Does the computer (or OS) you prefer indicate your political preference?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This thread is not related to the election (except perhaps peripherally).

I started reading this thread and noticed the same sort of, shall we say, partisanship regarding what kind of computer people prefer. Rather than rationally stating the reasons (singificant and trivial) one uses this or that brand of desk-box, there seems to be a lot of ad hominem attacks on the users of that other machine (tongue-in-cheek, I would hope).

It reminded me so much of the debating style (if one can call it that) being displayed in the election threads, that I began to wonder if there is a correlation between your computer or OS (Mac, PC, Linux, etc.) and your political affiliation. Are Mac users liberal or conservative? Are PC users predominantly Republican or Democrat? Do Libertarians and other independents prefer Linux?

Who knows? I sure don’t.

I therefore propose the to poll all willing participants. You don’t have to tell me why you use what you do or why you like the party/political leaning you do. State your computer and political preferences, and please do not harrass the other posters.

I’ll go first:[ul]Centrist Republican/PC[/ul]Yeah, I know, Centrist Republican? I’d be a Libertarian except I believe a true libertarian state would rely on much more good will towards men (and women, of course) than is available. My first (real) computer was a PC. It’s like having an inexpensive but maintenance-intensive car. It might take more work to bend it to your will, but what a sense of accomplishment you have once you do (even if you really had no control over getting it to work).

~~Baloo

2

Amiga users -> The Rhino Party

Of course, that’s just my theory… and personal prefrences…

3

Some cutesy Internet Political Quiz I took about a year ago said I was “Centrist”, so I’ll go with that. Registered as a Democrat in CA, but I don’t always feel too Democratic.

I use both PC and Mac, leaning towards Mac.

4

I use a Mac. Rush Limbaugh is also a Mac user. That should go a long ways towards destroying your operational premise.

5

Former Socialist, now a reluctant left-wing Democrat / PC

However, my roommate, who holds very similar political views, is a Mac user.

6

I have to agree with Dave Barry, who said:

For the record, I’m a Mac user. I just love the quote.

7

Well I vote for all kinds of folks, but lean more toward Democrat than Republican & use a PC (when it lets me).

Love that Dave Barry quote! I do however fit both categories of

and

Sorry, Baloo, don’t think I helped your poll much.

8

PC user/Democrat.

Jman

9

Centrist, huh? I didn’t know that one, but checking out the Centrist Party’s homepage, I guess I would be a Centrist then. And all this time I’ve been calling myself a DemoPublican. Centrist it is, then. And a PC user.

10

Republican (leaning toward Libertarian), off-brand PC

11

Thanks, Max! I appreciated it, too.

~~Baloo

12

And what’s all this apologizing for not conforming to my “expectations”? I don’t really have any. I was just curious if polling the folks here would reveal a trend.

Seriously, I don’t think we have a statistically significant sample yet.

Anyone wants to analyze the results once we get to one full page is welcome to. I know just enough statistics to calculate the probability of dice rolls. Anything more complex and I’m lost.

I eagerly await the results – no matter what they turn out to be.

~~Baloo

13

Somewhat leftist-leaning, liberal, FreeBSD user who just loves messing up polls like this. :smiley:

14

If you have a Mac, you probably rank high on several of these traits:

  • Lack of technical depth
  • Too much money
  • No serious need for a computer
  • Show off
15

And if you own a PC, you’re likely to rank high on several of these traits:

  • Sheeplike; a crowd “follower”
  • Believe “unnecessarily difficult” means “more worthwhile”
  • Prone to give in to peer pressure
  • Believe it’s normal to reformat and reinstall everything once a month, because all your friends do the same

Ahhh…now that we’ve got that out of our systems, back to the discussion at hand, eh?

16

Windows PC user/Republican

17

If you have a Mac, you probably rank high on several of these traits:

  • Lack of technical depth
    • Phd in Computer Science. Check. *
  • Too much money
    • Bought several of my Macs in grad school. Check.*
  • No serious need for a computer
    • Phd in Computer Science. Did serious research on the Mac. Check. *
  • Show off
  • Yup. Got me there. I carry my G3 desktop around with me just to watch the chicks swoon. *
    Now, to get back to the OP, I think it’s not a correlation between politics and operating systems (or we’d be effectively a one party system) – I think people just are programmed to get into religious wars. Religion, politics, operating systems, computing platforms – none of these are worth arguing about, because the choice is not a rational one. People just seem to need something to be passionate about (and in the case of high schoolers like What fire?, something to whip out and claim “Mine’s bigger.”).
18

I’m not sure about that, at least with regard to OS/platform. If you compared various combinations based upon what you were willing to pay, your knowledge level, and your intended use for the box, I don’t know that you’d necessarily narrow down your choice to one combination, but you would certainly eliminate a lot of options. I happen to like Sun’s hardware (and am willing to tolerate Solaris), that doesn’t mean I’m going to run out and buy a Sun server costing $40k so I can browse the web and play games on at home, because such a choice would not be rational.

Anyways, I’m somewhere right of center, but am not associated with a particular political party (independent then, I guess), and I like various flavors of Unix.

19

Hmmm…
Well, I voted Libertarian. Here’s my computer list:

PC running Mandrake 7.0
PC running Win98
PC running WinNT (It’s not my fault!)
Sparc 20 running RedHat 6.2
Sparc 5s running RedHat 6.2 (2)

I don’t have a Mac, but I’ve used them in the past. I don’t really see enough difference in performance to justify the holy wars.

In other words: Play nicely, children–if only because you’re bothering those of us who will use any computer we can get our hands on.

20

Political preference: Usually the Dems…
Preferred machine:I use 'em all. i’ve toyed with Amigas and love them, just don’t see a need for one, own two PC’s, one with WindowsME, one with 2000, a now modified Linux Box and a small Performa Mac with a soon to be coming into the household network 8500 and an iMac if i can get up the guts to walk out of the store with a fisher price looking toy that costs more than what i might lease a car for…

I work in IT, but used to be a graphic designer, I’m still the artsy type, but I love the technical end of things, so I highly doubt politics and computer preference have any relation. Religion, doubt it too, though I’ll bet you’re more pious/fundie types of any religion will sway towards a mac for somereason 'cause it’s easier, or a pc 'cause that’s what everyone else has. Works either way, except unless your living in East Asia, can’t say much about Unix/Linux users in regards to politics and religion.