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Comment by frankzander | Hacker News Reader

this wasn't the point ... the point is that the whole thing is getting more and more political and less technical and fun. I was at the camp and some congresses in the past and they where always fun but nowadays it seems like it's like a political movement event for certain strands and ideologies and way less fun and interesting things (thou there are gems) and it seems that you have to think a certain way or at least accept certain positions even if it's not your position because otherwise you are silly or something else.

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IMHO, CCC is completely defanged as a political institution. They went along with contact tracing because the local app was open source and somewhat secure and many of the regulars in local spaces people will cause lots of drama if you don't wear a mask in 2025.

Most local hackerspaces I visited are basically green and leftist queer safe spaces where adults run around with stuffed animals. If that's what you're looking for, great, I'm not judging, it just doesn't click with me. I used to visit hackerpaces during my travels but regardless of how open and kind I approach a new place, once they ask me to mask up or inquire for my pronouns things just don't end well, even if I'm really polite in explaining my position. That's not the tolerance and open mindedness I encountered around 2009 during my first C3.

Still, I wish everyone attending the best of times. There's so many people there that I imagine you'll be able to find the right folks if you're there and look around.

Not looking for a debate or inciting hate towards anyone here.

Really matches my experience. Sometime during covid they really moved off the rails

Culture changes. Hacker culture in Europe changed too, young people are moving up and taking positions in local organizations. You didn't change with it, and you're not open to accepting that change, so you are feeling out of place - that's simply how this works.

A lot of those people will feel welcomed and will be treated with respect that they don't usually get everywhere else. They decided to embrace that, it comes at a cost - like you feeling weirded out and not showing up - but they're probably fine with that being your problem to figure out.

Culture changes, that’s true. However, “change” doesn’t normalize the far left/green initiatives.

CCC always has been explicit far left/green, looking at its history, as other people in here have mentioned.

I think it would be fair to say that the club as a whole has become more open about that, I think that's more owed to a lot of folks driving initiatives feeling like the walls are closing in on them though and I can't exactly fault them for that :)

> CCC always has been explicit far left/green, looking at its history, as other people in here have mentioned.

Yes, but what has shifted is "the left", to a point were it has basically been taken over for very specific agendas.

I've moved on, all good, change is perfectly fine. I just think they lost something that made CCC special. Got my own decentralized trusted circles now. I think I made it quite clear that I wish anyone still attending these events and spaces all the best regardless.

Yeah, it's really not wierd that people thinking that using secure technologies, firewalls and privacy to defend against infections on their electronics would also strongly support using a firewall to defend themselves from disease in the physical space.

The fact that your opinion usually comes together with other incompatible political opinions of folks that's been running those spaces for decades doesn't help either.

They didn't change. You however became something they always despised.

> your opinion usually comes together with other incompatible political opinions of folks

> You however became soemthing they alway despised.

Holy strawman

You just gave the best example of how these interactions usually play out. You know basically nothing about me and yet you assume to know exactly "what I've become" and that I deserve to be "despised" based on 2 statements that don't tell you anything about me because I never explained my positions in depth.

I spent more than a decade in and around 2-3 local hackerspaces and some of the best practices and infrastructure I introduced/built are still in place. You really know nothing about me to arrive at this conclusion, thereby proving my point that the culture has shifted - not me.

>it's really not wierd that people thinking that using secure technologies, firewalls and privacy to defend against infections on their electronics would also strongly support using a firewall to defend themselves from disease in the physical space

On the other hand, there is a discongruency when people who are against control and surveillance start implementing control and surveillance because the particular purpose sanctified the means. Something that previously seemed non-negotiable, culturally fundamental even, was toppled.

> using secure technologies, firewalls and privacy to defend against infections on their electronics

Why not use secure technologies, firewalls and privacy to defend against infections in general?

Isn't it also clear who benefits from this decreased trust in politics, or the apathy in politics? It is always the same group: the far right authoritarians.

That have to be the tolerance they're everywhere talking about

You're most likely mixing up different political communities :D

I can fully relate ... back in the days there wasn't much (at least I don't remember) of "this kind" of ppl and everything was just hacking. However I can imagine what you mean. At the end this growing craziness does not change any time soon so you are right ... "finding the folks that fit you" is maybe the best advice (and this hasn't to be the CCC). Fortunately the interesting talks are often recorded so nobody has to attend who don't want in order to get the interesting stuff.

> where adults run around with stuffed animals.

Nice to see something as simple as this is enough to filter bigots away!

> Synonyms of bigot > a narrow-minded person who obstinately adheres to their own opinions and prejudices especially : one who strongly and unfairly dislikes or feels hatred toward others based on their group membership

I merely shared a behaviorial observation of something I find odd. At no time did I react with prejudice or hate towards any particular group.

Why so antagonistic?

> Most local hackerspaces I visited are basically green and leftist queer safe spaces where adults run around with stuffed animals.

So what? You’re not being asked or expected to feel empathy - just show tolerance. Which is the easiest virtue to develop - just ignore behavior which doesn’t threaten you.

If someone is doing their own thing - wearing a MAGA hat, a rainbow t-shirt or carrying a fluffy toy - it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Why does it bother you unless they’re getting in your face?

What is "so what" supposed to mean that isn't covered already by the exact sentence afterwards? Why even come at me with "tolerance" when that's exactly what I haven't been receiving, as I laid out in the paragraph you selectivity quoted. What's your point exactly?

I really do appreciate your willingness to live and let live. Too many people from all perspectives are missing that ability when it comes to non-critical things, and forget that they can just… not hang out with the people they disagree with.

The other comments below you seem to be willingly ignoring that you did the mature/kind thing and just wished them well and moved on, whereas a less mature person would have caused a ruckus.

Appreciate the kind response. At least someone read the entire comment before responding. :)

No problem. And FWIW, I’m what I’d consider a highly left-wing person. I only say that to give a sample that not all of us are like that. But I recognize that the loud ones get the attention.

I draw the line on live-and-let live only when the other person’s ideology poses a physical threat to me or my liberties, or those of other folks. But what you describe is how things ought to be - if you don’t feel like hanging around leftists, who the hell cares? I probably wouldn’t want to hang out in a highly conservative space, but I also don’t care if they hang out without me.

Merry Christmas!

You might align less with the points brought forward, but the amount of politics has not changed much in my perception.

The amount of politics may have stayed the same but the topics have definitely shifted

I mean, yes... Topics in politics shift

I've been there like 2 decades ago and even then it was a deeply political event.

There never a time where German hacker clubs, which are the lifeblood of this event, weren't very political - and very explicitly left wing political.

Even if it was equally or less political than before, it could still be too political for someone that would be worth including.

We might be the same age; I remember that defacing conservative websites was already a C3 thing about 20 years ago. Back then, it felt good to punch up against authoritarianism. Hackers hated Bush and his Patriot Act just as much as many hate Trump now. In Germany, the CDU is of course the perennial enemy.

But what happens when authoritarianism does not come from the right, but from the left or center? (Not a contradiction: East Germany was an "anti-fascist" totalitarian state as recently as 40 years ago.) Sadly, I think we have been slowly moving in this direction since Covid, where I was genuinely shocked that many of my "leftie" friends had turned into government drones (from my perspective), while they were deeply disappointed that I was now a "right-winger" (from their perspective).

The more aware they become of how unpopular some of their politics are, the less they believe in democracy as a concept, while I'm still jealous of countries that have proper referendums and freedom of speech. Hate Speech laws are accelerating this divide.

Anyway, I think that these are the dynamics that are driving many people apart who all simultaneously claim to not have changed in decades. The CCC is still doing a lot of great work, but I do feel it drifting away from me because it is not so much about punching up than about punching right.

>But what happens when authoritarianism does not come from the right, but from the left or center? (Not a contradiction:

That's the whole thing of the "political compass" both a left-to-right wing axis and a perpendicular authoritarian-libertarian axis:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2

The authoritarianism quick clearly and explicitly comes from the far right, Putin and Trump. Claiming anything else is ridiclous, its not even hidden anymore. Its a clear outright endorsment.

Back in the Bush days it was about defending freedom but being to invasive about doing it. Nobody was talking about Bush they do about Trump. And the CDU of old is certaintly not the modern AfD.

Claiming the lefts action in covid even approches the lines of thought out of Trump, AfD or Putin isnt a serious argument.

That is not what I said at all. My claim is that, regardless of what the authoritarian right is doing, the left has become more tolerant of authoritarianism itself, especially to 'save democracy' (which is again reminescent of the GDR, starting from its very name).

As to why this split is happening, I'd argue it was easier to be anti-authoritarian when we were in the opposition, just as today's AfD reliably votes against Chat Control or other power grabs because it makes them look good at no cost. But the left has become a dominant force due to its long march through the institutions, and some want to use this power to crush the enemy (debanking, police raids for milquetoast internet comments). Others look at the internet compass from your sibling post and decide they'd rather hang out with people in the libertarian right than with _any_ kind of authoritarian.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying the CCC is an authoritarian organization. But I doubt they'll ever be too critical of our intransparent "Trusted Flagger" system, for example, because they know it would anger many in their crowd. 20 years ago we'd have agreed that this kind of crap only happens in China.

Or perhaps you changed over the years?

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