Comment by nonrandomstring
2 days ago
Genuinely curious what makes you see those sets as disjoint? YMMV but as an older person I've always associated socially and politically advanced thinking with the mindset of the "original" pioneers in tech. Shallow money-grubbing, fame obsession, fragile egos... that archetype came much later.
Your intuition is right--the overlap between the "OG tech nerd" and hacker spirit and what the right has recently taken to decry as "woke" is high. Just head to any actual OG tech nerd / hacker event and check how popular Elon & co are with them.
If you are genuinely curious I would suggest reading Paul Graham's essay on wokeness.
Cheers, ok, but I couldn't locate a link between generation and outlook that satisfied me. The essay is a nice blast of pop psychology about "types of people", a worthy attack on political persecution, rabid ideology and hive-minds, intolerance, and a weaker attack on the idea of "performativeness" (so avoiding a frontal attack on "social justice"). But in this way Graham divides "wokeness" from the virtues of thoughtful system-theorists and original tech-optimists I mentioned, bracketing out "woke" as mere despicables and rebels without a cause. Any admirable social justice aims just evaporate in this treatment. But isn't this what we're in now, just with a pendulum swing? All the new-breed technofascists just want to "make the world a better place", right?
I can simply it for you.
In 2007 the average person on HN was considered progressive or left leaning because they generally felt that same sex marriage should be legal.
Those same people in 2025 are now considered "far right" by the left because they believe that women have a right to say they feel uncomfortable being exposed to penises in the locker room when playing college sports.