Point taken. Hackers are nuanced when it comes to their expertise, so nuance is not really the difference between hackers and intellectuals. If pressed I'd sa

Point taken. Hackers are nuanced when it comes to their expertise, so nuance is not really the difference between hackers and intellectuals. If pressed I'd say that the hacking trait is biased toward exploiting knowledge, whereas the intellectual trait is biased toward understanding (or integrating knowledge, if you will). The ideal hacker is also an intellectual generalist, but really all you need to be a hacker is some expertise. Outside of that expertise, the typical hacker either avoids having opinions, or has prefabbed ones -- they aren't very different than the general population.