All great points and a finer tooth comb of nuances than my own analysis :)
It all goes to show that the system in Washington is a complex piece of machinery that requires a hacker mentality to succeed. I absolutely and truly believe that the same mentality that makes great programmers also make great political operatives. Regardless of political ideology, I think we, as a community, can get involved to a much larger degree to help influence and shape the world from the other side of the business/government divide.
Definitely true. I think, unfortunately, that it seems like the hacker mentality also lends itself more to cynicism, and the end result is that the hacker mentality lends itself more to a bit of fatalism when it comes to the government. That, combined with the (less pronounced, perhaps) tendency of the hacker mentality to dovetail with introversion, makes it harder for the hacker community to get involved in that sense.
That sounds cynical, of course. I do think we can get better :) And I think SOPA for one was a great example of the community going “hang on just a second here…”
It all goes to show that the system in Washington is a complex piece of machinery that requires a hacker mentality to succeed. I absolutely and truly believe that the same mentality that makes great programmers also make great political operatives. Regardless of political ideology, I think we, as a community, can get involved to a much larger degree to help influence and shape the world from the other side of the business/government divide.