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At times like this I'm deeply saddened. Nobody is doing anything wrong, but yet... Focusing on Draper's awful social presence at the expense of discussing what

At times like this I'm deeply saddened. Nobody is doing anything wrong, but yet... Focusing on Draper's awful social presence at the expense of discussing what he actually did or didn't do during his heyday... Seems so very un-hacker to me. I feel like we killed the farmer, took over the farm, but we're the pigs saying that all hackers are equal, but some hackers are more equal than others. Why? Because we seem to be saying that getting along with others is more important than hacking. Of course it is when it comes to making friends, finding love, selling a dream, building companies, and almost everything we do as humans. But yet... Hacking is somehow not one of those things to me. Obviously the man should not get a free pass for unacceptable behaviour--I have unbearably strong views about certain programming personalities who express racist, sexist and other views I find abhorrent--but I wish that his social misbehaviour was a footnote and his hacking was front and center. For whatever reason, discussion of what he did or didn't do is attracting way less attention than discussion of his personal life. Oh, well. Too late to delete the submission. (If I'd thought that we are going to end up talking about full body massages and whether having a shower makes it acceptable to invite a stranger to your room at a computer conference... I'd have judged it as being "Not Hacker News.")

dkarl 16y ago
Agree, mostly. Smelly assholes are a dime a dozen; talented hackers with such a colorful story are rare. It isn't very hackerish to focus on a boring, easy, and unstimulating aspect of the man rather than the parts we could draw inspiration from. (Unless, that is, the people focusing on his bad behavior are doing so because they are learning not to behave that way themselves. That at least would make sense.) On the other hand, what can we really learn from the Wikipedia article? It's great to be bright and accomplished, and we should strive to be so ourselves? The phone system used to run on tones? I think most of us know that stuff already. Maybe that's why people are resorting to gossip.
chaostheory 16y ago
"At times like this I'm deeply saddened. Nobody is doing anything wrong, but yet... Focusing on Draper's awful social presence at the expense of discussing what he actually did or didn't do during his heyday... Seems so very un-hacker to me." Let me know if you feel the same way once you meet him face to face. Points if you actually partake in the stretching exercises.
- raganwald 16y ago
  I have met a great number of people whom I admire for their accomplishments, but nevertheless dislike their habits and actions at the same time. If I met the man, and he put his hand on my ass while breathing fetid, rotten words into my ear, I would absolutely knock him on his ass. But I would still admire his hacking. You may choose to roll everything up into a ball and believe that people are binary: Good or Bad. That being unbelievably creepy in person somehow invalidates whatever else someone does that would otherwise be admirable. Your call. I suspect that argument will find a lot of favour with the kind of people who won't hire an athiest, or who cut up their Amex cards when they discovered that Tiger Woods was a philanderer. But I'm not that guy, and that isn't my argument. I'm not saying he's a great man on account of being in the right place at the right time, having a smidgen of the right talent and right motivation to do something that was a crime a the time. I'm saying he was a Hacker's Hacker, and that the definition of the word "Hacker" doesn't have the word "beloved" in it. Wozniak is beloved. Draper isn't. But more importantly, what does it say about us that we consider being likeable more important that what you do or don't do with the technology? It tells me that we haven't really changed anything. Once upon a time we were the geeks in high school that the cool kids ostracized. Due to an accident in history, we're living in a time when a few of us gained fame and fortune, and now we're the cool kids. So what are we doing now that we're in control of the social apparatus? Kicking John Draper for being a creepy old man, that's what we're doing. I stand by my words, which describe my feelings. I say that it's sad that we're more interested in his social behaviour as an old man than we are in whatever he did or didn't do to gain his noteriety as a hacker. We laud hackers for their curiosity. What does this thread say we're curious about. Systems? Or people's nose hair? p.s. It's ridiculous to ask me to have sex with him. It shows that your argument is rhetorical, a kind of populist trick spoken to the audience and not to me. I don't admire his accomplishments because I think he's attractive, and I don't say that his social behaviour is excusable because he's a great hacker. Linking admiration of his accomplishments with disgust for his behaviour is exactly what I'm arguing against, so implying that I'd lose admiration for his accomplishments if I had what you expect would be an unpleasant sexual experience with him underscores the kind of thinking that I'm arguing against. EDIT: Just to be clear, I am absolutely not saying that you or anybody else is wrong to discuss his behaviour. He behaves this way in public, it's fair game to be discussed, and you're entitled to find interest wherever you like. My sadness has to do with the proportion, which is really a group behaviour, or perhaps it's something to do with the dynamics of a forum discussion. Maybe if we each had to pick a topic to discuss blindly, we'd end up in a different place than given the current threaded comment and reply UI. I find that question interesting: Does the character of the threaded discussion really correspond to the priority or importance we place on various sub-subjects?
calloc 16y ago
The reason I bring it up is that while we as hackers may choose to only look at the accomplishments of someone as a hacker it is how they are perceived socially that matters to the rest of the world. As a hacker I also understand that social skills comes with the field. If I want to become someone in the world and I want to present then I have to have some hygiene, I've gotta be socially presentable. It is not acceptable for me to walk around in a banana hammock covered in dirt and grime and then expect people to still look up at me. There are two types of hacking, and they go hand in hand, hacking in the sense of accomplishing something great (whether that be technological, code wise, or anything along those lines) and social hacking. Any well adjusted hacker knows how to balance the two to make society believe he is a productive member and can be related to, yet at the same time bending the rules that society has set forth to do great things!
- raganwald 16y ago
  1. Nothing in what you say here or elsewhere is factually incorrect. 2. I agree that it's appropriate to give people information so that they do not find themselves in a situation not to their liking.

dkarl 16y ago

Agree, mostly. Smelly assholes are a dime a dozen; talented hackers with such a colorful story are rare. It isn't very hackerish to focus on a boring, easy, and unstimulating aspect of the man rather than the parts we could draw inspiration from. (Unless, that is, the people focusing on his bad behavior are doing so because they are learning not to behave that way themselves. That at least would make sense.) On the other hand, what can we really learn from the Wikipedia article? It's great to be bright and accomplished, and we should strive to be so ourselves? The phone system used to run on tones? I think most of us know that stuff already. Maybe that's why people are resorting to gossip.

chaostheory 16y ago

"At times like this I'm deeply saddened. Nobody is doing anything wrong, but yet... Focusing on Draper's awful social presence at the expense of discussing what he actually did or didn't do during his heyday... Seems so very un-hacker to me." Let me know if you feel the same way once you meet him face to face. Points if you actually partake in the stretching exercises.

raganwald 16y ago
I have met a great number of people whom I admire for their accomplishments, but nevertheless dislike their habits and actions at the same time. If I met the man, and he put his hand on my ass while breathing fetid, rotten words into my ear, I would absolutely knock him on his ass. But I would still admire his hacking. You may choose to roll everything up into a ball and believe that people are binary: Good or Bad. That being unbelievably creepy in person somehow invalidates whatever else someone does that would otherwise be admirable. Your call. I suspect that argument will find a lot of favour with the kind of people who won't hire an athiest, or who cut up their Amex cards when they discovered that Tiger Woods was a philanderer. But I'm not that guy, and that isn't my argument. I'm not saying he's a great man on account of being in the right place at the right time, having a smidgen of the right talent and right motivation to do something that was a crime a the time. I'm saying he was a Hacker's Hacker, and that the definition of the word "Hacker" doesn't have the word "beloved" in it. Wozniak is beloved. Draper isn't. But more importantly, what does it say about us that we consider being likeable more important that what you do or don't do with the technology? It tells me that we haven't really changed anything. Once upon a time we were the geeks in high school that the cool kids ostracized. Due to an accident in history, we're living in a time when a few of us gained fame and fortune, and now we're the cool kids. So what are we doing now that we're in control of the social apparatus? Kicking John Draper for being a creepy old man, that's what we're doing. I stand by my words, which describe my feelings. I say that it's sad that we're more interested in his social behaviour as an old man than we are in whatever he did or didn't do to gain his noteriety as a hacker. We laud hackers for their curiosity. What does this thread say we're curious about. Systems? Or people's nose hair? p.s. It's ridiculous to ask me to have sex with him. It shows that your argument is rhetorical, a kind of populist trick spoken to the audience and not to me. I don't admire his accomplishments because I think he's attractive, and I don't say that his social behaviour is excusable because he's a great hacker. Linking admiration of his accomplishments with disgust for his behaviour is exactly what I'm arguing against, so implying that I'd lose admiration for his accomplishments if I had what you expect would be an unpleasant sexual experience with him underscores the kind of thinking that I'm arguing against. EDIT: Just to be clear, I am absolutely not saying that you or anybody else is wrong to discuss his behaviour. He behaves this way in public, it's fair game to be discussed, and you're entitled to find interest wherever you like. My sadness has to do with the proportion, which is really a group behaviour, or perhaps it's something to do with the dynamics of a forum discussion. Maybe if we each had to pick a topic to discuss blindly, we'd end up in a different place than given the current threaded comment and reply UI. I find that question interesting: Does the character of the threaded discussion really correspond to the priority or importance we place on various sub-subjects?

calloc 16y ago

The reason I bring it up is that while we as hackers may choose to only look at the accomplishments of someone as a hacker it is how they are perceived socially that matters to the rest of the world. As a hacker I also understand that social skills comes with the field. If I want to become someone in the world and I want to present then I have to have some hygiene, I've gotta be socially presentable. It is not acceptable for me to walk around in a banana hammock covered in dirt and grime and then expect people to still look up at me. There are two types of hacking, and they go hand in hand, hacking in the sense of accomplishing something great (whether that be technological, code wise, or anything along those lines) and social hacking. Any well adjusted hacker knows how to balance the two to make society believe he is a productive member and can be related to, yet at the same time bending the rules that society has set forth to do great things!

raganwald 16y ago
1. Nothing in what you say here or elsewhere is factually incorrect. 2. I agree that it's appropriate to give people information so that they do not find themselves in a situation not to their liking.