
The quasi-libertarian anti-politics of the tech nerd - hodgesmr
http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9214015/tech-nerds-politics
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dankohn1
I started reading Vox because it was co-founded by two of my favorite
bloggers, Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein. But David Roberts has now overtaken
them as my favorite writer there.

It is ludicrous how many pundits and activists ignore that political science
is a real science with useful, counter-intuitive findings and predictive
results. Roberts is doing great popularizing and translating those insights.

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rwinikates
So many good points in here.

\- There are no moderates

\- one party is more extreme than another

\- decisions are made by those who show up, and thus far "nerds" are not a big
force, but they could be

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Additional point: there really isn't a "center", as where ideology weakens,
corruption takes over.

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yellowapple
The article appears to be making the mistake of assuming political spectrums
to be linear or single-dimensional. They're not. As one of these "moderates"
the article discusses, my disdain for American politics has nothing to do with
trying to find a "middle ground" between a Democrat left and a Republican
right because that entire line is way off into the "totalitarian corrupt
police state" end of an at-least-two-dimensional spectrum.

This is why so many "nerds" swing "quasi-libertarian". Not only do they want
both social _and_ economic freedom (as a whole, both the Republicans and
Democrats only seem to want one or the other), but they also tend to want
individual freedom. They're tired of not actually having a voice because some
big company like Comcast has better resources to bribe politicians. They're
tired of being ordered around by basically the same people who were laughing
at them and giving them wedgies back in the 80's. They swing libertarian
because libertarianism is billed as the means of euthanizing the ugly, vicious
beast that is the American political machine. Else, they simply give up,
seeking to subvert the political system and exist beyond its reach. This is
why candidates like Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul and Donald Trump are
appealing to this particular demographic: because they promise to fight
against the cruft instead of riding the status quo like quite literally every
other goddamn politician in this country.

A well written article, but it's misguided if it thinks that us "nerds" are
wrong for distrusting the American political system, as it seems to imply.
Washington is in need of some _serious_ percussive maintenance.

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J_eastburn
It seems to me that tech is primed to increase civic engagement much in the
same way it's increased social engagement. FB does this obliquely with
articles dominating newsfeeds these days.

For my own part I've been toying with the idea of a mailer or notification
that encourages voting. Whether you voted or not is public record. You could
mail out comparative statistics vs. your neighborhood or block. "You vote in
X% of national, Y% of state, and Z% of local elections. Your neighbors are
doing better because they vote in X+1% of national, Y+5% of state, and Z+10%
of local elections. Get out and vote next week! Here's some information on how
to get informed..." etc.

