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For those who think this article is too long, here is summary: This gist of the article is that the hacker impulse or ‘hacker ethic’ is a natural human respons
by Gigamouse 11y ago
For those who think this article is too long, here is summary:
This gist of the article is that the hacker impulse or ‘hacker ethic’ is a natural human response to large alienating infrastructures that allow little agency on the part of individuals. Hackers take different forms, but are identified by 1) a tendency towards creative rebellion that seeks to increase the agency of underdogs in the face of systems that are otherwise complex or oppressive or that limit access to experts 2) a tendency to acting out that rebellion by bending the rules of those who currently dominate such infrastructures (this is in contrast to the open rebellion of liberation leaders who stand in direct defiance of such rules). They thus are figures of deviance, seeking to ‘queer’ boundaries that are otherwise viewed as concrete and static.
Having set up a definition of what the hacker ethic is, the article goes on to argue that the ethic has been corrupted due to its association with computer culture in the public eye.
On the one hand, in a world where people increasingly rely on computers for subsistence, the bogeyman figure of the criminal computer ‘hacker’ has emerged, a figure of media sensationalism and moral panic.
On the other hand, the increasingly powerful technology industry has honed in on the desirable, unthreatening elements of the hacker ethic to present a friendly form of hacking as ‘on-the-fly problem-solving for profit’.
This is described a process of ‘gentrification’: In most gentrification you have twin processes: On the one hand, a source culture is demonised as something scary to be avoided. On the other hand, it is simultaneously pacified, scrubbed of subversive content, and made to fit mainstream tastes. This has happened to rap culture, street culture, and even pagan rituals. And the article argues, it is now happening to hacker culture: “The countercultural trickster has been pressed into the service of the preppy tech entrepreneur class.”
The article concludes with a reflection on whether you abandon the gentrified form, or whether you fight for it. There is reflection on whether the hacker impulse perhaps has always been an element of capitalist commodification processes, but argues that it is an ethos that needs to be protected: “In a world with increasingly large and unaccountable economic institutions, we need these everyday forms of resistance. Hacking, in my world, is a route to escaping the shackles of the profit-fetish, not a route to profit.”
- amyjess 11y agoThe article just sounds fundamentally flawed to me. Let's consult the Jargon File. It was written by old-school hackers, and it hasn't been updated in years. It should have a handle on what it means to be a hacker. Let their definition of "hacker": http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html The first seven senses all give the same impression: a hacker is somebody who likes to tinker with stuff out of intellectual curiosity and for the sheer fun of it. And here's "hacker ethic" while we're at it: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker-ethic.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker-ethic.html There's nothing in there about "fighting the man". Now, yes, a lot of the more traditional aspects of hacker culture would recoil at the idea of "on-the-fly problem solving for profit" (in fact, the entry on "wannabee" appears to hold "professional programmers" in disdain). But that's because the old-school hackers did what they did for fun. No, they weren't interested in profit, but they weren't interested fighting "the man" either. And while we're talking about "large alienating infrastructures", that probably applies now more than ever, what with the rise of walled gardens, proprietary APIs, and the resurgence of closed-source software thanks to mobile and web apps replacing desktop apps. If the hacker ethic was a response to "large alienating infrastructures", it would be stronger than ever right now. Actually, I'd argue that hacker culture flourishes more in the absence of "large alienating infrastructures" than anything else. Hacker culture started at universities where students all had access to powerful timesharing machines (or, hell, even access to the batch-job machines that preceded timesharing). Then, it underwent a resurgence in the '90s with the open-source revolution... because suddenly the entire world was connected through the Internet, so anybody could download, run, and hack on an entire open-source operating system, and they could submit their patches or host a server in their living room and post new software up for the whole world to see.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoESR's "How to be a Hacker" essay explicitly lists anti-authoritarianism as part of the hacker ethic/attitude, however: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#attitude http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#attitude Not that I have much of an affinity for ESR, but he is a spokesman.
- 11y ago
- andyl 11y agoThat's a summary? tldr My summary: the article is a cultural-marxist parable. The victim is the hacker. The oppressor is the yuppie. In olden days the hacker lived in a sort of eden, but now the oppressor has trapped the hacker in webs of capitalist bondage.
- danielweber 11y agoI really worry about these people trying to free me from a high income career and telling me it's for my own good.
- Sven7 11y agoYup they are dangerous. Be careful Donald Trump.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pharrington 11y agoWhat I want is for a common person to not need to pursue a high income career in order to support themselves and their loved ones, persue their hobbies/education/passions, and stay culturally engaged. The cultural necessity of careerism limits the general options available and accelerates the course of the dominant culture, which as we know, primarily consolidates wealth and attacks sub-scale forms of ownership. We need pervasive ownership. You may not need freeing, but I certainly do.
- zo1 11y agoThat's not "freedom" you're describing. You're wanting "freedom to pursue "hobbies" and free "perks" without having to work for it" for yourself, at the expense of the general society. And by expense of general society, what that really means is that someone with the means to production/capital/etc has to part ways with some of his (labor, gasp he's no longer free), in order to fund your "free" lifestyle.