I could previously explain that advances in tech are usually group efforts, but the first chapter painted it in a way that finally feels tangible. Samson paved the way for Wozniak, even if Samson is largely unknown. The story of the computer isn’t only made up of multi-billion companies sinking millions of dollars into optimizing transistor count, but also of a collection of obsessives following impulses of curiosity to the extreme. It didn’t matter how to get it or where it lead; learning was enough.
I want to reflect on each of the points of the Hacker Ethic.
Access to computers — and anything that might teach you some- thing about the way the world works — should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
Love it. Theory is only as good as 1) it reflects truth and 2) is applicable in meaningful way. A practical solution that works but isn’t perfect is better than a theoretical solution that doesn’t exist. Make things that work.
All information should be free.
Love it.
Mistrust Authority — Promote Decentralization.
I’m like 95% on board with this one. Authority clogs up freedom and limits potential progress. I would definitely make the case for authority in situations like tragedy of the commons problems or war though.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
Love it IF the judgement exists in a society with equal opportunity. We already discussed this in class, but selecting based on merit in a society with unequal opportunity inevitably leads to selecting those who were provided the greatest opportunity.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Yeah! What is life with joy? Elegance and precision are hallmarks of skilled engineers in any discipline. It is beautiful when those tools create something that barely squeezes into the realm of possibility.
Computers can change your life for the better.
They are powerful information crunchers that do exactly what they are programmed to do. We are still grappling with 1) what the upper limit is, and 2) how much our brains differ.
I really appreciate the sentiment from chapter 4 that describes a perspective shift. Making the dean’s list is a worthwhile accomplishment if your goal is to make the dean’s list, but is that a good goal? Zooming out and asking, what goals do I value for their own sake?, reframes some dangers as now acceptable losses. Greenblatt was happy to sacrifice performance in school for results toward a goal that made him happy: hacking. Not all bad things are crippling. Learning to not respect the goalposts others have put up seems critical to the Hacker ethos.
I want to touch on health. The idea of being in good health seems highly multifaceted. An otherwise happy and healthy father could fail to exercise, leading to weight gain or heart problems. An olympic athlete could suffer from clinical depression. A college student with a limited diet could fail to get enough vitamin C and get scurvy. Even something more minor like spending too much time alone could weaken social ties and lead to loneliness. There are so many opportunities for health to fail in some way, and being healthy is an uphill battle.
Hacker culture doesn’t seem to prioritize this. Coke and Chinese food are easy fuel for more code, but clearly not good long-term staples. Staying up for 30 hours straight maximizes flow time while cutting into the body’s desire to sleep. Absence of romantic relationships or hygiene seems much more a conscious choice than a health threat, but are strange. I’m curious if there are health problems that were either ignored or silently dealt with by the community.
I want to be really clear that not being healthy doesn’t equate to having a bad life. They all seem to be described as wildly fulfilled by their life. Maybe they’re completely happy and healthy as they are, fulfilling SMBC’s prophetic comic. Or, maybe parts of their health aren’t perfect, but represent the same idea as Greenblatt’s academic flunk: not an important goal. Health isn’t an inherently important goal if another one takes greater precedent, like curiosity and creativity.
I would still be wary of glorifying unhealthy behavior, and hope that people would want to take care of themselves.
To answer the main question, a true hacker is adventurous (as opposed to planned), cooperative, and curious. If there was a central idea that wasn’t just rattling off semi-meaningful adjectives, the defining idea of being a hacker is to continuously push the limits of what is possible. This could be a global sense, in the case of MIT’s software for cutting-edge computing technology, or in the personal one; all hackers have to begin somewhere. NASA didn’t embody the hacker ethic when it sent up Apollo 17 (move fast and break things doesn’t work when the things are people). However, they still pushed the limits of the possible. I aspire to be a hacker in the sense that I would like to play a role in building things that haven’t been possible before. There’s a lot of good to come from expanding human capability, and the road to get there should be fun.
