Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Vlaix 4510 days ago
I read "hippies" and rejoiced. If only...
2 comments

A somewhat serious question on the hippies I want to ask HN (as a non-American): are there any enclaves of hippie culture left in the American culture today? What I'm mostly wondering is if someone who was there with the "hippies" back in the day could identify traces of it in the present-day hacker culture.

edit: elaborated

Yes. Berkeley in particular was a hotspot of 1960s hippiedom and later hackerdom (there's a reason it's BSD Unix).

Read about Stewart Brand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand

He was influential in the hippie counterculture, and later one of the early online communities, The WELL ("Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link").

More here: http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/817415_chap4.html

Enclaves of hippie culture in America? Loads. Floyd, VA, Asheville, NC, Nevada City, CA, Yellow Springs, OH... Every state has 2, 3 or more enclaves.

In "hacker culture" today? No.

Wow, I went into the negative with that. You guys really need to learn how to take a joke (unless I'm being taken down by the hippie lobby, in which case I'll keep put. No surrendering to terrorists, even those who wield flowers).
HN isn't reddit, and jokes/puns generally aren't well tolerated here. The comments are supposed to be reserved for more serious discussion about the article and providing supplemental information.