"Formerly vaguely liberal-moderate, more recently moderate-to-neoconservative (hackers too were affected by the collapse of socialism). There is a strong libertarian contingent which rejects conventional left-right politics entirely. The only safe generalization is that hackers tend to be rather anti-authoritarian; thus, both paleoconservatism and ‘hard’ leftism are rare. Hackers are far more likely than most non-hackers to either (a) be aggressively apolitical or (b) entertain peculiar or idiosyncratic political ideas and actually try to live by them day-to-day."
Mapping this to any political ideology would be difficult.
If you want to destroy HN as it exists today, turn it into a political vehicle.
HN is not a HiveMind.
Even if I'm wrong, that still means I'm not part of the same hivemind/groupthink as you are. And yet here we both are, on HN.
Extreme and uncompromising to the point of absurdity? Actually, that does sound like the HN community!
More seriously though, even if there were enough cohesion among HN thinkers to build up anything resembling a worthwhile political entity, at least in the USA, it would be a powerless symbolic party, fit only for mockery by late night television comedians. The USA's current political system is completely intractable to the point where the current two parties are the only option; the only viable path is to move the two parties in our direction, alternatives are assuredly doomed to failure.
BUT they force other parties to think more about these issues and take position themselfs. I think the Piratenpartei is extremely beneficial for the political landscape here.
I have often wondered why the US seemed so slow to adopt these ideas. From my limited understanding, a good deal of the problem is probably the 2 party system in the US, but that doesn't mean a "HN party" couldn't apply a lot of pressure to democrats and republicans alike.
Becoming a political party means that we would need to have a stance on every issue. Being a lobby means we can focus on the issues that we know about and care about.
Isn't that the reason? We may need a lobby too.
It was more a North-South divide than a party divide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#By_par...
(Signed into law by a Democrat, incidentally)
> that it was Democrats who were the anti-abolitionist party?
And France had a Napoleon (III) at the helm, but that hardly means a thing today.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
In the House:
- Southern Democrats voted 94% against it -- but Southern Republicans voted 100% against it.
- Northern Democrats voted 94% for it -- but Northern Republicans voted only 85% for it.
In the Senate:
- Southern Democrats voted 95% against it -- but Southern Republicans voted 100% against it.
- Northern Democrats voted 98% for it -- but Northern Republicans voted only 84% for it.
So, the strongest split wasn't party, but region -- the South was against it and the North was for it. But by party within either region, North or South, the Democrats were more for (or less against) it, while the Republicans were less for (or more against) it.
OTOH, the Southern Strategy was a direct result of Republicans realizing that Democrats were vulnerable in the South because the Democratic Party as a whole was no longer voting in line with Southern conservatives.
I don't think it has enough wherewithal to bootstrap something like a new political party.