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I think a lot of this perception really just stems from how many programmers aren't conveniently aligned along the American political axis. There's a strong te

I think a lot of this perception really just stems from how many programmers aren't conveniently aligned along the American political axis. There's a strong tendency to say that anyone who doesn't have an easily-legible stance "isn't political", but that elides the difference between "doesn't care" and "isn't compatible with the existing political options". Even on "politics versus policy", I meet some programmers who limit themselves to policy based on lack of political interest, and some who limit themselves based on lack of political options. If you're something like left-libertarian or a privacy-supporting technocrat, modern US parties have roughly nothing to offer you. Those views aren't just outside the mainstream, but perpendicular to it. You can't just try to pull the Democrats left or the Republicans right to reach your views, you have to hope for some complex multi-directional change. Many of the most political programmers I know have one of those positions. So they lobby against SOPA, or push for pollution taxes over caps, but they don't see much value in advocating for any of the existing players. (Of course, programmers are also just normal people; all of these generalizations are best understood not as actually common but as how programmers diverge from the mainstream when they do diverge.)

clairity 9y ago
yah, no one is really aligned with conventional political parties, because we're trying to squeeze 230 million voting-age citizens (in the US) into (effectively) 2 increasingly disconnected boxes. political parties seem to have detached themselves from the common citizen as they chase moneyed donors (who themselves have concentrated in the past few decades). power is consolidating along many dimensions, and that's both disconcerting and isolating to us ordinary citizens.

clairity 9y ago

yah, no one is really aligned with conventional political parties, because we're trying to squeeze 230 million voting-age citizens (in the US) into (effectively) 2 increasingly disconnected boxes. political parties seem to have detached themselves from the common citizen as they chase moneyed donors (who themselves have concentrated in the past few decades). power is consolidating along many dimensions, and that's both disconcerting and isolating to us ordinary citizens.