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by remedialhedge 1936 days ago
It is strange, but I think it makes sense culturally. HN grew out of that particular libertarian, anti-establishment "hacker" subculture, where it is very common to believe that the government and etc. is out to screw you. Rather than like, the government is also made up of people, the same kind of smart, educated people that might otherwise have worked at your startup, and the reason most of them chose to go into government is because they think that problems like macroeconomics and public finance and etc. are interesting.

But no, us tech dweebs are the righteous little guys fighting back against the rigged system, man!

1 comments

Very true. I also wonder if it has to do with folks in high school and college just not having money, so why bother paying attention to ECON material? It's all abstract.

It's like the Futurama joke from Future Stock:

  “Oh my god! I’m a millionaire! Suddenly, I have an opinion on the capital gains tax!”
That’s the stupidest theory I’ve heard this week. This is a forum hosted by a startup accelator where programmers and founders (as well as other professionals) gather. It’s not exactly a hippie resort.

Libertarians are also the most ideologically pro-capitalist people that one is likely to meet.

> That’s the stupidest theory I’ve heard this week. This is a forum hosted by a startup accelator where programmers and founders (as well as other professionals) gather. It’s not exactly a hippie resort.

True, though I suspect that happened after they left high school.

> Libertarians are also the most ideologically pro-capitalist people that one is likely to meet.

A study shows a quarter of libertarians don't know what libertarianism is heh. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_S...