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.
the Politics section of the Jargon File’s Portrait of J. Random Hacker
A friend recently asked me how I was ever a democrat, given my ever-increasing dislike of big government. My answer was simple: “Social issues.”
With that said, the idea of a progressive minarchist transhumanist state that acts only to protect “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—in other words, that defends the same rights (i.e., marriage) for all human beings—is sounding pretty good to me.
