GEEK Unions?

The "Head Geek" at a U.S. High School wonders if geeks might band together in a powerhouse techno-union to represent their interests and fight Luddite blockheads in journalism and politics. It's a great idea, especially if they never try and meet.

Aaron Scott writes that he's the "Head Geek" at his high school, which means that he works for the tech administrator doing IT work and coordinating the other work study nerds.

"As you may imagine, we catch a lot of flack from other students because we spend so much time and energy on the computers at school, not to mention our own machines at home," he explains.

When this happens, he says, "one of the things we do to shrug it off is to joke that if they didn't have us to keep their computers running, the school would cease to function." This belief, he says, is not altogether untrue.

Aaron says he was watching the movie "Dune" one light last week "It occurred to me that what is true of my school is also true of other organizations, from small businesses to the federal government. Just like the Freemen in the movie stopped the universe by stopping the export of Spice, if computer geeks stopped working en masse, the whole country, and even the world, would grind to a halt." Aaron was thinking in particular of how geek politicization might help fight actions like the recent Australian government efforts to censor websites in that country.

How would this work, wondered Aaron? Could some Teamster-like union arise to work on matters of importance to geeks?

Aaron's fantasy, as it happens, is widely shared. When geek began to become a positive rather than negative term in the 90's, geeks and nerds alike began to talk about some form of Geek Union to battle the various corporations thundering onto the Internet, the blockheads in Congress with a penchant who passed the Communications Decency Acts to curb free speech, (or who, more recently wanted to post the Ten Commandments in schools to ward off Geek Evil).

There was talk, too, of a Geek Truth Squad to combat phobic media reporting about the Net, from mis-representations about what hackers really do and are to the alleged perils of game-playing, to the supposed ubiquity of perverts and pornographers online.

One manifestation of that early movement - geekforce.org - surfaced again during the post-Littleton hysteria.

Efforts to organize geeks have proven difficult. The Net population is idiosyncratic, wildly diverse. Many find the very idea of a geek organization too similar to the posturing and rule-making of the offline world. Efforts to form broad-based political communities online have all been quickly done in by epidemic online hostility. Anybody's who's tried to participate in public discussion of online issues knows to expect flamers swarming like fire ants.

But Aaron has a point, and it's significant one, particularly timely around the Fourth of July. Geeks are increasingly becoming a separate entity. They are no longer on the margins of life; they are at its epicenter, running the systems that run the world. Few corporate, political, governmental or educational institutions could function for long without them. And many, like Aaron, yearn for some sort of political community.

Aaron is definitely in the vanguard of a social revolution. There are "Head Geeks" at every school, college, modern company and organization in every technologically - advanced country in the world. They are now among the world's only truly indispensable workers. Nobody would have paid much attention to them a decade ago. Now, people mutter at their special privileges (they never, ever have to wear ties, and can wander school hallways at will) and at the fact that they are increasingly relied on to operate the system - whatever it is - that governs work and business.

If they ever did band together, they would constitute a powerful, communicative and influential political force, especially as Presidential elections edge closer. It might even make the increasingly-persistent efforts to corporatize, profit from, politically exploit fears of, and censor the Net politically untenable. If even a small number of geeks around the country were to call in sick, for example, the next time Congress passes some noxious law curbing free speech, or journalism promoted unthinking hysteria as it did post- Littleton, our political and journalistic institutions might, however briefly, be forced to act rationally and sanely. Idiocy and hypocrisy would become dangerous instead of politically advantageous: they'd cost money and disrupt business.

Maybe Aaron's idea could work this way: Geeks could form a Union. They could agree upon a narrow, simple agenda: freedom, the sharing of technology and the advancement of neat stuff.

It might work, as long as the geeks don't ever meet in person, ask for or pay dues, adopt by-laws or regulations, or even think about choosing leaders.

Comments

"Few" indispensable vocations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jon, I don't think so. *Most* vocations, perhaps outside of advertising and entertainment, are indispensable; to think that one's own job is vastly more important in that way reeks of hubris.
Ever read a short story titled something like "Keep the Roads Rolling", featuring workers trying to blackmail society?

Let's think about this. How 'bout:
* teachers
* sanitation engineers
* police
* soldiers
* highway maintenance
* farmers
* truck drivers
* roustabouts
* telecom workers
* food/drug testers

Well, guess none of them are necessary and geeks are "special". Wow! *SMACK*