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First you said... The whole Lessig/Palantir issue is so illustrative of the tech community's bizarre insistence on ideological purity on political issues, and

by espeed 13y ago

First you said... The whole Lessig/Palantir issue is so illustrative of the tech community's bizarre insistence on ideological purity on political issues, and consequently illustrative of why tech as an industry has so little political influence despite having money and people. Now you say... Its silly to claim that "makers" are idealists by nature. BTW, in case my usage of "makers" needs clarification, I am using "makers" in the PG sense of the word (http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html) where "makers" == hackers, painters, founders. Successful founders find ways to solve problems. Elon Musk founded Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX on a set of ideals, i.e "principles that one actively pursues as a goal," and he has found a way to achieve these ideals that most thought were "impossible." If Elon Musk and enough other successful founders decided to run for office, the world would be a different place.

mpyne 13y ago
But certainly you can make things without necessarily having to be an idealist, even in pg's sense of the term. Sometimes people just want to build, or paint, or lead, or tinker with software, or any of a million other things that might make someone a maker. But none of that requires some kind of pure ideology, and in fact the successful maker with the pure ideology must almost be the exception to the rule. People like Dr. Stallman, perhaps. But certainly not all "makers".
rayiner 13y ago
Your confusion is predicated on your conflating "the tech community" with "makers." The tech community definitely has an idealistic streak. But it a small subset of the larger engineering world, which really does not. To the extent that you can ascribe an ideology to a profession, all those chemical engineers and civil engineers are not "hackers" or "painters" but rather "pyramid builders."
- espeed 13y ago
  Your confusion is predicated on your glossing over that I said these makers, in direct reference to your statement about "the tech community" being idealists. And in the context of the tech community (as you framed it), the makers who are hackers/founders (as I framed it) are an even smaller subset of the tech community and thus the engineering community at large.

by espeed 13y ago

mpyne 13y ago

But certainly you can make things without necessarily having to be an idealist, even in pg's sense of the term. Sometimes people just want to build, or paint, or lead, or tinker with software, or any of a million other things that might make someone a maker. But none of that requires some kind of pure ideology, and in fact the successful maker with the pure ideology must almost be the exception to the rule. People like Dr. Stallman, perhaps. But certainly not all "makers".

rayiner 13y ago

Your confusion is predicated on your conflating "the tech community" with "makers." The tech community definitely has an idealistic streak. But it a small subset of the larger engineering world, which really does not. To the extent that you can ascribe an ideology to a profession, all those chemical engineers and civil engineers are not "hackers" or "painters" but rather "pyramid builders."

espeed 13y ago
Your confusion is predicated on your glossing over that I said these makers, in direct reference to your statement about "the tech community" being idealists. And in the context of the tech community (as you framed it), the makers who are hackers/founders (as I framed it) are an even smaller subset of the tech community and thus the engineering community at large.