I know geeks with many different politics. The one thing we have in common is that we all approach the political question from a logical, systems-analysis angle. That's why so many geeks want radical changes in society - we're interested in root causes and want our beliefs to be founded on a set of basic principles, because if those principles are logical then everything we derive from them will be logical too. A mock-scientific approach.
A large section of American geekdom is right-libertarian. This is because (a) certain things about US culture and the US economic setup mean that right-libertarianism looks the most viable option to many people and (b) a strong sense of and desire for liberty and a knowledge of historical tyrannies encourage them to look for a libertarian option - and they come upon the axiom of free individuals forming contracts with each other freely - essentially classical liberalism.
So, why are so many geeks right-libertarian?
Geeks tend to like systematic explanations with logical axioms
Many geeks are American
American culture encourages viewing freedom to trade as an essential freedom
Right-libertarianism is an internally-consistent, logically structured social theory
Of course, there are plenty of geeks who are Republicans or Democrats or Greens or Communists or Anarchists in the US too. In Europe we have many social democrats ("liberals"), greens and far-left types.
I'm a geek and a libertarian myself, but I'm a left-libertarian. An "Anarchist Socialist". I think the flaw in right-libertarianism is that contracts are rarely freely entered into. If I have $1m and you have $100, I can easily get you to enter into a $200/week contract - I can bully you in the market through greater control of resources. I think its important to differentiate between personal property and productive capital. My computer should be mine; only I use it. My workplace should be equally mine with my co-workers; we all use that productive capital. My community should be held in common with my neighbours. I see landlords and the bourgeoisie* as parasites, living off our labour.
Of course I'm the same as the rest of the geeks, looking for a consistent system and solid axioms before deciding my political beliefs. In my case, it's a fanatical belief in democracy that has led me to my position - if we wouldn't tolerate a dictatorship, why do we tolerate not being able to elect our bosses? If electing politicians isn't democratic (and it's not), couldn't we place the base of power in mass meetings in workplaces and communities, and federate them?
* As in Marx's class system, which is class division based on power, not wealth (except in that wealth is power)
Proletariat: the class that has to sell its labour to survive
Bourgeoisie: the class that purchases the labour of the proletariat, and does not have to work
Although this stuff is covered by UN treaty, if someone has the biggest guns and wants to claim Mars, how will anyone stop them? European international law of the 17th century stated that all of the world outside Europe belonged to Spain and Portugal (it was a Papal decree), but in the end the English and Dutch and French were all able to have a go.
Go to system > preferences > file management, or edit > preferences in a filebrowser window. Go to the behaviour tab. Tick the "Always open in browser windows" and "Always use text-entry location bar" options. Et voila. HTH:)
You notice tech, drug and copyright stories most because you know more about them. I'm a layman's expert in geopolitics, so I notice a different kind of crap story. Truth is, a small number of people own the media and they're from the same social class and have the same outlook as the small number of people who run everything else.
Surely the UK advert for Legend of Zelda: the Ocarina of Time has to be the worst ever: A game that women enjoyed playing at a time when almost all gamers were men, and they advertise it with the slogan "Willst though get the girl? Or play like one?"
Israel has not withdrawn from the West Bank. Gaza is under seige- remember the bombardment of the beach in Gaza that was part of the buil-up to the present conflict? It's not exactly ancient history! Israel also continues to occupy the Sheba Farms, which is arguably legally Lebanese territory (some say Syrian).
Hezbollah are indeed a nasty terrorist organisation. But so are the IDF. Both kill civilians in the pursuit of power. Both deliberately try to terrorise their target populations- unless you think Hezbollah has rockets hidden in Christian suburbs of Beirut? The IDF happens to have bigger guns, so they're more effective at killing at terrorising. Doesn't make their aims worse but they're certainly not better than Hezbollah either.
Essentially we have a situation where two nasty groups are duking it out and lots of innocent people are caught in the crossfire. This is A Bad Thing and peace is the best option.
As far as Palestine goes, what's happening there is nothing less than ethnic cleansing. A section of the Israeli ruling class wants "Eretz Israel" and will kill, maim and terrorise to get it. I'm sure if Hezbollah had a similar aim they would behave just as nastily. This isn't a James Bond movie, this is real life! Thinking it's Israel, the Good Guys vs Hezbollah, the Baddies, is just as dumb as thinking it's the other way around.
Few really agree with the Republicans or Democrats either- check out the poll statistics on free national healthcare for a perfect example. The TV only reports on these two guys so the few who bother to vote vote for whichever of those two seems like "the nicer guy", or for the candidate they hate least. A huge number take the rational option and don't vote, realising that tehy don't live in a functional democracy.
This is because you have (1) A rising merchant/business owner class who want more power, and a feudal ruling class opposing them and (2) Peasants who still have the old communal spirit and can see how bad working in the new factories is.
In my opinion, this question is essentially three questions:
1) What threatens the survival of the human race? 2) What are the immediate and root causes of the threats? 3) What actions would address these causes?
To some extent, we may be able to get away with addressing threats in a cosmetic way, but this is unsatisfactory as more than a stop-gap, as treating symptoms alone will inevitably lead to fresh problems.
*Threats*
So, what potentially threatens the survival of the human race?
My answers are 1) Climate change 2) Nuclear war 3) Global economic collapse due to the end of the oil age or running out of some other essential resource 4) Massive natural disasters such as a large enough asteroid impact
For simplicity, I'm including near-destruction of the human race as being covered by the question- after all, a few hundreds or thouands surviving with stone age technology wouldn't be much better than us all being wiped out.
(2) does not presently seem an immediate threat, and I have no idea how to prevent (4), so I'll leave those to your other correspondants.
*Causes*
The immediate causes of climate change are well documented- hydrocarbon consumption is undoubtedly the major factor at work. Most solutions to this problem hence focus on finding alternative energy sources. Unfortunately, this seems to be happening at a slower pace than we need it to.
Many seemingly insane economic decisions contribute to the problem. The Guardian last year ran a story about how most of the UK's recyclable waste is shipped to China, because it is cheaper to recycle there and they need the resources. ~80% of the UK's jobs are in the service sector these days- we import consumer goods and food rather than producing them locally. The same is true of most economically dominant countries. This involves polluting the atmosphere no end. The commuter society and low energy-efficiency in housing are also large contributing factors.
As a side note, I have been informed by an engineer in the nuclear industry of my aquaintance that most of the UK's nuclear power stations (Mr Blair's solution) are horribly inefficient for producing power, because they are designed to maximise plutonium production.
There's the immediate causes, but it definitely bears asking why we have the economic structure we have. Goods are shipped in from overseas not because of a lack of labour or resources in the UK, but because of the cost of labour. It is far cheaper to employ people in so-called "third world" countries to do the work. This situation has arisen because of the function of neo-colonialism.
In the 1950s and 60s, the old global system of European imperialism collapsed, giving way to a new system. It is no longer possible to invade and indefinitely occupy a country, as Iraq and Afghanistan are showing us at this very moment, and Vietnam and Afghanistan (again!) did for a previous generation. The Arab rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, and the Algerian war of independence are other key examples.
This posed a problem for the Imperial powers, or rather the ruling classes of those powers, who did not want to lose their privileged economic position. Instead, they turned to two old tools of the British Empire- (1) what British strategists called "the Arab Facade" in the post-Ottoman Middle East- maintaining friendly local puppet rulers instead of ruling directly. You can even allow elections, as long as the "right" candidate wins, or you have the ability to apply pressure to whoever happens to win. (2) Advantageous trade deals. Instead of ruling politically, you can rule economically. For example, Nigeria sells all, yes all, of its oil to foreign countries, then buys back what it needs for domestic consumption at inflated prices.
As a result, it is far far cheaper to employ labour in the economic periphery. This has led to a situation which mirrors that of the Roman Empire after the Punic Wars- flooded with cheap goods from Sicily and elsewhere, th
Slashdot Mirror
I know geeks with many different politics. The one thing we have in common is that we all approach the political question from a logical, systems-analysis angle. That's why so many geeks want radical changes in society - we're interested in root causes and want our beliefs to be founded on a set of basic principles, because if those principles are logical then everything we derive from them will be logical too. A mock-scientific approach.
A large section of American geekdom is right-libertarian. This is because (a) certain things about US culture and the US economic setup mean that right-libertarianism looks the most viable option to many people and (b) a strong sense of and desire for liberty and a knowledge of historical tyrannies encourage them to look for a libertarian option - and they come upon the axiom of free individuals forming contracts with each other freely - essentially classical liberalism.
So, why are so many geeks right-libertarian?
Of course, there are plenty of geeks who are Republicans or Democrats or Greens or Communists or Anarchists in the US too. In Europe we have many social democrats ("liberals"), greens and far-left types.
I'm a geek and a libertarian myself, but I'm a left-libertarian. An "Anarchist Socialist". I think the flaw in right-libertarianism is that contracts are rarely freely entered into. If I have $1m and you have $100, I can easily get you to enter into a $200/week contract - I can bully you in the market through greater control of resources. I think its important to differentiate between personal property and productive capital. My computer should be mine; only I use it. My workplace should be equally mine with my co-workers; we all use that productive capital. My community should be held in common with my neighbours. I see landlords and the bourgeoisie* as parasites, living off our labour.
Of course I'm the same as the rest of the geeks, looking for a consistent system and solid axioms before deciding my political beliefs. In my case, it's a fanatical belief in democracy that has led me to my position - if we wouldn't tolerate a dictatorship, why do we tolerate not being able to elect our bosses? If electing politicians isn't democratic (and it's not), couldn't we place the base of power in mass meetings in workplaces and communities, and federate them?
* As in Marx's class system, which is class division based on power, not wealth (except in that wealth is power)
Proletariat: the class that has to sell its labour to survive
Bourgeoisie: the class that purchases the labour of the proletariat, and does not have to work
Although this stuff is covered by UN treaty, if someone has the biggest guns and wants to claim Mars, how will anyone stop them? European international law of the 17th century stated that all of the world outside Europe belonged to Spain and Portugal (it was a Papal decree), but in the end the English and Dutch and French were all able to have a go.
Yeah, being a Democrat is "left".
American politics is insane.
Go to system > preferences > file management, or edit > preferences in a filebrowser window. Go to the behaviour tab. Tick the "Always open in browser windows" and "Always use text-entry location bar" options. Et voila. HTH :)
You notice tech, drug and copyright stories most because you know more about them. I'm a layman's expert in geopolitics, so I notice a different kind of crap story. Truth is, a small number of people own the media and they're from the same social class and have the same outlook as the small number of people who run everything else.
But of course- the early Apple interface was a clone of Xerox Lab's prototypes.
p uter#Xerox_PARC_and_the_Lisa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Com
Surely the UK advert for Legend of Zelda: the Ocarina of Time has to be the worst ever: A game that women enjoyed playing at a time when almost all gamers were men, and they advertise it with the slogan "Willst though get the girl? Or play like one?"
. php?id=cSE2xDes5b4KuT8
http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/profile/video_player
Israel has not withdrawn from the West Bank. Gaza is under seige- remember the bombardment of the beach in Gaza that was part of the buil-up to the present conflict? It's not exactly ancient history! Israel also continues to occupy the Sheba Farms, which is arguably legally Lebanese territory (some say Syrian).
Hezbollah are indeed a nasty terrorist organisation. But so are the IDF. Both kill civilians in the pursuit of power. Both deliberately try to terrorise their target populations- unless you think Hezbollah has rockets hidden in Christian suburbs of Beirut? The IDF happens to have bigger guns, so they're more effective at killing at terrorising. Doesn't make their aims worse but they're certainly not better than Hezbollah either.
Essentially we have a situation where two nasty groups are duking it out and lots of innocent people are caught in the crossfire. This is A Bad Thing and peace is the best option.
As far as Palestine goes, what's happening there is nothing less than ethnic cleansing. A section of the Israeli ruling class wants "Eretz Israel" and will kill, maim and terrorise to get it. I'm sure if Hezbollah had a similar aim they would behave just as nastily. This isn't a James Bond movie, this is real life! Thinking it's Israel, the Good Guys vs Hezbollah, the Baddies, is just as dumb as thinking it's the other way around.
Few really agree with the Republicans or Democrats either- check out the poll statistics on free national healthcare for a perfect example. The TV only reports on these two guys so the few who bother to vote vote for whichever of those two seems like "the nicer guy", or for the candidate they hate least. A huge number take the rational option and don't vote, realising that tehy don't live in a functional democracy.
Actually, industrialisation while you still have large number of peasants is a time when you're very likely to have revolutions or civil wars:
Tons of places, 1848America, 1861 Russia, 1917
Spain, 1936
This is because you have (1) A rising merchant/business owner class who want more power, and a feudal ruling class opposing them and (2) Peasants who still have the old communal spirit and can see how bad working in the new factories is.
In my opinion, this question is essentially three questions:
1) What threatens the survival of the human race?
2) What are the immediate and root causes of the threats?
3) What actions would address these causes?
To some extent, we may be able to get away with addressing threats in a cosmetic way, but this is unsatisfactory as more than a stop-gap, as treating symptoms alone will inevitably lead to fresh problems.
*Threats*
So, what potentially threatens the survival of the human race?
My answers are
1) Climate change
2) Nuclear war
3) Global economic collapse due to the end of the oil age or running out of some other essential resource
4) Massive natural disasters such as a large enough asteroid impact
For simplicity, I'm including near-destruction of the human race as being covered by the question- after all, a few hundreds or thouands surviving with stone age technology wouldn't be much better than us all being wiped out.
(2) does not presently seem an immediate threat, and I have no idea how to prevent (4), so I'll leave those to your other correspondants.
*Causes*
The immediate causes of climate change are well documented- hydrocarbon consumption is undoubtedly the major factor at work. Most solutions to this problem hence focus on finding alternative energy sources. Unfortunately, this seems to be happening at a slower pace than we need it to.
Many seemingly insane economic decisions contribute to the problem. The Guardian last year ran a story about how most of the UK's recyclable waste is shipped to China, because it is cheaper to recycle there and they need the resources. ~80% of the UK's jobs are in the service sector these days- we import consumer goods and food rather than producing them locally. The same is true of most economically dominant countries. This involves polluting the atmosphere no end. The commuter society and low energy-efficiency in housing are also large contributing factors.
As a side note, I have been informed by an engineer in the nuclear industry of my aquaintance that most of the UK's nuclear power stations (Mr Blair's solution) are horribly inefficient for producing power, because they are designed to maximise plutonium production.
There's the immediate causes, but it definitely bears asking why we have the economic structure we have. Goods are shipped in from overseas not because of a lack of labour or resources in the UK, but because of the cost of labour. It is far cheaper to employ people in so-called "third world" countries to do the work. This situation has arisen because of the function of neo-colonialism.
In the 1950s and 60s, the old global system of European imperialism collapsed, giving way to a new system. It is no longer possible to invade and indefinitely occupy a country, as Iraq and Afghanistan are showing us at this very moment, and Vietnam and Afghanistan (again!) did for a previous generation. The Arab rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, and the Algerian war of independence are other key examples.
This posed a problem for the Imperial powers, or rather the ruling classes of those powers, who did not want to lose their privileged economic position. Instead, they turned to two old tools of the British Empire- (1) what British strategists called "the Arab Facade" in the post-Ottoman Middle East- maintaining friendly local puppet rulers instead of ruling directly. You can even allow elections, as long as the "right" candidate wins, or you have the ability to apply pressure to whoever happens to win. (2) Advantageous trade deals. Instead of ruling politically, you can rule economically. For example, Nigeria sells all, yes all, of its oil to foreign countries, then buys back what it needs for domestic consumption at inflated prices.
As a result, it is far far cheaper to employ labour in the economic periphery. This has led to a situation which mirrors that of the Roman Empire after the Punic Wars- flooded with cheap goods from Sicily and elsewhere, th