9 ms·

How yuppies hacked the original hacker ethos (2015)

94 points by daveloyall 10y ago

WalterSear 10y ago
What happened was that ultimately people make money from business models, not technology. So, eventually, the cultural attention shifts from the the doers to the sellers. And every once in a while, we have a little shift in the technological landscape, and for a second or two, a few hackers start making money and getting cultural attention. And this attention society also brings attention from sellers, who come over and make themselves at home.
- forgottenpass 10y ago
  So, eventually, the cultural attention shifts from the the doers to the sellers. Just a shift in attention would lead to the de-emphasis of the hacker (at least outside of infosec companies). The interesting point that you don't address is why the "hacker" moniker is bigger than ever. It wasn't a foregone conclusion. Professional software and hardware companies existed before "hacker" was thrust into the public consciousness as anything other then baddies on the news. It's not like there weren't hackers back then. Something changed, that something was branding. There is cultural cachet to be had in the "hacker" brand. And anyone that fancies themselves more hip than what they envision programming to be like at IBM or a government contractor wants in. At least until everyone figures out hacker is a meaningless term, then it's onto the next scam. For a take on how these things happen that I find much more interesting than this article: http://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/134371738229/on-the-origin-of-posers http://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/134371738229/on-the-or...
- tylershuster 10y ago
  What you're saying reminds me a lot of the Hacker Manifesto's argument about the hacker v vectorialist classes.
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    I need to check that out. :)
- kylec 10y ago
  Was making money part of the original hacker ethos?
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    No, but it makes things sustainable. For better or worse, it makes the world go round.
    - personsunknown 10y ago
      That's a cop out. The scene "sustained" itself just fine. Now people working at Facebook call themselves "hackers". It was as much about a philosophy as it was about technology. When the industry moves on to the next buzzword, we'll still be here.
      - WalterSear 10y ago
        It didn't, and doesn't, and this isn't about the names that gadflies choose for themselves. And I'm not arguing that the end of everything is to enrich oneselves (or one's masters). I'm arguing that I've worked at far too many companies that went bust, because their business model was broken, in order to fund my own hacker activities outside of that. There's just no avoiding the need to acquire resources, and organizations/movements/individuals that can do it better have a obvious and historically established survival advantage. The commoditization of technology is no exception.
        personsunknown 10y ago
        "I'm arguing that I've worked at far too many companies that went bust, because their business model was broken, in order to fund my own hacker activities outside of that." Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you are saying that hackers can't survive because the scene can't exist without the corporations funding it's participants. This is contrary to history. In my generation the industry considered us criminals even though most of us weren't. The hacker scene was around long before the industry embraced it and will be around long after whatever unicorn of the month loses it's horn. It's not going anywhere. It constantly changes and every generation has added it's own chapter, but that's what makes it what it is. So that leads me to my next question... What could you have not done if you didn't have corporate funding from these several failed companies you worked for? What prevented you from just doing it anyways?
grillvogel 10y ago
just take a walk through downtown seattle to see this first hand. all sorts of corporate drones and middle managers with their official "im a hacker" wear with logos for the multinational corporation they work at.
- theseatoms 10y ago
  I'm curious. What's "im a hacker"-wear look like to you?
  - Paul_S 10y ago
    A t-shirt with a tech joke, xkcd comic etc.. You can get those on the high street today.
    - simbalion 10y ago
      I think some, and I don't mean to point a single finger because there's too many, are far too obsessed or concerned with what other people are wearing. This kind of tribal rivalry bullshit does not benefit the species at all.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago
  Seattle is wayyy worse than the Bay Area in that regard. People come to Seattle to work for Big Companies, not to start.
- gersh 10y ago
  I'm sick of the conformist 'hacker'-wear in the tech industry. You gotta wear designer clothes to rebel against the techy t-shirt, hoody uniform.
  - personsunknown 10y ago
    Exactly. hipster != hacker
  - tater_sent_me 10y ago
ktRolster 10y ago
I'm not sure the author understands the "hacker ethos." (ESR captures all the aspects fairly well: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker-ethic.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker-ethic.html ) The author makes a comparison between hackers and counter-culture movements, but doesn't seem to understand that hacking (in all its aspects) is orthogonal to "counter-culture." He also seems to be largely unaware of the ethical hacking (MIT-style). He would do well to read through ESR's page for a while. That is, you can be a CEO, an investor, and a hacker, if you want to make cool things and give them away for free. If you want to talk about illicit hacking....that's seen a decline because it got harder. In the 90s, most hackers were kids (Legions of Doom, Control-c, etc). Now most hackers are parts of professional criminal organizations or governments.
- Palomides 10y ago
  I feel like a better distinction would be academic hacking and counterculture hacking. One is founded in clever solutions/information-related ideology from an academic context, and the other in subversion from an outsider context (and of course there could be overlap). Of course a CEO could be a hacker in one of those senses.
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    ok, so your comment made me think. It seems like there are (vaguely) two types of black-hat hackers. The older type (legions of doom, captain crunch, etc), are just trying to get information, understand how things work, and don't particularly want to subvert anything. In the last decade or so, we've seen the rise of groups like Anonymous, who are hacktivists....meaning they kind of do have a goal of actually subverting things.
    - daveloyall 10y ago
      The older type was before my time. But here's my thinking... You can't really know how something works without also being able to make it do something that wasn't intended. I feel counter-culture and a little bit punk every time I fix something instead of buying a new one. I feel a little MORE CC and punk if I do it with bailing wire and pliers from my back pocket, on the spot, in front of people. Hacking is counter-culture because culture is lame and hacking is awesome. You can't --and I mean, logically-- you can't be good at things without finding yourself going against the flow. Because being independently strong is just not where the flow is pointed.
andyidsinga 10y ago
the author is heaping a lot of meaning on the hacker ethos/culture, and is probably right about how society and the media view "the hacker". seems to me that for folks who participate in one element or another of this giant range of stuff .. the label is rather annoying.
FussyZeus 10y ago
This sounds like a multi-page declaration of "I was a hacker before it was cool." Yes, a lot of people are into technology now who weren't in the 90's. That doesn't make you special just because you were first. Grow up.
- SG- 10y ago
  The point he's making, is that just because you're into "technology" now as you say, it doesn't make you a hacker. The hacker definition is changing slowly.
ChrisArchitect 10y ago
Old https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033969
mwfunk 10y ago
I gotta say, the only thing worse than implicit tribalism is explicit tribalism. I can only imagine what they think about the preps and the cheerleaders.
madelinecameron 10y ago
Calm down with the $5 words. It isn't that I am stupid but it makes for a really annoying read when I am having to think more about the words than the meaning. I shouldn't have to re-read this article like it is a research paper just so I can absorb what you are saying.
- jshevek 10y ago
  Which words? I would agree the author seems pretentious in tone, but I didn't notice any $5 words, nor even words whose specific meaning was misapplied. Seems to me like the author just wanted to say what he meant.
  - madelinecameron 10y ago
    A lot of them. It came across more like the author was trying to show off their vocab than explain a point. For example: >Any large and alienating infrastructure controlled by a technocratic elite is bound to provoke. In particular, it will nettle those who want to know how it works, those who like the thrill of transgressing, and those who value the principle of open access. Okay, it makes sense what they are saying but does that not seem a little clunky to you? Why not just say like: > As the world has progressively become more entwined with technology, those providing these services have become more protective of the technology. As a result of this protectiveness, less people are able to fully study and understand how this infrastructure works. disclaimer: not an English major ;)
    - jshevek 10y ago
      Thank you for responding and clarifying. I thought you took issue (and maybe you do...) with a dozen other terms used in the text - terms which some readers might need to look up, but which have a specific, nuanced meaning that is lost if a more common word is used. I'm biased in the authors favor because I've been accused of trying to show off my vocab (such as it is, lol) when all I'm trying to do is say what I really mean. As for that first sentence, I agree that your version is more clear, more accessible, but I also think that there is meaning lost. The author seems to want to draw attention to the clash of cultural values. This isn't conveyed so well in this more accessible version. On another axis, his version evokes more powerful imagery and feelings. These words: 'alienating infrastrcuture, controlled, provoked, nettle, thrill, transgressing. 'value the principle' all have much larger emotional, visual, even tactile impact on me than the most emotional words in the other version. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, only that this may have been the authors goal (more so than showing off their vocab). The author may also consciously value (a) emotional/visual impact on those who bother to read over (b) making the work easy for a larger body of people to read.
kelvin0 10y ago
TL;DR: Capitalism > Hacker Ethos
Animats 10y ago
What he's missed is that hippies and yuppies were the same people. Same self-indulgence combined with bogus philosophy to justify it. From granola to granite countertops in a generation. Suggested reading: Bobos in Paradise.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise
- superuser2 10y ago
  What, specifically, is the philosophy and/or self-indulgence of yuppies?
  - messick 10y ago
    "Fuck you, got mine." for the most part.
    - superuser2 10y ago
      I don't understand. Don't yuppies tend to skew left and towards support of redistribution, more funding for social services, etc?
      - daveloyall 10y ago
        No? "Yuppies" throw out perfectly good food and clothing when they are full or bored. They are relatively affluent but have only new things in their homes. Their art is exclusively abstract. They smile too much. Maybe the definition varies from region to region, or generation to generation.
        gleenn 10y ago
        "They smile too much." Yeah, they should all burn in hell. Smilers...
      - RickS 10y ago
        Lots of subjectivity here, to the point that it becomes near nonsense. But, playing the game: "Yuppies" and "Hippies" cover swaths so wide that they contain different people. The "income redistribution" yuppies are at the bottom, instagramming yoga. The "fuck you, got mine" yuppies are higher up the wealth curve, on wall street. It's also possible for someone to be both a yuppie and a hippie. Find these people in whole foods and wearing Michael Kors at a farmers market.
1_2__3 10y ago
I don't expect much traction with this opinion, but I'd say this change also includes the slow takeover by "brogrammers". It was horrifying watching it start, people who had no real intuitive understanding of technology or interest in it who nonetheless learned enough of the vocation to be able to be effective and get a job. No love for it, no yearn for it, no calling to it. I remember talking to a Google intern who said, "I went into dance but I didn't think it would make a good living so I switched to CS.". On one hand, I don't want to discourage those people - some of them will find it's their calling and they become passionate about it. Most of them though just clutter up companies with people who can't think all that creatively and are way more interested in their next game of Ultimate or the new bar they're trying tonight than learning a new language or exploring technology. There's no 'itch' when it comes to tech work, just money. I also feel like it's infected the rest of programming culture in general. Programmers have not traditionally been the sort of people who think you need meetups, whatever-a-thons, code camps, and other social-events-masquerading-as-hacking/tech. And if you apply occam's razor it's much less likely that they've discovered a new, better way of being a hacker/programmer, and more likely they were predisposed to backslapping, social drinking and partying already, so of course that's the kind of stuff they're going to try and spread more of in the industry - just as if you had a more technically-minded person in, say, Sales, who would have a hard time breaking their habits of thinking of things in engineering terms. It sucks. I thought hacker & nerd culture would grow up and mature, instead it just got squashed out by the brogrammers.
- amyjess 10y ago
  > Most of them though just clutter up companies with people who can't think all that creatively and are way more interested in their next game of Ultimate or the new bar they're trying tonight than learning a new language or exploring technology. Welcome to being just like every other profession out there. Most people don't like talking about work when they're not on the job. Honestly, the "you can't have a life outside work" attitude is far more toxic to our profession than any kind of "brogrammers". I remember someone on HN saying they like living in SV because they can go to a bar and end up talking about JavaScript frameworks with some random stranger there. That just horrifies me--the last thing I want to do when I'm relaxing after work is to talk shop! (and, to be fair, there were a number of comments replying to them expressing the same sentiment)
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
This is pretty far wrong in many respects. The history is wrong: Calling John Draper one of the first phone phreaks, and treating him as representitive of the rest, or even claiming he made the discovery that gave him is nickname is just flat out incorrect. Read "Exploding the Phone," by Phil Lapsley, for a more accurate take on phreaking. Secondly, IMHO, those "sillicon valley types," people begging for capital to build new things, aren't dissimilar to the kind of academic environment the word hacker originated in: clever programmers, working on projects, and trying to get grants or investment. But that's not important. Most importantly, the definition of hacker is off. Considering how utterly impossible it is to give a good definition - ask 50 hackers what a hacker is, you'll get 50 answers - you can feel free to argue this. But I believe, as, it seems, do many of you, that being a hacker isn't about power, or counterculture, or anything like that. It's about creativity, ingenuity, intelligent problem solving, and it has an element of playfullness about it, and a certain pride, to say that you built it, that you know that it works, that you can trust it, and a determinedness to make that true, to fix it if it's broken, and improve it if it isn't. To quote Cliff Stoll's exellent book, "The Cuckoo's Egg": "The people I knew who called themselves hackers were software wizards who managed to creatively program their way out of tight corners. They knew all the nooks and crannies of the operating system. Not dull software engineers who put in forty hours a week, but creative programmers who can't leave the computer until the machine's satisfied. A hacker identifies with the computer, knowing it like a friend." Many will disagree. Feel free to write up or link your favorite definition.
- tater_sent_me 10y ago
  Can we seriously stop celebrating john draper. He's managed to be at the right place at the right time and yet he still managed to fuck everything up. The only thing he hacked was some free energy transfer massages out of some boys.
fhood 10y ago
If you are willing to co-opt the word "gentrification" so aggressively than it seems hypocritical to complain about "the man" co-opting the word hacker. Sure, hacker means something different than it used to, but language evolves. I'm sorry that you no longer have a special word that you can use to distinguish yourself from those who are inferior.

94 points by daveloyall 10y ago

What happened was that ultimately people make money from business models, not technology. So, eventually, the cultural attention shifts from the the doers to the sellers. And every once in a while, we have a little shift in the technological landscape, and for a second or two, a few hackers start making money and getting cultural attention. And this attention society also brings attention from sellers, who come over and make themselves at home.

forgottenpass 10y ago
So, eventually, the cultural attention shifts from the the doers to the sellers. Just a shift in attention would lead to the de-emphasis of the hacker (at least outside of infosec companies). The interesting point that you don't address is why the "hacker" moniker is bigger than ever. It wasn't a foregone conclusion. Professional software and hardware companies existed before "hacker" was thrust into the public consciousness as anything other then baddies on the news. It's not like there weren't hackers back then. Something changed, that something was branding. There is cultural cachet to be had in the "hacker" brand. And anyone that fancies themselves more hip than what they envision programming to be like at IBM or a government contractor wants in. At least until everyone figures out hacker is a meaningless term, then it's onto the next scam. For a take on how these things happen that I find much more interesting than this article: http://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/134371738229/on-the-origin-of-posers http://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/134371738229/on-the-or...
tylershuster 10y ago
What you're saying reminds me a lot of the Hacker Manifesto's argument about the hacker v vectorialist classes.
- WalterSear 10y ago
  I need to check that out. :)
kylec 10y ago
Was making money part of the original hacker ethos?
- WalterSear 10y ago
  No, but it makes things sustainable. For better or worse, it makes the world go round.
  - personsunknown 10y ago
    That's a cop out. The scene "sustained" itself just fine. Now people working at Facebook call themselves "hackers". It was as much about a philosophy as it was about technology. When the industry moves on to the next buzzword, we'll still be here.
    - WalterSear 10y ago
      It didn't, and doesn't, and this isn't about the names that gadflies choose for themselves. And I'm not arguing that the end of everything is to enrich oneselves (or one's masters). I'm arguing that I've worked at far too many companies that went bust, because their business model was broken, in order to fund my own hacker activities outside of that. There's just no avoiding the need to acquire resources, and organizations/movements/individuals that can do it better have a obvious and historically established survival advantage. The commoditization of technology is no exception.
      - personsunknown 10y ago
        "I'm arguing that I've worked at far too many companies that went bust, because their business model was broken, in order to fund my own hacker activities outside of that." Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you are saying that hackers can't survive because the scene can't exist without the corporations funding it's participants. This is contrary to history. In my generation the industry considered us criminals even though most of us weren't. The hacker scene was around long before the industry embraced it and will be around long after whatever unicorn of the month loses it's horn. It's not going anywhere. It constantly changes and every generation has added it's own chapter, but that's what makes it what it is. So that leads me to my next question... What could you have not done if you didn't have corporate funding from these several failed companies you worked for? What prevented you from just doing it anyways?

grillvogel 10y ago

just take a walk through downtown seattle to see this first hand. all sorts of corporate drones and middle managers with their official "im a hacker" wear with logos for the multinational corporation they work at.

theseatoms 10y ago
I'm curious. What's "im a hacker"-wear look like to you?
- Paul_S 10y ago
  A t-shirt with a tech joke, xkcd comic etc.. You can get those on the high street today.
  - simbalion 10y ago
    I think some, and I don't mean to point a single finger because there's too many, are far too obsessed or concerned with what other people are wearing. This kind of tribal rivalry bullshit does not benefit the species at all.
Hydraulix989 10y ago
Seattle is wayyy worse than the Bay Area in that regard. People come to Seattle to work for Big Companies, not to start.
gersh 10y ago
I'm sick of the conformist 'hacker'-wear in the tech industry. You gotta wear designer clothes to rebel against the techy t-shirt, hoody uniform.
- personsunknown 10y ago
  Exactly. hipster != hacker
- tater_sent_me 10y ago

ktRolster 10y ago

I'm not sure the author understands the "hacker ethos." (ESR captures all the aspects fairly well: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker-ethic.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker-ethic.html ) The author makes a comparison between hackers and counter-culture movements, but doesn't seem to understand that hacking (in all its aspects) is orthogonal to "counter-culture." He also seems to be largely unaware of the ethical hacking (MIT-style). He would do well to read through ESR's page for a while. That is, you can be a CEO, an investor, and a hacker, if you want to make cool things and give them away for free. If you want to talk about illicit hacking....that's seen a decline because it got harder. In the 90s, most hackers were kids (Legions of Doom, Control-c, etc). Now most hackers are parts of professional criminal organizations or governments.

Palomides 10y ago
I feel like a better distinction would be academic hacking and counterculture hacking. One is founded in clever solutions/information-related ideology from an academic context, and the other in subversion from an outsider context (and of course there could be overlap). Of course a CEO could be a hacker in one of those senses.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  ok, so your comment made me think. It seems like there are (vaguely) two types of black-hat hackers. The older type (legions of doom, captain crunch, etc), are just trying to get information, understand how things work, and don't particularly want to subvert anything. In the last decade or so, we've seen the rise of groups like Anonymous, who are hacktivists....meaning they kind of do have a goal of actually subverting things.
  - daveloyall 10y ago
    The older type was before my time. But here's my thinking... You can't really know how something works without also being able to make it do something that wasn't intended. I feel counter-culture and a little bit punk every time I fix something instead of buying a new one. I feel a little MORE CC and punk if I do it with bailing wire and pliers from my back pocket, on the spot, in front of people. Hacking is counter-culture because culture is lame and hacking is awesome. You can't --and I mean, logically-- you can't be good at things without finding yourself going against the flow. Because being independently strong is just not where the flow is pointed.

andyidsinga 10y ago

the author is heaping a lot of meaning on the hacker ethos/culture, and is probably right about how society and the media view "the hacker". seems to me that for folks who participate in one element or another of this giant range of stuff .. the label is rather annoying.

FussyZeus 10y ago

This sounds like a multi-page declaration of "I was a hacker before it was cool." Yes, a lot of people are into technology now who weren't in the 90's. That doesn't make you special just because you were first. Grow up.

SG- 10y ago
The point he's making, is that just because you're into "technology" now as you say, it doesn't make you a hacker. The hacker definition is changing slowly.

ChrisArchitect 10y ago

Old https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033969

mwfunk 10y ago

I gotta say, the only thing worse than implicit tribalism is explicit tribalism. I can only imagine what they think about the preps and the cheerleaders.

madelinecameron 10y ago

Calm down with the $5 words. It isn't that I am stupid but it makes for a really annoying read when I am having to think more about the words than the meaning. I shouldn't have to re-read this article like it is a research paper just so I can absorb what you are saying.

jshevek 10y ago
Which words? I would agree the author seems pretentious in tone, but I didn't notice any $5 words, nor even words whose specific meaning was misapplied. Seems to me like the author just wanted to say what he meant.
- madelinecameron 10y ago
  A lot of them. It came across more like the author was trying to show off their vocab than explain a point. For example: >Any large and alienating infrastructure controlled by a technocratic elite is bound to provoke. In particular, it will nettle those who want to know how it works, those who like the thrill of transgressing, and those who value the principle of open access. Okay, it makes sense what they are saying but does that not seem a little clunky to you? Why not just say like: > As the world has progressively become more entwined with technology, those providing these services have become more protective of the technology. As a result of this protectiveness, less people are able to fully study and understand how this infrastructure works. disclaimer: not an English major ;)
  - jshevek 10y ago
    Thank you for responding and clarifying. I thought you took issue (and maybe you do...) with a dozen other terms used in the text - terms which some readers might need to look up, but which have a specific, nuanced meaning that is lost if a more common word is used. I'm biased in the authors favor because I've been accused of trying to show off my vocab (such as it is, lol) when all I'm trying to do is say what I really mean. As for that first sentence, I agree that your version is more clear, more accessible, but I also think that there is meaning lost. The author seems to want to draw attention to the clash of cultural values. This isn't conveyed so well in this more accessible version. On another axis, his version evokes more powerful imagery and feelings. These words: 'alienating infrastrcuture, controlled, provoked, nettle, thrill, transgressing. 'value the principle' all have much larger emotional, visual, even tactile impact on me than the most emotional words in the other version. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, only that this may have been the authors goal (more so than showing off their vocab). The author may also consciously value (a) emotional/visual impact on those who bother to read over (b) making the work easy for a larger body of people to read.

kelvin0 10y ago

TL;DR: Capitalism > Hacker Ethos

Animats 10y ago

What he's missed is that hippies and yuppies were the same people. Same self-indulgence combined with bogus philosophy to justify it. From granola to granite countertops in a generation. Suggested reading: Bobos in Paradise.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise

superuser2 10y ago
What, specifically, is the philosophy and/or self-indulgence of yuppies?
- messick 10y ago
  "Fuck you, got mine." for the most part.
  - superuser2 10y ago
    I don't understand. Don't yuppies tend to skew left and towards support of redistribution, more funding for social services, etc?
    - daveloyall 10y ago
      No? "Yuppies" throw out perfectly good food and clothing when they are full or bored. They are relatively affluent but have only new things in their homes. Their art is exclusively abstract. They smile too much. Maybe the definition varies from region to region, or generation to generation.
      - gleenn 10y ago
        "They smile too much." Yeah, they should all burn in hell. Smilers...
    - RickS 10y ago
      Lots of subjectivity here, to the point that it becomes near nonsense. But, playing the game: "Yuppies" and "Hippies" cover swaths so wide that they contain different people. The "income redistribution" yuppies are at the bottom, instagramming yoga. The "fuck you, got mine" yuppies are higher up the wealth curve, on wall street. It's also possible for someone to be both a yuppie and a hippie. Find these people in whole foods and wearing Michael Kors at a farmers market.

1_2__3 10y ago

I don't expect much traction with this opinion, but I'd say this change also includes the slow takeover by "brogrammers". It was horrifying watching it start, people who had no real intuitive understanding of technology or interest in it who nonetheless learned enough of the vocation to be able to be effective and get a job. No love for it, no yearn for it, no calling to it. I remember talking to a Google intern who said, "I went into dance but I didn't think it would make a good living so I switched to CS.". On one hand, I don't want to discourage those people - some of them will find it's their calling and they become passionate about it. Most of them though just clutter up companies with people who can't think all that creatively and are way more interested in their next game of Ultimate or the new bar they're trying tonight than learning a new language or exploring technology. There's no 'itch' when it comes to tech work, just money. I also feel like it's infected the rest of programming culture in general. Programmers have not traditionally been the sort of people who think you need meetups, whatever-a-thons, code camps, and other social-events-masquerading-as-hacking/tech. And if you apply occam's razor it's much less likely that they've discovered a new, better way of being a hacker/programmer, and more likely they were predisposed to backslapping, social drinking and partying already, so of course that's the kind of stuff they're going to try and spread more of in the industry - just as if you had a more technically-minded person in, say, Sales, who would have a hard time breaking their habits of thinking of things in engineering terms. It sucks. I thought hacker & nerd culture would grow up and mature, instead it just got squashed out by the brogrammers.

amyjess 10y ago
> Most of them though just clutter up companies with people who can't think all that creatively and are way more interested in their next game of Ultimate or the new bar they're trying tonight than learning a new language or exploring technology. Welcome to being just like every other profession out there. Most people don't like talking about work when they're not on the job. Honestly, the "you can't have a life outside work" attitude is far more toxic to our profession than any kind of "brogrammers". I remember someone on HN saying they like living in SV because they can go to a bar and end up talking about JavaScript frameworks with some random stranger there. That just horrifies me--the last thing I want to do when I'm relaxing after work is to talk shop! (and, to be fair, there were a number of comments replying to them expressing the same sentiment)

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

This is pretty far wrong in many respects. The history is wrong: Calling John Draper one of the first phone phreaks, and treating him as representitive of the rest, or even claiming he made the discovery that gave him is nickname is just flat out incorrect. Read "Exploding the Phone," by Phil Lapsley, for a more accurate take on phreaking. Secondly, IMHO, those "sillicon valley types," people begging for capital to build new things, aren't dissimilar to the kind of academic environment the word hacker originated in: clever programmers, working on projects, and trying to get grants or investment. But that's not important. Most importantly, the definition of hacker is off. Considering how utterly impossible it is to give a good definition - ask 50 hackers what a hacker is, you'll get 50 answers - you can feel free to argue this. But I believe, as, it seems, do many of you, that being a hacker isn't about power, or counterculture, or anything like that. It's about creativity, ingenuity, intelligent problem solving, and it has an element of playfullness about it, and a certain pride, to say that you built it, that you know that it works, that you can trust it, and a determinedness to make that true, to fix it if it's broken, and improve it if it isn't. To quote Cliff Stoll's exellent book, "The Cuckoo's Egg": "The people I knew who called themselves hackers were software wizards who managed to creatively program their way out of tight corners. They knew all the nooks and crannies of the operating system. Not dull software engineers who put in forty hours a week, but creative programmers who can't leave the computer until the machine's satisfied. A hacker identifies with the computer, knowing it like a friend." Many will disagree. Feel free to write up or link your favorite definition.

tater_sent_me 10y ago
Can we seriously stop celebrating john draper. He's managed to be at the right place at the right time and yet he still managed to fuck everything up. The only thing he hacked was some free energy transfer massages out of some boys.

fhood 10y ago

If you are willing to co-opt the word "gentrification" so aggressively than it seems hypocritical to complain about "the man" co-opting the word hacker. Sure, hacker means something different than it used to, but language evolves. I'm sorry that you no longer have a special word that you can use to distinguish yourself from those who are inferior.