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How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

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Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#101

Post by lallysingh »

amyjess wrote: post #64
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ESR'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 Not that I have much of an affinity for ESR, but he is a spokesman.

Reading that article, I noticed a few things. First, it's #4 on the list. On the other hand, #1 is "The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved". Second, it sounds less like "the hacker ethic was created as a response to authoritarianism" (which is what OP asserts) and more like "authoritarianism is incompatible with the hacker ethic, so don't support it", which is a very different proposition.

Sure it was, just authoritarianism as reified in closed technical systems.

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#102

Post by fao_ »

davexunit wrote: post #76
amyjess wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 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 The first seven senses all give the same impression: a hacker is somebody who likes to tinker with stuff out of intellectual…

>Let's consult the Jargon File. That's not the real jargon file. This is: http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html

See also: http://jargon-file.org/archive/

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#103

Post by Devthrowaway80 »

roneesh wrote: post #61

Look, you can construct whatever narrative you want about power, people and the ebb and flow of capital, but it's pointless. People like nice things. There I said it. Most people like nice cedar lined floors, expensive drinks and well cut clothes. And when you have those things, it's marvelous how quickly your disdain for the 'institution' evaporates. Most of us aren't really hackers in that nostalgic sense. We're no…

I read this comment while wearing an Aphex Twin shirt in the office. :(

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#104

Post by gozo »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #30

When I realized that the kids of the old money elite began to see Silicon Valley, not Wall Street, as the means to big money, I decided I could never go back. The elitists came to Northern California - a vanguard of social liberalism, student protest, and most importantly communitarianism - and brought their elitism with them. Northern California still exists in the nostalgic hippie image of the 60s, but it's compart…

"and most importantly communitarianism"

Regardless of your definition of a hacker, hacker culture was born out of interaction. It's sharing of information and exploring together that made programmers, hobbyists and tinkerers into hackers. I think one thing that makes "hackerdom" so easily distorted is that people don't look at what actually happened. It's quite illustrative how the article, in it's first paragraph, gets the story wrong. Which no one seems to have commented on so far.

From the article: "A young Air Force serviceman named John Draper – aka Captain Crunch – discovered that he could manipulate the rules of tone-dialling systems by using children’s whistles found in Cap’n Crunch cereal boxes."

From Wikipedia: "While Draper was driving around in his Volkswagen Microbus to test a pirate radio transmitter he had built, he broadcast a telephone number to listeners as feedback to gauge his station's reception. A callback from a "Denny" resulted in a meeting that caused him to blunder into the world of the phone phreaks. [...] A blind boy who had taken the moniker of Joybubbles had perfect pitch and was able to identify the exact frequencies. They informed him that a toy whistle that was, at the time, packaged in boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal could emit a tone at precisely 2600 hertz—the same frequency that was used by AT&T long lines to indicate that a trunk line was ready and available to route a new call."

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#105

Post by mwfunk »

Mikushi wrote: post #83
roneesh wrote: post #61

Look, you can construct whatever narrative you want about power, people and the ebb and flow of capital, but it's pointless. People like nice things. There I said it. Most people like nice cedar lined floors, expensive drinks and well cut clothes. And when you have those things, it's marvelous how quickly your disdain for the 'institution' evaporates. Most of us aren't really hackers in that nostalgic sense. We're no…

>People like nice things. There I said it. Most people like nice cedar lined floors, expensive drinks and well cut clothes. And when you have those things, it's marvelous how quickly your disdain for the 'institution' evaporates. People are made to want nice thing, big difference. It's the result of the exploitation of a natural need (fear) by corporations and the 'institution' through modern advertising and propagan…

Or they have their own minds, which occasionally decide to do things you don't approve of. You're just as much a product of the media you consume and the ideals impressed upon you by friends and family as anyone else. It is much more invigorating to feel like one knows the truth and everyone else is brainwashed though.

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#106

Post by aidenn0 »

zaphar wrote: post #20
baseballmerpeak wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go home, yuppies. The last few paragraphs bring it home: hacking is being subverted as a tool of the establishment and no longer, in common use, means working against the establishment.

Here's the thing. Hacking in the sense of the word he wants it used didn't go away or get subverted. It just lost a label. Words in the english language change all the time. Hacking in the sense of gaining a deep understanding of things by tinkering is alive and well and isn't going anywhere. So some one co-opted our label. So What? We can get a new label. It doesn't mean we somehow vanished or are dying out. We're s…

A shifting label can be a problem, when it attracts tinkerer's to the SV tech scene, instead of places where they could find more joy.

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#107

Post by sixdimensional »

daveloyall wrote: post #57
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #40

This hits home. I read hacker news and sites like it, but I know in my heart that the people here are not, for the most part, hackers.

Yeah. When I first came here, I was shocked how often the comments about some cool tech would be focused on how to monetize it, how to commoditize it. After a while, I just accepted as fact the existence of a large contingent of "hipster web 2.0 wanks" (well, that's the tag I use internally). But today I'll start an experiment. I'll adjust the internal tag to recognize them by their true name. An old name... Posers.…

Just a thought but, I wonder if the change you describe (from discussions about cool tech to how to monetize) has something to do with the demographics of the participants of Hacker News. I'm not sure it is a completely valid generalization (there are still cool tech discussions here that aren't about money), but I can see what you're talking about.

Certainly, many of us have gotten older while we've been a part of the community. This is a generality too, and probably not valid, but, I have noticed that for what we would have defined as a "techie" in the period from 1995-present day, many of us have tired with the hamster-wheel of technology.

By that I mean, we have tired with, a new tech or trend comes up, everybody goes crazy whether it is good or not, much hand-wringing and attention and money is spent, and in a few years, it's old and used and beat up and on to the next thing. It's like the wasteful consumer attitude of use and throw away rather than building things that last. I don't meant to say we haven't built things that last because many of our technologies and organizations certainly have. Just that we're quick to throw out the old for the new, and constantly reinventing yourself every few years can be difficult - at some point you hope to succeed because of your core skills and not just because you know the latest or greatest technology (which may or may not flop in 6 months).

Again, generally speaking, as you get older or as the world continues to get more expensive (the time value of money changing) and the requirements to pay the bills continue, the focus tends to shift away from the cool tech and into how to make money, products, etc.

There's good and bad in this - cool tech for tech's sake is nice but does not always solve real problems that create value or utility for people. Endless searching for profit can destroy great ideas. But in general, solving real problems/needs/desires using old (or new) technologies provides real value to society, and when those generate profit that allow us to exist in the world which requires money to survive, then that's great. One needs balance in all things, some people need to do "cool tech for tech's sake", some need to solve real problems every day, some need to pay the bills and some just need to help the world. Some want to do a blend of those things.

Knowing where you as an individual fall in the spectrum of efforts, needs, pursuits, desires, etc. can be difficult. I guess the best thing one can do is be honest with oneself and then project from there.

Perhaps the changing and continued diversifying demographic of HN, along with the dynamics of requirements of the "real world" are partly what has driven the trend in comments that you point out.

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#108

Post by _delirium »

reb wrote: post #98
thwest wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultural-Marxist? I thought he was an economist.

Lately "Cultural-Marxist" has become shorthand for anyone holding beliefs even slightly adjacent to "the rich/powerful are evil and they're corrupting the pure and poor/powerless" or "there are two kinds of people: the oppressed and the oppressors". Whether this characterization of the article is fair or those beliefs about the world are true are both reasonable questions worthy of consideration. Anyone looking for a…

I've more commonly found "cultural Marxism" used regarding social issues. People who believe in the theory allege that Marxism has expanded into the cultural realm (rather than focusing on economics and class), as part of a long strategy to undermine western society. For example: immigration is alleged to be a cultural-Marxist strategy to undermine the nation-state, abortion & gay marriage are cultural-Marxist strategies to undermine the family, and focusing on things like slavery and Jim Crow in history textbooks is a cultural-Marxist strategy to undermine patriotism.

A funny thing about the more general critique of oppressor/victim narratives is that Nietzsche had a very similar critique, alleging that the pervasiveness of such narratives (which he called "slave morality") had weakened society. But he didn't blame Marxism for it— he blamed Christianity.

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#109

Post by ryanSrich »

sanoli wrote: post #87
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #30

When I realized that the kids of the old money elite began to see Silicon Valley, not Wall Street, as the means to big money, I decided I could never go back. The elitists came to Northern California - a vanguard of social liberalism, student protest, and most importantly communitarianism - and brought their elitism with them. Northern California still exists in the nostalgic hippie image of the 60s, but it's compart…

Well, it's been almost ten years now since my punk friends from the US told me the Bay Area was gone and that the new punk/alternative capital was Portland. Don't know if it still is, but they had all moved there or somewhere else. Almost ten years ago.

Portland is slowly losing it's edge. I say slowly because the wages here are silly low so that does keep out a lot of the yuppies the article is referring to (although many will come here and take advantage of that).

I've only been here for a little over a year but I've seen the city change very much in that short amount of time. Old abandon buildings are now apartment complexes for tech kids. In May of 2014 there was _maybe_ 3 co-working spaces. Now there are at least 7 or 8 (including a newly put together `we work`). Rent has risen more than 7% this past year and housing prices are poised to increase 15% in 2015 alone.

I moved to Portland mostly because it was a west coast city that didn't get snow and had a cool vibe the one time I visited. I'm definitely adding to the problems Portland is having but at least I didn't move here from California and don't have a trust fund...

Re: How yuppies hacked the hacker ethos

#110

Post by sanderjd »

daveloyall wrote: post #57
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #40

This hits home. I read hacker news and sites like it, but I know in my heart that the people here are not, for the most part, hackers.

Yeah. When I first came here, I was shocked how often the comments about some cool tech would be focused on how to monetize it, how to commoditize it. After a while, I just accepted as fact the existence of a large contingent of "hipster web 2.0 wanks" (well, that's the tag I use internally). But today I'll start an experiment. I'll adjust the internal tag to recognize them by their true name. An old name... Posers.…

It would certainly be more charitable to think of "them" as what they really are: people who, just like you, are doing their best to figure out a path for themselves through a mystifying world. At least, I know that's what I am doing, while also being quite sure you think I'm a hipster web 2.0 wank poser.
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