The one thing I always think about on HN is what some of those guys would think (or presently think) about the cultural shift among nerds and otherwise techies such that this comment is even possible.
They all projected, correctly or not, such a potentially dystopian/utopian world. And they definitely didn't agree with each other. But there was still this sense of shared belief and shared cause of generally being, to say the least, skeptical and antagonistic to the state, of the kind of formal potential for liberation in code. That things could be different.
But here we are now. Computers and what they do are no longer a source of hope or doom. They either make us money, or they help us catch ambiguous enemies.
I wish I had been around for the golden era. All that is solid melts into air.