Slashdot Goes Political - Politics for Nerds

slashdot.com ^ | 9/7/2004 | slashdot

[GeorgiaFreeper]

With the US Presidential Election coming up, we've had a lot of story submissions that we would like to post, but they don't fit very well on the Slashdot main page. To address this, we'll be running special political coverage between now and the election in our new Politics subsection of Slashdot. Please submit stories directly to the section for consideration. As with all sections on Slashdot, there will be stories available within that section that don't get posted to the main page, so please visit the section if you are interested in more coverage. We'll do our best to be fair with story selection. We think we can do a good job since the Slashdot editors represent a diverse spectrum of political ideologies. The discussions are up to you guys. Here's hoping the experiment works!

[GeorgiaFreeper]

Politics for nerds :)

[flashbunny]

full of a bunch of liberals ...no thanks.

[BlazingArizona]

Slashdot readers are in favor of a nuclear attack on HollyWood, just like us, but for a different set of reasons.

[GeorgiaFreeper]

We can try bringing them around by posting conservative articles over there. A couple of them could be reachable...

[hedgie]

Slashdot= a shadow of its former self.

[MarkeyD]

They won't listen. I've had to deal with software geeks for years. My estimation is it's 90% liberal. Most geeks don't like confrontation so it makes sense. They drive me crazy.

[flashbunny]

no, it's a waste of time. The only thing that will changed them is being mugged by reality.

[SpaceBar]

As much as I enjoy Slashdot to get the latest nerdy news and linux goings-on, I've found myself going there less and less because of the lame political views often demonstrated there. It is as if the product of technical knowledge and political common sense equal a constant.

[ChadGore]

I have little use for a group who takes seriously statements like "information wants to be free"

[marvlus]

They won't listen. I've had to deal with software geeks for years. My estimation is it's 90% liberal. Most geeks don't like confrontation so it makes sense. They drive me crazy.

This software geek is not liberal, as well as most of those that work with me at the company I work at. I think it depends on the type of software.

[Arthalion]

Actually, I've been a Slashdot poster for many years (four digit user ID and all), and I've found Slashdot to be fairly politically balanced overall, with a very vocal right-libertarian/pro-meritocracy espousing contingent.

Remember, nerds tend to be people who were picked on in high school, but who became successful through their own ingenuity, brains, and hard work. There ARE socialist geeks out there, but they certainly aren't anything resembling a majority.

Truth be told, though, the vast majority of Slashdotters simply don't care about politics on any level. If it doesn't involve computers, spam, or the interminable GPL/Microsoft wars, they simply can't be bothered to pay attention to it. Seriously, after 9/11 I had an exchange with one geek who's biggest problem was the fact that the falling towers cut the fiber to his datacenter, taking his servers offline. In his world, the deaths of thousands were less important than his data throughput. He wasn't liberal, he simply lived in his own little world (like many computer nerds) and focused his attention solely on the things that affected that world.

[MarkeyD]

I've met thousands over the years as I was in sales, selling directly to them (development tools, compilers/debuggers). But I'm out of sales now doing development.

[AppyPappy]

I've been there for years as well. It's gone downhill in the last few months.

[banjo joe]

I've had to deal with software geeks for years. My estimation is it's 90% liberal

The under 30 crowd, most of 'em. I'm almost 50 and been in the IT game for 25 years. The old-timers get it.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

As much as I enjoy Slashdot to get the latest nerdy news and linux goings-on, I've found myself going there less and less because of the lame political views often demonstrated there.

I just got my mod privileges back after posting an up-PC response a few months ago.

[pikachu]

Cowboy Neal for president??

[Born to Conserve]

I think most computer geeks, the real ones, are somewhere between libertarian and anarchical.

[Arthalion]

Yeah, well, I have my own suspicions about that. I've noticed threads referring to Slashdot while trolling DU, Indymedia, and other lefty sites, and my suspicion is that there is a semi-organized movement on the left to "recruit" new lefties by spamming Slashdot (and other non-political discussion boards) with their messages. I've noticed the uptick in recent lefty posts myself, and without fail they ALL seem to be coming from users with new accounts who, if you look at their history, only comment when they can add a political angle to a discussion.

Slashdot doesn't have any equivalent to the mighty viking kitty, so they tend to just get ignored (because of my long membership and perfect karma, I also moderate a lot...almost weekly...and I usually hit them with either a Troll or an OffTopic downmod when I see them).

Browsing at +1 gets rid of 90% of them anyway.