Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers • Hacker News Board

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#71

Post by toyg » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 4:59 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #38

toyg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Conservative revolutionary ideals"? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" -- this was political and philosophical dynamite in the XVIII century, when kings and gods still reigned supreme over the whole world (in fact, it still is quite an incendi…

The founding fathers were no radicals. Whereas the leaders of the French revolution changed everything dramatically, the founders left the basic structure of American society more or less intact. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was not an incendiary statement in late 1700's England. The 1688 Glorious Revolution had made Parliament ascendent in England, and the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of h…

The removal of aristocracy and the establishment of a Republic were extremely radical acts. Even in countries like England, where the merchant classes were on a dramatic rise and parliamentary rule was expanding in scope (and for which it was seen as a wildly anarchic state by most continental nobility), aristocracy was still fundamentally dominant in many areas of life -- which is why there was an American revolution in the first place: non-aristocratic colonists were excluded from most political and military appointments in the Kingdom.

The fact that the founding fathers didn't have a holy call to abolish private property doesn't mean they weren't "radicals" -- that's a revisionist view with modern undertones.

(and on the bloodless, I can assure you that the Civil War was as bloody as most revolutions. It was exactly out of horror for the consequences of that event that most English political movements self-moderated themselves since then, trying to maintain their fights mostly inside the boundaries of parliamentary rule.)

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#72

Post by dalke » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:00 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #31

dalke wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"first army in human history to be less concerned with the acquisition of power and control and more about giving that empowerment to the individuals we fight for" That sounds incredible egocentric. Under what standard do you exclude all suffragettes and all abolitionists from this category?

In fact, the opposite is true: most revolutionary movements spurred from philosophical elaborations of wealthy and well-educated members of the ruling classes, which then allowed "inferiors" to claim their newly-defined 'natural rights'. People like Locke or Voltaire had little or nothing to gain from saying what they said, but were conscious that others would have been empowered by their words.

Then you do not understand my objection.

ChikkaChiChi said "We (meaning the tech elite) are first army in human history, ..."

What makes this tech army categorically different than that of abolitionists?

Don't Barlow, Gilmore, and Kapor, founders of the EFF, count as "wealthy and well-educated members of the ruling classes" just as much as Garrison and Tappan, founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society?

"People like Locke or Voltaire had little or nothing to gain"

You veer into a trap with that viewpoint. Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery, and fought against slavery and for equal rights. He had much to gain in his effort, including love and marriage. As a side-effect of doing so, and as a mechanism for achieving that goal, he gained political and social power.

ChikkaChiChi said "less concerned with the acquisition of power and control", but that balance point becomes a subjective view. The only people that cannot fit those constraints are either 1) those with power and control but who don't want more, and 2) those who have no power or control, and therefore neither you nor I have likely heard of them.

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#73

Post by glesica » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:02 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #57

rayiner wrote: post #27

Hackers tend to be passive, arm-chair, activists. Twittering on the internet and feeding outrage to each other, but never actually getting engaged to solve real issues. How many hackers do you know that have dedicated their entire careers to causes in the public service? In comparison, I look around at my friends who majored in liberal arts. I know a double-digit number of people who turned down six figure jobs to go…

A good hacker is wasted in public service. Why bother working for an environmental non-profit when you can make many orders of magnitude more difference by founding Tesla Motors or Nanosolar? Who has more impact on education, a good elementary teacher or Sal Khan? Why campaign for privacy when you can write PGP or Tor, why work as a fundraiser when you could build Kiva or Watsi? The hacker skillset is a lever big eno…

How many engineering graduates end up being Sal Khan? Or writing something like PGP or Tor? He didn't say all engineering graduates should go into public service, he said that more of them should. It takes working from both sides to create a better world. Without reasonable people in government, Tesla would have been crushed before it ever got off the ground (without even talking about the subsidy buyers of its products can get).

One good teacher is, perhaps, less valuable than Sal Khan. But we only need a handful of Sal Khans, at most. So one good teacher is more valuable than one more person trying to be another Sal Khan with basically zero chance of success. Am I saying that no one should try to be another Sal Khan? Nope. I'm just saying that most people won't, even if they try, so they should have a good backup plan, like becoming an awesome teacher. Really, it's the same type of advice people give to promising young athletes, shoot for the top, but have a plan to land on your feet if you miss.

The hacker skillset is a big lever, but it isn't magical, and most people will never change the world in a big way. So if a few more engineering grads decided to go into public service instead of writing database apps or starting another mobile social network, I think the world would benefit.

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#74

Post by mindcrime » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:02 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #27

Hackers tend to be passive, arm-chair, activists. Twittering on the internet and feeding outrage to each other, but never actually getting engaged to solve real issues. How many hackers do you know that have dedicated their entire careers to causes in the public service? In comparison, I look around at my friends who majored in liberal arts. I know a double-digit number of people who turned down six figure jobs to go…

Hackers tend to be passive, arm-chair, activists. Twittering on the internet and feeding outrage to each other, but never actually getting engaged to solve real issues. How many hackers do you know that have dedicated their entire careers to causes in the public service?

That strikes me as a false dichotomy. There's a spectrum of ground between "passive, arm-chair activist" and someone who "dedicates their entire career to causes in the public service".

How many hackers do you know that would turn down a job at Google or Facebook and instead try to break into the (often insanely competitive) job market of public service?

Is that even relevant? A job in "public service" isn't the only way one can strive to make the world a better place to live. Creating innovative new technologies in the context of a private, for-profit company is still contributing to the overall public good. Likewise, creating a technology startup that creates jobs and provides employment for people, is doing good. Hacking on open source code and democratizing access to powerful computing technology is still serving the public interest.

I may be mis-reading you, but I feel like you are suggesting that if someone doesn't choose to go to work for a charity / non-profit / govt. agency, that they aren't concerned with real issues. If that is your position, let me say that I disagree wholeheartedly. I've I've misread you, then feel free to ignore this.

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#75

Post by toyg » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:03 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #46

toyg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Conservative revolutionary ideals"? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" -- this was political and philosophical dynamite in the XVIII century, when kings and gods still reigned supreme over the whole world (in fact, it still is quite an incendi…

> this was political and philosophical dynamite in the XVIII century No, it wasn't, at least not in England. It was propaganda directed at what were already well-established political norms in the England. Pretty much the whole of the declaration, from the statement of principles at the beginning to the detailed list of particular grievances, was directed at explaining why the upper class landholding gentlemen of Eng…

See my post above: they were treated unfairly because of this little thing called aristocracy, which was still dominant all over Europe; the fact that in some countries it was losing some of its powers doesn't mean that it wasn't still holding most of them. Removing aristocracy was an extremely radical act in the XVIII century, even for countries were the productive merchant classes had dramatically risen in relevance; it took another two centuries for most European countries to follow suit!

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#76

Post by yason » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

Is this hacker related at all or is it that hackers end up with (loads of) this sort of information more often?

If I had in my possession delicate information about government, military, or public sector misbehaviour I would need a really, really good reason to keep it secret. And I would assume that most people would face the same dilemma, regardless of hackerdom.

They might, as well as many hackers, choose to do so because they want to keep their jobs and feed their kids but they still couldn't get over the issue. Young people are more likely to leak because they have less to lose.

There are Stallmans of non-hacker origin, too. These are people who see a problem in society and set out to fix it. Civil rights groups, civil liberties groups, charity organizations. Stallman just happened to be a hacker so what he saw was a social problem in his own domain.

I do recognize the libertarian sentiment among hackers and I subscribe to that myself, too. Just wondering if it's really hacker specific.

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#77

Post by louthy » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:10 PM UTC

gyom wrote: post #47

chris_mahan wrote: post #25

"In the long tail of history just following orders is wrong." dang that is a nice quote.

It sounds nice, but when I think about what exactly is meant by "long tail" I can't come up with an answer that would be compatible with the idea of the "long tail" in statistics ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail ). It does sounds better than just "in the long run, throughout history, just following orders is wrong". It seems like it's referring to people who are outliers and through which all the change is ha…

Perhaps, an alternative: "In the long tale of history just following orders is wrong."

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#78

Post by mixmastamyk » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:11 PM UTC

I've known quite a few twenty-something hackers (including my younger self) that are absolutists about things... everything black and white.

From the preliminary details though, it looks like the government has significantly overstepped its bounds. This is the kind of thing that absolutists won't tolerate, and for that I am grateful that they exist.

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#79

Post by toyg » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:14 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #72

toyg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, the opposite is true: most revolutionary movements spurred from philosophical elaborations of wealthy and well-educated members of the ruling classes, which then allowed "inferiors" to claim their newly-defined 'natural rights'. People like Locke or Voltaire had little or nothing to gain from saying what they said, but were conscious that others would have been empowered by their words.

Then you do not understand my objection. ChikkaChiChi said "We (meaning the tech elite) are first army in human history, ..." What makes this tech army categorically different than that of abolitionists? Don't Barlow, Gilmore, and Kapor, founders of the EFF, count as "wealthy and well-educated members of the ruling classes" just as much as Garrison and Tappan, founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society? "People li…

I actually agree with your opinion, sorry if it wasn't clear :) I was just pointing out that, generally speaking, many movements who were "fighting for our oppressed fellow man" were in fact produced not by the oppressed, but by dissenting elements of the oppressing classes. Not all of them, of course.

Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers

#80

Post by lazerwalker » Thu, Jun 13, 2013, 5:17 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #57

rayiner wrote: post #27

Hackers tend to be passive, arm-chair, activists. Twittering on the internet and feeding outrage to each other, but never actually getting engaged to solve real issues. How many hackers do you know that have dedicated their entire careers to causes in the public service? In comparison, I look around at my friends who majored in liberal arts. I know a double-digit number of people who turned down six figure jobs to go…

A good hacker is wasted in public service. Why bother working for an environmental non-profit when you can make many orders of magnitude more difference by founding Tesla Motors or Nanosolar? Who has more impact on education, a good elementary teacher or Sal Khan? Why campaign for privacy when you can write PGP or Tor, why work as a fundraiser when you could build Kiva or Watsi? The hacker skillset is a lever big eno…

Most 'good hackers' are wasted in Silicon Valley. You're right in that you can accomplish a lot more good in the world by focusing on solving problems at a higher level of abstraction than ground-level work, but at the same time most people working in tech aren't focusing on problems that are anywhere near as important as those that public service tackles.