
Whatever became of the summer of love? - samclemens
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/whatever-became-of-the-summer-of-love/
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charles-salvia
If we were to somehow perform a Principal Component Analysis on the amorphous,
contradictory mess of "hippie ideals", we could probably distill them down to
something like a call to implement a post-scarcity, socialistic society with
few restrictions on human social behavior.

Of course, that kind of radical change isn't achieved by smoking pot and
playing the guitar in downtown San Francisco. It's achieved by major
technological changes that would make such a society even functionally
possible, like practically-unlimited renewable energy sources. Needless to
say, nobody involved in the 1960s counter-culture movements was in any
position to actually implement the kind of changes needed to realize the grand
vision of an ideal hippie society. (Some of them tried to do the next best
thing, and form their own mini-societies in communes out in the country, all
of which ultimately turned out to suck.)

I would also note that another 1960s icon, Gene Rodenberry, at least seemed to
realize that the kind of changes needed to implement a hippie utopia would
likely only be possible after many other practical societal problems were
solved via technology.

~~~
vidarh
> Needless to say, nobody involved in the 1960s counter-culture movements was
> in any position to actually implement the kind of changes needed to realize
> the grand vision of an ideal hippie society.

Maybe not directly, but a substantial chunk of the hacker culture came from
the periphery of it.

"What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal
Computer Industry" by John Markoff is an interesting exploration of those
links.

And some people, like Stewart Brandt, were at the nexus of both. Stewart
Brandt as part of the Merry Pranksters which was part of kickstarting the
hippie community in SF, as the publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog, assisting
Doug Engelbart with the Mother of All Demos, and later as a founder of The
Well and more recently via the Long Now Foundation.

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JKCalhoun
Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman a few decades ago did the college circuit
holding (mock?) debates regarding "hippy-ism". Abbie Hoffman at this time
still looked something like a radical(who, FWIW, wrote a book, "Steal This
Book") and claimed that the hippies sold-out and became the yuppies.

Jerry Rubin, dressed very much as you would expect a yuppy to dress, didn't
disagree but argued, "And why not?"

So it became a schism: realism vs. idealism, consumption and material security
vs. community and spiritual well-being.

Maybe the short answer is, they grew up.

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digi_owl
[https://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-
sociopaths](https://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths)

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DanBC
You only have to look at some of the ephemera to see that there was plenty of
violent ideology around, eg SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men - 1967
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUM_Manifesto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUM_Manifesto)
).

If you're interested you might like _BAMN - Outlaw Manifestos and Ephemera
1965-1970_ [https://www.amazon.co.uk/BAMN-Any-Means-Necessary-
Manifestos...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/BAMN-Any-Means-Necessary-
Manifestos/dp/0140032673)

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thinkfurther
Also see the lyrics to "Walkin' on the Sun".

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hammock
Didn't a group try to recreate it fo the 50th anniversary this year, and the
city wouldn't permit them for it? (SF)

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beams_of_light
How do I read this article? 2 pop-ins and no way to dismiss one of them.

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mrkrabo
I like the summer of George better.

