Posted on 10/24/2008 2:18:30 PM PDT by Still Thinking
I'm reading (for the second time) Scott Rosenberg's Dreaming in Code, the saga of part of the development of Chandler, an open source cross platform PIM. In it, he refers several times to the general liberal orientation of the programmers there (Al Gore even puts in an appearance), and I've noticed this in other software teams and in other types of engineering as well. It's not monolithic, there are certainly numerous conservatives, but it's always been somewhat of a paradox to me. I always felt that you had to be fairly intelligent to be a good tech, because technical issues are what they are and respond only to fact based approaches, and that you pretty much had to have a room temp IQ or less to be a liberal, so I would have expected those professions to be almost exclusively dominated by conservatives. So what gives? Anyone thought about this before?
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because they are by in large social deviants that ar fat, sweaty and stinky.
IMHO, there are different types of intelligence. My wife being in the medical professions, I’ve noticed that liberals far out number conservatives in any gathering of doctors, nurses, and advanced practitioners. No one is ever going to accuse anyone there of lacking intellect.
I’d also conjecture that to a degree their liberalism might even benefit them professionally. Whereas I’d want a conservative lawyer or a conservative accountant, I can see where being a bleeding heart isn’t a bad quality to have in the nurse taking care of you.
So many techs aren’t liberal, just liberal techs know how to make their voices louder technically. Conservative techs are too busy working.
I’ve found that brilliant people frequently live in an somewhat altered universe. That is to say that they tend to see the world differently. My brother in law is a brilliant coder....you probably know some of his books as well. DO NOT ask him for directions. He does not get lost, it is just the things he picks for landmarks are things ordinary people (i) don’t notice, (ii) can’t find. Also he has an altered sense of time.
I think they like what liberalism supposedly stands for and are naive as to political realities.
Not generally the case among the ones that I've met/worked with.
Liberalism is rampant in the unix-pukes. MS guys tend to lean conservative. These are my obervations.
I’m surprised if anyone gets through public school with any conservative principles left. By the time the schools, the professors, the news-readers and the Hollywood history re-writers have had non-stop access to your brain for a couple of decades, you could use some serious decompression.
I’m in the tech world.
Lots of conservatives still.
Though my company overall has a liberal contribution record when you look up donations.
What about defense tech companys though?
You will find a fair number of libertarians though, who don’t believe in socialism.
I think the primary reason is, of course, that techies do tend to not be social conservatives. Of course, many don’t seem to have the first clue about economics.
Conservative techie here!
I think that’s true. The other commonality that occurred to me is that the median age is fairly young among techies, and the young in general tend liberal.
They don’t sweat?
In other words: they're straight out of central casting Democrat voters.
Yea, I think Libertarian would be the better description of techies.
Libertarians are a strange mix though, conservative financially, but social issue liberals.
Bull Shit is my responce to this Vanity/Opin
I said they were social deviants... you explained it in much greater detail.
Now in your opinion are they in general overweight or fat?
In my opinion they are... in general.
My thoughts -- techs are usually pretty intelligent, true, but they typically have a very limited (read: focused) attention area. They don't pay much attention to politics, nor are they particularly well-versed in nuances and phraseology.
Thus, they tend to take things at face value and believe what they hear/see. Liberals tend to spend quite a bit more on advertising than conservatives, so their message gets out a lot more.
Just my $0.02 worth.
LOL - its how they got laid in HS and college, so they cling to it. But - HEAVEN FORBID something should mess with Stock Price or 401K!!!
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