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If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

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Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#11

Post by mcgraw »

pgbovine wrote: post #5
adamgravitis wrote: post #3

Wholeheartedly disagree. As evidence, the author mentions the late average age that the underprivileged "received" their first computer. As I recall, one Bill Gates began hacking at an early age, not because his privileged family showered him with cutting-edge technology, but because he bent a few rules to gain better access to a terminal through school. Let's not confuse resourcefulness with privilege.

but because he bent a few rules to gain better access to a terminal through school. iirc, gates went to a pretty well-off private school that actually HAD computers. i doubt that most people attending public schools in the 60's could even find a computer anywhere nearby. this is documented in Gladwell's Outliers (ducks!)

Yeah, that definitely helps. I wasn't rocking a computer at home until 15 and I'm incredibly thankful I was able to get that when I did. My public schools in the middle of KS wasn't doing anything with computers when I was 8 and I didn't know anyone who talked about them.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#12

Post by tkahn6 »

Computer penetration in the US in 2001 was 61% and for the most part, those who didn't have a computer felt that they didn't need one[1].

Most incoming undergrads were 8 in 2000 so I would assert that this argument has no basis going forward.

[1 http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/03/18/da... ]

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#13

Post by knowtheory »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Ugh. I sympathize with this argument but its flaws are so glaring that it's trivially knocked down, which is a shame, because there is a class privilege argument to be made about this field. Before you say "programming since age 8 just means you had rich parents", you have to address the fact that most kids with rich parents don't become hackers, and that even if you're not impoverishing yourself to support the hobby…

Nice job with the logical fallacies.

First, just because you're well off doesn't require you to become a programmer or a hacker, the author is not claiming that. However if you were so inclined, you immediately have a leg up on others due to the circumstances you find yourself in, and the resources you have available to you. Denying that just seems stupid.

Second, the notion that becoming a good hacker requires social sacrifice is pathetic; misleading; stereotypical. Pick your poison. If you've made social sacrifices, don't blame computers.

On top of that, you still have the opportunity to make that sacrifice. If you have 12 siblings and live in the ghetto, or out in coal country, there's not much choice about who you have to interact with or the obligations you've gotta fulfill.

That's the whole point. If you grew up in a well off family who had access to a computer at home, or attended a school system that was able to get PCs, you were part of a fortunate group, as distinguished from people who did not have those opportunities available to them.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#14

Post by mcgraw »

jerf wrote: post #9
tptacek wrote: post #2

Ugh. I sympathize with this argument but its flaws are so glaring that it's trivially knocked down, which is a shame, because there is a class privilege argument to be made about this field. Before you say "programming since age 8 just means you had rich parents", you have to address the fact that most kids with rich parents don't become hackers, and that even if you're not impoverishing yourself to support the hobby…

I've had a computer for a long time, but looking back, when I was 8 I was lower-middle to middle-middle class at best. I say "looking back" because I didn't really realize it at the time, but in hindsight it's pretty clear. My dad bought a Commodore 64 not because he was rolling in filthy upper-class lucre, but because he saw the future coming and made that a priority for himself. And it had been out for a while befo…

The key here is you were able to snag influence from your Dad. Luckily he was bright enough to see the potential and was resourceful which spawned your interest.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#16

Post by tptacek »

knowtheory wrote: post #13
tptacek wrote: post #2

Ugh. I sympathize with this argument but its flaws are so glaring that it's trivially knocked down, which is a shame, because there is a class privilege argument to be made about this field. Before you say "programming since age 8 just means you had rich parents", you have to address the fact that most kids with rich parents don't become hackers, and that even if you're not impoverishing yourself to support the hobby…

Nice job with the logical fallacies. First, just because you're well off doesn't require you to become a programmer or a hacker, the author is not claiming that. However if you were so inclined, you immediately have a leg up on others due to the circumstances you find yourself in, and the resources you have available to you. Denying that just seems stupid. Second, the notion that becoming a good hacker requires socia…

I'm not denying that class plays a role --- in fact, I think I made that pretty explicit. I'm arguing that "hacking since you were 8 isn't so much a badge of geek cred as it is an artifact of your social class" is a really bad way of making that argument, since hacking since you were 8 actually is a badge of geek cred.

If you look, you'll probably find that people who've trained for pro-tennis since early grade school also tend to be well-off. Guess what? They really are fanatical tennis players; they aren't just "people that had the opportunity to be shuttled to expensive tennis lessons in their childhood".

You seem to be trying to engage me in an argument where we're both on the same side. That sounds boring. Let's instead engage with the article article that was posted.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#18

Post by mian2zi3 »

I don't buy it. I grew up on a subsistence farm and we were, I think, living well below the poverty line. I started programming when I was 8, on a Timex Sinclair 1000, which my brother and I saved up to buy. We learned by trial and error and a ZX81 assembly book that came from the library. I picked raspberries one summer (among other things) to buy a C64.

> Me and some of my black friends were talking about the other guys in CS. Some of them have been programming since they were eight. We can’t compete with that.

That's an unfortunate attitude and just not true. This reminds me of a thread (on mathoverflow I think, but I can't find it) where the general consensus was working hard throughout grad school (in math) was the great equalizer, and mattered more than how much background you came in with. The same is true for undergrad and CS.

Moreover, it isn't a competition. Someone else being an amazing hacker doesn't detract from what you know. In fact, having such people around can teach and inspire. I'd much rather be a small fish in a big pond (as I am.)

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#19

Post by dgabriel »

jerf wrote: post #9
tptacek wrote: post #2

Ugh. I sympathize with this argument but its flaws are so glaring that it's trivially knocked down, which is a shame, because there is a class privilege argument to be made about this field. Before you say "programming since age 8 just means you had rich parents", you have to address the fact that most kids with rich parents don't become hackers, and that even if you're not impoverishing yourself to support the hobby…

I've had a computer for a long time, but looking back, when I was 8 I was lower-middle to middle-middle class at best. I say "looking back" because I didn't really realize it at the time, but in hindsight it's pretty clear. My dad bought a Commodore 64 not because he was rolling in filthy upper-class lucre, but because he saw the future coming and made that a priority for himself. And it had been out for a while befo…

Please don't miss the point: you had the opportunity, as did many of your middle class peers, to discover your aptitude for computers at an early age. This is not an opportunity afforded to children in low income homes. You are not required to apologize for this. Please don't. Just recognize it for what it is, and be grateful you had an early chance to discover something you love.

My 8 year-old and I are starting a side project to build Ubuntu machines out of discarded parts for low income families in our city. One of the reasons we're doing this is that kid out there who might be a genius programmer, but would otherwise never get the chance to hack a kernel or troll a newb on IRC.

Re: If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged

#20

Post by jcapote »

Bull. Shit. When I was 8 years old, I started computing, but not at all because I was privileged. Just because someone has a computer at a young age doesn't mean they're parents went out and bought a state of the art computer. As an immigrant family we couldn't afford much in the way of leisure, but they at least knew a good deal when they saw one. So, when they saw a "computer" at the local flea market for a $100, they went for it. That means that I was hacking BASIC in DOS on a Tandy 1000 while all my friends played flight simulators in Windows 3.11 on their immensely more expensive/powerful 486's.
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