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October 18, 2003
Geeks Exemplifying Peasant Theory
I'm going to develop a vocabulary of history, American and British, in order to better explain and justify my way of looking at things. I keep thinking of my Peasant Theory whenever I come across a geek of the sort that Andrew Lipson is. The Peasant Theory includes the idea that all contemporary geeks are hermetic Monks babbling in a panoptical echo chamber. They only really understand themselves but have been spared the vicissitudes of natural survival because they exist at the pleasure of Royalty and the loose association of Grand Viziers.
Since most of us in the chatting class are geeks and quite unable to set broken bones or slaughter our own beef, we tend to view other geeks as valuable to society but threats to us. They are neither. They are an actualized I Ching of skills that exist for those occasions that the powerful are bored or confused and decide momentarily not to decide. Geeks understand this and are therefore appropriately humble, that is to say completely invested in the objective value of their finely honed skills, for they have had the Geek Epiphany. This is the moment you understand that the nature of the panopical echo chamber and recognize your true value to the great manipulators of social reality. After this realization comes the inevitable sense of humor.
Depending upon the fungibility of one's skills, the humor goes dark and practical jokey or self-effacing and perverse. More intense geeks may even turn to poetry.
My Lipson-Shiu type is ILIG. According to Lipson:
The ILIG is the ideal person to be in charge of anything: trustworthy, effective and devoted to the cause. Unfortunately, none have yet been found. If the test evaluated you as this you are probably an ILIE or ILUE (and covering it well) or a SCUG or SCUE (and not safe to be typing on anything electrical).
And yet I am flattered that I might actually be ILIE:
The I LIE has probably carved a ruthless trail to the top, but left no evidence of it. At least, if you find the bodies you're in very bad trouble. Highly adept at serving their own ends, I LIEs are not people to be on the wrong side of. Here is someone who has made the system work for them (examples: Sir Humphrey, Lex Luthor).
I may as well divulge some of my favorite geeks.
Jef Poskanzer reminds me of the reasons I put together my Linux box. Bryan Alexander has style. I like Cliff Stoll too. I knew ultimately that he would be correct. I am only slightly perturbed that I don't have a blog entry to prove it. Also I like Rafe Colburn and Clay Shirky, but everybody knows them already.
Posted by mbowen at October 18, 2003 10:09 PM
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