Fair enough. I really appreciate hearing your views on this.
I think ESR's claims not to be a "neoconservative" stink of protesting too much. What he identifies as being at any given time doesn't mean a whole lot to me -- people can call themselves whatever they want. After seeing him dance and dissemble around his support of "race realism" for years I think it is overly charitable to take anything he says about his political categorization at face value.
If it helps, look at the other end of his change: he changed the description to say "formerly liberal" at the same time he was actively jumping into the fray as a "warblogger" and "anti-idiotarian". If he didn't change the definition to explicitly include his own politics (I believe he did) at the very least he changed it to exclude his political opponents.
All of the changes we've talked about here follow one pattern: altering work under his control to say that a "hacker" (which ESR believes to be a title of honor) is someone who resembles him more and resembles people he dislikes less. His commentary in the linked article follows the same pattern of self-aggrandizement by identification with an idealized and lionized hacker.
This is a lot more than I had hoped to ever write about ESR. All that said, if you told me I had to have dinner with him, Linus, or RMS, I'd choose ESR in a heartbeat. He also is a pretty good writer and evangelist and seems to be an effective organizer.
I think ESR's claims not to be a "neoconservative" stink of protesting too much. What he identifies as being at any given time doesn't mean a whole lot to me -- people can call themselves whatever they want. After seeing him dance and dissemble around his support of "race realism" for years I think it is overly charitable to take anything he says about his political categorization at face value.
If it helps, look at the other end of his change: he changed the description to say "formerly liberal" at the same time he was actively jumping into the fray as a "warblogger" and "anti-idiotarian". If he didn't change the definition to explicitly include his own politics (I believe he did) at the very least he changed it to exclude his political opponents.
All of the changes we've talked about here follow one pattern: altering work under his control to say that a "hacker" (which ESR believes to be a title of honor) is someone who resembles him more and resembles people he dislikes less. His commentary in the linked article follows the same pattern of self-aggrandizement by identification with an idealized and lionized hacker.
This is a lot more than I had hoped to ever write about ESR. All that said, if you told me I had to have dinner with him, Linus, or RMS, I'd choose ESR in a heartbeat. He also is a pretty good writer and evangelist and seems to be an effective organizer.