The Rise and Fall of the Geek 358
chilled writes "Tom Steinberg has posted this guest editorial on The Register bemoaning the decline of the Geek. He suggests that geeks in their alignment against for example RIP and Microsoft are losing their voice. I think he's right but the emergence of a common set of goals should be recognised as a very good thing. The geeks amongst us should use this commonality to rise up and use our voice for progress and not petty squabbling."
"geeks" are being defined. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like the fact this this person believes we had strict boundaries. I don't like the fact that he calls us "pasty, long haired, UN*X t-shirt wearing" individuals.
I am against things that are wrong. Microsoft, the DMCA, and recent US policies are WRONG.
I don't have a pasty complexion, I don't have long hair, I don't live on pizza and Mountain Dew, and I certainly don't wear Unix related t-shirts.
He is the one setting boundaries on us, not the group.
Geeks stand up for what they believe in. We are typically young and brash and want to see change made. We are the protesters of the new millenium. We use a different medium than was used before. We are who we are, not what someone labels us as.
Please forgive the rant. He was just wrong for creating a false label for the "geek".
Did he proofread? (Score:5, Insightful)
He says geeks used to argue over the standard stuff, vi vs. emacs, keyboard vs. mouse, X vs. console, PC vs. microcomputer. Fair enough. Now he says that nobody argues against DRM, the DMCA, and invasions of privacy.
I suppose Soviet Communists in the olden days would argue about whether rubber or leather boots were better in springtime, but nobody felt justified saying, "Those capitalists aren't that bad!" Likewise, these days in America, there is plenty of talk about whether N'Bizkit is better than Limp Korn, or whatever retarded ear-shit people listen to. Yet nobody stands up and says, "You know, we really should let the state run all of our industry."
So big surprise, we're all in agreement about things that threaten the foundation and definition of the group. What an insight, you might as well go write an internet editorial about it and get Michael to post on Slashdot.
Ya know, it really is telling when I got halfway through this post and thought to myself, "Well goddamn, this must have been another piece of drivel that Micheal thought was really clever, like that time he shared with us the story about adjusting your TVs brightness control to play PS2." What crap.
The larger problem is the new crowd. (Score:5, Insightful)
High school kids coming out with MCSE's, places you can get a CCNA quick, or A+ certification that just seems like a joke to any old-school type. These people are the "new geek chic" and they're anything but.
Re:"geeks" are being defined. (Score:5, Insightful)
No they don't. They stand up and bitch to each other on geek-only websites about how no one else will stand up for them.
He still doesn't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
geeks are misfits, not some social group you can mobilize, the more mainstream the issue the more support you will lose and the more fragmentation you will see. The authors' failure to understand, just highlights the fact that he's not a geek but a suit trying to be cool. The sub-culture WAS NEVER tied together by commonality but by opposition of the homogenization of culture. Here this 'guest' editor is bemoaning the lack of just such a thing....
The counter culture is STILL there they've just shunned the icons proposed for them by the 'man' and those that would make a buck of them.
TGIF, and rant off......
The Geek Party? (Score:4, Insightful)
If being a geek means I'm some kind of political activist hippie, count me out.
Sorry, I don't buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, whatever. My hatred of Microsoft comes from the lack of stability in their operating systems, and their predatory, monopolistic practices (which have been confirmed in a court of law, thank you very much)
And Spam? Do I even have to address this point? I hate it because it wastes my time, it wastes internet bandwidth and storage space, and the people sending it don't even really have to pay very much to inconvenience the entire email reading planet. It's unbalanced.
"If none of this is making sense to you, try the following mental exercise. Could you sit in a pub with a group of geeks, defend the RIP Act, and convince them that you were still one of them?"
Yes I could. Perhaps I have more open minded friends than you, who are willing to entertain an argument without ostracizing someone with an alternative viewpoint.
I'm a geek because I've loved fooling with computers my entire life, have a profound desire to see technology used to improve the world, and have developed quite a bit of hardware, software, and programming expertise. My political affiliations don't enter into it. Neither do my race, sex, nationality, or religous beliefs.
Re:"geeks" are being defined. (Score:5, Insightful)
Geeks have become a clique
That is the problem. Just like some people who don't ride skateboards are called Skateboarders, and people who are into Anne Rice are called Goths, Geeks are now a "culture". This is the fundamental problem.
I don't know about you, but I AM NOT A GEEK. I am a highly paid, moderately liberal computer professional. I do not have a ponytail, I do not wear t-shirts with political slogans (most of my shirts are free vendor handouts with software or hardware logos), and I most certainly am not going to say that I belong to any particular cultural group.
However, I might be classed (by another individual) as a geek, since I can program in dozens of languages, configure routers, wire hubs, build servers, manage workstations, hand-edit the Windows Registry, and still remember the PET. I am against the DMCA, against harsh limits on fair use (while being for reasonable limits), and against an Orwellian future.
Does that make me a geek? Do I care? No. I think that is the problem. Geeks used to be just about anyone who was technical (in anything from Art to Circuitry), and had "fallen out of society" at some point. I have miserable social skills, for example.
Perhaps those of us who seem to be the former geeks should just go back to ignoring these morons, and especially anyone who claims to have geek pride. Or, perhaps we should just be more assertive in saying "F@#K You!" when people try to classify us.
My views probably don't agree with your views in lots of ways. Good. Keep it that way. Be yourself, and to hell with anyone else. Just don't forget that "Geek" apparently is now a culture that was built around the people, not the other way around.
-WS
Re:A Counter Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of geeks out there who want nothing to do with Linux, prefering the tools of Sun, Apple and even (gasp!) Microsoft. The first article seems to make the case that all geeks demand open source exclusively, because if you don't make such demands, you're not a geek. (A classic falacy of logic).
I would even go so far as to say that the majority of geeks that I have known are aware of open source & Linux, and use both at least some of the time (particularilly some of the better GNU tools), but are not married to the Stalmanist ideology that all software should be free, and spend most of their time working with various closed applications. There are those who fit the description of these articles, but I don't believe they don't even represent the majority of geekdom, let alone a consensus.
The whole debate is downright Katzian, in that it assumes a cultural development that isn't actually happening.
I can speak only for myself, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Stranger still is the lack of consistency amongst these beliefs. Many values, such as the love of privacy and free speech come from a broadly libertarian tradition evolving from the philosophy of Mill and Locke. Others, such as the hatred of Microsoft and the loathing of Spam come from a quite reverse philosophy - a principled distain of the side-effects of capitalism, betraying socialist ancestry. Still others come from a strong defence of certain rights (notably fair use of copyrighted materials) which seem to be primarily based on rational self-interest, rather than any particular ideology. From Tom's op-ed.
By way of reply:
Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as a part of nature and holds that values--be they religious, ethical, social, or political--have their source in human experience and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny. From the Humanist Magazine.
Which is, it seems to me, totally consistent with the three things he names. The first two are obvious, but humanistic opposition to DRM needs some explanation. The RIAA/MPAA are trying to prevent the emergence of a new, popularly empowered culture from which they won't be able to make as much money.
Pet Peeve (Score:5, Insightful)
"Geeks may argue about which Linux distro is best
I would classify myself as a geek and I never felt terribly comfortable using Linux. I've dabbled here and there, kept Linux boxen lying around, but have never used any as my primary machine. I've been a devout BSD fan...until OS X came along.
"...but they all know that a Good OS Has to Be Free. "
bullshit. A good OS has to be good. I'll pay for an operating system that I think is solid. I had no problems paying $129 for Jaguar a few weeks ago.
Geeks are people who are curious about technology and make a living and a hobby out of utilizing technology different ways. Oh wait.... I forgot what site I was posting on. Long live Linux and down with those imperial Microsuck bastards
Problem with their reasoning (Score:2, Insightful)
This is perhaps one of the greatest dangers to "geek politics".
Re:evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:RIP (Score:3, Insightful)
Interestingly enough while we are talking about UK specifics, I do think this sort of "geek groupthink" the article complains about is becoming more detectable, and one of the symptoms of it I have run into locally a couple of times are UK "geeks" who spout off about the DMCA and illegality of decss and other US specific tech legalities, seemingly ignorant of the fact that they don't actually apply to their own national jurisdiction. Generally they then move on to tell me that OpenBSD is more secure by design, RMS is a lunatic , emacs/vi/KDE/GNOME sucks , X11 is bloated, windows crashes a lot , all the other 2nd hand opinions you see on sites like this every day, blah blah. I have a name for these people, and it isn't "geeks". But I'm not sure that its anything sinister. You could probably chalk it up to the fact that the sort of people who use their computers a lot are nowadays exposed to a wider pool of consensus due to the increasing penetration of the internet. This always happens as something moves from the fringes,to a trend and then into the mainstream.
Lets face it, in 2002 there isn't anything terribly "geek"-ish, or whatever you want to call it, about having linux on a home( or even work ) computer, using the web,and being aware of DRM issues ( at least napster and DVD region coding ) and buying T-shirts online that reference these things. In fact there hasn't been for a good few years now. Sturgeons Law, people. As always, look to the fringes for the voices of dissent, of course those fringes are always being redefined. Thats how social evolution works, I've always thought. Celebrate diversity for sure, but don't forget elitism sucks.
OT: Begging the Question (Score:3, Insightful)
what drivel (Score:2, Insightful)
Others, such as the hatred of Microsoft and the loathing of Spam come from a quite reverse philosophy - a principled distain [sic] of the side-effects of capitalism, betraying socialist ancestry.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist; their actions are not a "side-effect of capitalism", their actions have been anti-competitive, anti-free market and, arguably, anti-democratic.
Spam, too, is theft of service--a crime--not a "side-effect of capitalism". I pay for my mail bandwidth, and most of it is taken up by stuff I didn't pay for. Big companies can have anybody prosecuted who as much as connects to their server in a way they don't like, why do I have to put up with megabytes of spam every day?
Geeks understand the machinations of power, influence and money a lot better than Steinberg gives them credit for, and apparently a lot better than Steinberg himself does. The difference between geeks and other participants in the political process is that geeks often won't shut up about it and they take a long-term perspective and won't accept expedient short-term compromises that only make the situation worse in the long term. The opposition of geeks to Microsoft, the RIAA, and spam doesn't derive from a hypothetical "socialist ancestry", it arises out of a concern that high technology can only prosper in a democratic society, in a free market, and in a country where people can discuss and exchange ideas free from private or public interference.
Maybe geeks won't be able to prevent the destruction of free speech, free markets, or democratic and constitutional principles in America, but we are certainly not going to shut up about it. If the rest of the country ignores us, that's their loss. We are doing all we can by speaking up.
Re:evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Daniel
Evidence Here on Slashdot: Community Becomes Cult (Score:4, Insightful)
When identification with a community becomes more important to each community member than the goals or shared behaviors of the community, that community is well on the way to becoming an irrelevant cult. Why? Because an individual need only adopt the accoutrements of the community to claim membership. The need to actually make a substantive contribution to furthering the community's objectives, goes away. In fact, the community's objectives fade away until the sole objective becomes reinforcing each individual's association with the group. In other words, it dissolves into a "us versus them" scenario, where the only thing defining "us" is "not them" status.
The evidence is here on Slashdot every day: Few expressions of commitment to do anything about DMCA/RIAA/DRM except pen denunciatory posts; Use of "lusers" in reference to "users" (if your an admin, they're really your "customers"); assertions that Unix users are more intelligent than users of other operating systems; unwillingess to consider other points of view; readiness to censor dissenting voices (known as "moderation" around here); a dogmatic belief that everything the "enemy" says and does is a lie and, therefore, unworthy of a second's thought; and, in the obvious case of many posters, an adopted posture of cynicism lacking the credibility of real experience.
Re:evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
I've thought about this recently, and I strongly disagree. I work on information technology that tends to make us more free, such as encryption. Geek politics isn't about politics; geek politics is about freedom, which is much more important than science and engineering. At least in my book.
I'd absolutely love to be able to just work on technology, but the laws are limiting my ability to do that, and I'm less free because of it (look at the DMCA and similar laws).
Freedom comes first. Information technology tends to provide freedom by empowering persons. I've noted that geek politics tend to resist those who resist empowering technologies, such as encryption and information-sharing; such persons wish to maintain the status quo, which always benefits the incumbents.
It's not about life being too short that you shouldn't 'waste' it on politics; politics is what decides our freedom.
Re:They call them geeks (Score:2, Insightful)
I think 20 years ago, yeah, being a "geek" was a bad thing. But, in the past several years, "geek" has become tres chic, especially after the rise of the Internet and the personal computer invading everyone's home. Hell, now if I call myself a "geek", I'm Mr. Popular with people coming up to me asking me all kinds of stupid computer questions, and in gasp of the stuff I have on my computer (such as 6 CDs worth of MacGyver episodes).
And, "geek" is only a word. It has the meaning you give it. If you take offense to the word "geek", then that's something you have to deal with yourself. To me, I am a proud "geek"
Re:evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh, and here I thought most geeks from 20 years ago were people that worked either directly or indirectly for the defence industry, and had probably seen time in the service. If you're trying to tell me that such a lifestyle equates to political indifference I've got some shares of LinuxCare to sell you...
Homogeniety (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at any issue of politics that arises in this forum. I see plenty of my fellow "tax-and-spend" liberals and hordes of reactionary libertarians. Hardly a herd of like-thinkers. Look the the flamewars that emerge between Windows/Linux advicates, Linux/BSD advocates, GPL fans/GPL opponents, hell, emacs/vi. "Geeks" are not some sort of monoculture. And people who claim they speak for the "geek community" are doing so because they want to take a position in front of it. In other words, they are trying to gain power from association with a perceived collective of people.
But we aren't a monoculture. We aren't even a culture -- we're a shared enthusiasm for techie things. There are communities within geekdom, but there isn't a single community, a single outlook, a single political stance. I'm tired of people speaking for me. This guy doesn't know me, he doesn't speak for me, and there mere accident that we might agree about one or many things does not give him license to claim my voice.
Re:Pet Peeve (Score:3, Insightful)
Blockquoth the poster:
Not quite. Geeks can have an obsessive interest in just about anything: computers, movies, games, comics, math, politics, cars, whatever. It is the obsession itself, and the behavioral quirks resulting from it, that defines us as geeks.
Sure, geeks are often also technologically literate, but that is because we are more willing and eager to use new technology to satisfy our individual obsessions. Outside of the Slashdot / Register / Ars Technica crowd, most geeks still see the computer as merely a tool.
Re:A Counter Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the most absurd thing I've read in a mod 5 post yet.
The first article seems to make the case that all geeks demand open source exclusively, because if you don't make such demands, you're not a geek
The author is a good journalist, and he's very impartial...but he doesn't understand the basis of the problem.
He started the article by saying that in the "good ol days" like the 1980's geeks disagreed on many things, but they all had one common characteristic...a love, a fascination with technology. The author seems to think that we've fallen from our true cause...and now are just a bunch of whining 2nd rate hippies.
My response to the author is this: There is no way to have a geek world with DRM. It is fundamentally impossible. There is no happy median, there is no compromise, it is impossible. Why? Because being a geek is about taking a general purpose set of tools(wires, capacitors, an instruction set, a programming language, etc) and casting those tools into something new. Show me one good classical geek "hack" that wasn't about doing something new and creative with ordinary hardware? That's the whole point; that was always the whole point.
DRM will only be effective by removing this capabilty from all technologies...not just computers, but all of them. There is no such thing as 99% DRM, or 50% DRM. If I find a way to hack my toaster's MPU to resonate the heating coils at sonic frequencies, and then play MP3's with it, then the DMCA has failed. What that means is that every microchip must be crippled into a "special purpose" device. There is no longer any need for a programming language...just hardwires "allowing" the appropriate functionality for the consumer. And ultimately excluding any other function.
If this happens, everything any of us have ever loved about technology will be finished...done. Sure you can still microwave your popcorn, check your e-mail, and order your pay-per-view...but that is all you will ever be able to do(and it's all your grandchildren will ever be able to do). It's the end of technological progress, period.
There is no middle ground on this issue.
Re:Duh, we were outcasts then, we are outcasts now (Score:1, Insightful)
Plato, Diogenes, Jesus, Gutenberg...
On the other hand who remembers the Fugger, or all the Medici except Katarina...
Those were the Gates and Enrons of their time...
They made some imprints on the arts as big spenders but didn't really change society to the better, on the contrary...
Major changes in opinion don't work in a vacuum (Score:1, Insightful)
Take for example the rise of gangs during prohibition, the marked increase in drug-related crimes right after we declared a war on drugs, etc.
Well, by quite similar logic, geeks' sudden interest in copyright law and reverse-engineering may perhaps be due to the fact that copyright law has been recently greatly expanded and reverse-engineering is no longer nearly as tolerated as it once was. Thus geeks caring about what they have always cared about (the ability to make things work) is suddenly seen as activism. If I made a copy of a VHS tape in 1987, I was an average Joe. If I make a copy of a DVD in 2002, I am a fringe activist bent on destroying intellectual property.
Perhaps geeks are the thing that hasn't changed, and the world around them has.
Re:I am a geek....and I am conservative...... (Score:2, Insightful)
It only seems like you are alone because the editors have a way of spinning a cotton-candy haze of pro-piracy, anti-MS floss about much of the news they disseminate. In turn, the younger participants (and, boy, doesn't it seem like there's an awful lot of high school and college kids on this board?) who are still in the process of forming opinions/having opinions formed for them, hop on the bandwagon -- which is built rather low to the ground to facilitate this.
Geeks/nerds are defined -- such as we need defining -- by our love for and affinity with technology, not by our politics.
Some of the geekiest people I have ever met are those who work "behind the scenes" in the entertainment industry, whose jobs center around securing their employers' assets from piracy. I've also met quite a few "Big Brother" geeks for whom the latest surveillance gear was like a newest distro of Linux. Nice guys. 110% Geek. Suffice to say I identified a lot more with them than I do with the juvenile dollar-signs-in-place-of-esses UseNet cast-offs that populate so many of the "political," uhh, discussions, on this board.
Geeks do not have a common politic, as Marketing Executives, Creative Designers, and athletes do not. I resist SlashDot's heavy-handed Hive-Think attempts to tell me how "we" should think.
Penn Jillette (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned, "geeks" did not develop some political mono-culture, politicians (and cartels) started to make a political movement out of restricting the activity of computer programmers and other technically minded people. Of course there are going to be technically minded people who sell out to the enemies of progress, that's inevitable. Those people will end up being sacrificed as soon as it is convienient to those in power.
The reason why technically minded people agree that things like Microsoft or DRM are bad is because they have had a bad experience with them, and they understand the cause of the problem. My sister did not understand it when she tried to hook her new DVD player up to a TV with no RCA jacks and the picture wouldn't work. She ended up buying a TV with RCA jacks to replace her old TV. I'm sure average people who use computers on which MS has deliberately broken some application they don't like don't necessarily blame MS any more than they do if their modem burns out in a thunderstorm.
Geeks have their eyes open, and they can't pretend un-learn things just because they are inconvienient to the **AA. The philosophy of the cartels and MS is often similar, and it boils down to, "Yes, we made that broke on purpose and if you want to fix it, we'll sick the law on you."
Oh, and plenty of geeks draw distinctions between illegal and legal uses for stuff like P2P. In fact, I'm sure that some originally thought, "Copying songs and ripping off the publisher is wrong, but that doesn't mean there aren't legitimate uses for this cool technology," but gave up that stance when they realized that the cartels might want to shut down P2P if it offered a competing business that was not illegal even more than they would shut down the illegal uses of P2P. Look at the history, the movie industry versus television, the movie industry versus the VCR and portions of the movie industry against DVD (and favoring Divx).
If you love technolgy, you will fight people who think the status quo is fine and want to destroy anything that shakes things up, even if robbing society of some knew technology will harm society as a whole.
If you don't love technology, then you are probably the kind of geek who eats broken glass or bites the heads off of chickens at a carnival blow-off [20m.com] and not a geek in the sense the author is. If you do love technology, then you will passionately hate attempts to restrict or suppress it. That's where a political "monoculture" comes from.
Re:Wow! (Score:2, Insightful)