We've come full circle. I never thought I would see someone unironically support monarchy in 2019, much less cite Hans Hermann Hope as an actual source. Hacker News! A place for hackers, people who want freedom to explore new technologies, disrupt industries, and evaluate other hackers based on their merit alone. God the Internet has gone downhill. Democracy is messy and complicated, but lifetime leaders are not the right answer and do not align with hacker culture at all.
Isn't it contradictory to consider yourself an arbiter of which opinions hackers should be allowed to have? The idea that the Internet has gone downhill because of increased participation is inherently elitist.
In any case, this forum is hosted on a website whose primary goal is to help tech minded people become rich and attain the top of the neo-liberal hierarchy. So much for the cyberpunk fantasy...
No one person is the "arbiter" of what hackers should think. That's ridiculous. But cultural norms exist. The hacker subculture (which also exists) has norms that trend towards making decisions based on merit and skill, while also emphasizing freedom. I don't think it is controversial to associate these attributes with hackers. And it is not controversial to say that these attributes are incompatible with the rule of an absolute monarch, who by definition rules unilaterally no matter the merit of his/her actions.
What really bothers me is this implication that increased participation always means a better website. I mean come on. This person is proposing a monarchy! What year is this, 1650? It is great to have a diversity of opinions, but no one is obligated to sit on the sidelines and say nothing when someone else gives a hot take straight out of Leviathan. Everyone is free to express their opinion on this site, but we are all free to call out B.S. when we see B.S.
I think your perspective makes sense, and I agree with it for the most part. I just feel that there is an underlying tension at the root of it.
Although hacker culture is mostly as you describe it, I would say that many hackers are also contributing to making the world more monarchical, even if they might not perceive their actions as such. The way tech is changing society and the way tech companies are evolving is pointing the way towards a resurgence of a somewhat feudalistic power structure with capital-owners at the helm supported by a caste of highly educated or skilled professionals, and the remainder of the population in dire economic straits.
That's why the "It's [current year]!" argument rings hollow to me. Most hackers will become either capital owners or part of the higher caste, because they will have skills that make them economically adaptable.[0] The largest part of their work ultimately helps increase inequality since whatever productivity gains are largely captured by the new feudal lords, so to speak. This is hardly an original or profound insight since wages have been stagnating for years and inequality has been skyrocketing. With automation, something identical to absolute monarchy will take place in all but name. A revolution will then be impossible since the Panopticon will have become real, the Third Estate will no longer be needed at all, and means of exchange will eventually become digitized.
You end up with hackers who have the luxury to discuss freedom and the big bad System even as they pauperize most of the population on Earth and contribute to that same system. Not every hacker does of course, but enough do to make it a concern.
Yeah, I absolutely agree that there is tension in the hacker community and that the aims of many self-proclaimed hackers is basically getting rich. I’ve seen a number of “Ask HN” posts essentially asking, “How can I get money fast using tech?”
At one time, I used to think the tech community was largely egalitarian-minded and that it actually believed in making the world a better place through technology. But it seems that a lot of tech entrepreneurs have basically become run-of-the-mill capitalists (if they weren’t from the beginning) who push for privatization of parts of government and oppose any kind of sane regulations on their companies.
Maybe hacker culture is just the juvenile stage in a tech entrepreneur’s quest to buy a big house on West Egg.
I don't support monarchies. Neither does Hoppe, or this book. He proposes only that monarchies are better than democracies, which he also doesn't endorse. I myself don't have a strong opinion on the question. I was referencing, without endorsing, an interesting theoretical explanation for the observation made in the parent comment.
