I recently came across a this post on slashdot entitled “Why are so many nerds libertarians?”. There are a number of comments on this article, some more interesting than others. Here are some of my thoughts.

First off, it is worth noting that the author of the article didn’t have any statistics that would indicate that nerds tend to lean libertarian, aside from a slashdot poll that was conducted some time ago, which only tells us that most Slashdot users are libertarians.

But let us assume that the hypothesis is true – that most nerds are libertarian. Let let us pose the question “why”? Let us begin by first defining what exactly it is to be a libertarian.

Wikipedia defines libertarianism as “a political philosophy maintaining that all persons are the absolute owners of their own lives, and should be free to do whatever they wish with their persons or property, provided they allow others the same liberty.” (a future article may discuss why most nerds trust wikipedia as a reliable information source).

It will also be helpful to define what it is to be a “nerd”. Wikipedia defines nerd as “a person who passionately pursues intellectual or esoteric knowledge or pastimes rather than engaging in social life, such as participating in organized sports or other mainstream social activities.”

The intersection of these two definitions yield the answer to our question almost trivially. Since nerds refrain from social engagements and prefer to be left alone it only makes sense that they would adopt a political philosophy based on being left alone, as libertarianism is.

When I first read this article, I felt a little pigeonholed, since I read slashdot and develop computer software, and yet am not a libertarian. Reading these definitions, however, clears things up considerably. The reason why I am not a libertarian, evidently, is because I am not a nerd.