Stop assuming it's a novel, and start assuming it's a philosophical system masquerading as a novel, and the cardboard characters become much more forgivable. Much like the animals in Animal Farm, they're not there to entertain you, they're there to make a point. The scariest thing is that the talking heads on the TV sound more and more like her villains (and Orwell's) every day.