The Geek Ascention

[Zcade0]

I recently found a book in my school library during Driver's Ed. The book is called Geeks by Jon Katz. The book, I thought at first after reading the back, was incredibly out of place, as it was far, far away from the Realistic Fiction section (even though it tells a true story, I just thought it should go there) by the government and social books. I now look at the sticker on it at the call number, and that's exactly where it SHOULD be, oddly enough. Enough of that, time to write what I made this topic for.

the first thirty-six pages of the book are how geeks have always been forced away from the mainstream, and how the author had tried to make people realize that the internet wasn't evil, etc., during the time when everyone thought it was a place of danger, place of perversion, etc. It goes on to say that without geeks, the world would come to a halt. we run everything.

This is a bit of a scary thought. if someone could unite all geeks, nerds, hackers, crackers, and maybe even engineers, from Bill Gates down to the most pathetic lamer, they could do anything and everything. end world hunger, end wars, etc. the flip side of that is that a largish group of hackers/crackers could bring down an entire government within hours. Think about that for a bit.

I think these first thirty-six pages should be read by everyone and anyone.
what are your thoughts on this?

[Dark-San]

How does one classify the other as a geek? And why are these 'geeks' being forced away from the mainstream?

[Zcade0]

the term "geek" is incredibly hard to define, as there are dozens of subcultures within the overall classification. a geek usually uses the computer a lot, or other technological items. for further reading, I'd suggest looking it up on the Wiki, they have a very similar bit there to the book.

Geeks are "forced," as you put it, due to the fact that they are different from the norm, as most different people are, except within their own society.

[Gavin Luper]

This is interesting, but I don't know about the premise that, should a large enough number of "geeks" unite, they could wreak such massive change. Hypothetically, I see where you're coming from; but these are humans, and humans have a knack for not being very unifiable. I don't think ending world hunger would be any more likely to happen than it would now.

You do have an indirect point that's been concerning me for some time now, and that's our dependence on technology - and by technology, I mostly mean mass communications like the internet, mobile phones, satellite transmissions and the like. Twenty or thirty years ago the collapse of those things wouldn't have directly affected laymen (on a functional level, that is ... at least, not immediately), but now, I wonder what people's reactions would be? I think we are far too reliant on something that is relatively new.

Things like this interest me quite a lot. About the geek stuff - do you really think anyone, regardless of their level of power, could put an end to wars? War seems like it's a human tendency; I don't think it could be eradicated quite so easily.

[Zcade0]

That's the problem. Human nature itself. But on uniting, they have before, albeit in smaller groups (The Legion of Doom, The Masters of Deception, The P.H.I.R.M., etc.), and theoretically that could work on a larger scale. It wouldn't end all the wars, but it would put many of the weapon-creating facilities out of business, and it could crash many of the various defense department's computer networks and things like that. The problem with a lot of modern day wars is that they are based on ideology and religion. Those people are harder to subdue and calm down, fanatic as they are.

On the technology dependency, without it, we couldn't have reached the state of advancement we have now, news and warnings wouldn't be able to get around as fast as they do now, etc. The risk of them stopping is a risk that must be taken.

[Magmar]

I can't stand geeks lol

...no really

I'm a hypocrite! XD