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Comment by ktRolster | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure the author understands the "hacker ethos." (ESR captures all the aspects fairly well: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker-ethic.html )

The author makes a comparison between hackers and counter-culture movements, but doesn't seem to understand that hacking (in all its aspects) is orthogonal to "counter-culture." He also seems to be largely unaware of the ethical hacking (MIT-style). He would do well to read through ESR's page for a while.

That is, you can be a CEO, an investor, and a hacker, if you want to make cool things and give them away for free.

If you want to talk about illicit hacking....that's seen a decline because it got harder. In the 90s, most hackers were kids (Legions of Doom, Control-c, etc). Now most hackers are parts of professional criminal organizations or governments.

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Ethos != ethic.

I think Brett Scott pretty clearly defined what he meant when he said "hacker", so there's not much point in arguing about what the word "hacker" means. You know what he means at least enough to disagree with his definition. Semantics just aren't that interesting.

Scott's bigger point is that there existed a culture of hackers which has largely been whitewashed, watered down, and appropriated by business interests. Your own post is an example of this gentrification: you've adopted a definition where "hacker" is just "nerd" with a cooler connotation, where "free" means "gratis" and counter-culture is orthogonal. But people in the culture Scott is describing, nerds are boring, "free" means "libre" and counter-culture is inherently integral to what a hacker is. You can disagree that the word means that, but you can't deny that that ethos exists, or that it is being subsumed by a Web 2.0 version of itself.

I think Brett Scott pretty clearly defined what he meant when he said "hacker", so there's not much point in arguing about what the word "hacker" means.

The author is insulting people who use the word "hacker" in ways he doesn't like. If the author is going to do that, he should at least use the common definition of the word....

Language changes over time: the way Scott is using the word "hacker" was the common definition of the word at one time. The change in meaning of the word "hacker" is one of the main symptoms of the social phenomenon Scott is describing.

And I think that if you took a step back from your semantic argument, you'd realize that it would be impossible for Scott to talk about the social phenomenon he's describing while using your version of the word "hacker". That's the definition of newspeak: you're insisting on a definition of the word such that Scott's idea cannot be expressed.

Personally, I value communication over the specific words used. I think it's clear to everyone what Scott means when he says "hacker", so he communicated effectively.

Language changes over time: the way Scott is using the word "hacker" was the common definition of the word at one time. The change in meaning of the word "hacker" is one of the main symptoms of the social phenomenon Scott is describing

I've never heard the word hacker used the way Scott describes it. If you have references, that would be interesting.

I said, "Semantics just aren't that interesting." and "Personally, I value communication over the specific words used." You continue to try to have a semantic argument with me, which I'm not going to engage you on further. You understand what Scott meant when he said "hacker". Pedantic arguments over definitions distract from the discussion I actually care about.

If you want to claim that a hacker counter-culture didn't exist and wasn't replaced by an insipid version of itself, I'll be happy to engage you on that topic. Otherwise, this will be my last post in this conversation.

>That is, you can be a CEO, an investor, and a hacker, if you want to make cool things and give them away for free.

All the real elite programmers are wobblies

Sorry, but I'm not quite sure I understand. Are you claiming that the real elite programmers are members of the IWW (aka "wobblies") or are you using the term in a different manner?

  In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold
  Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousandfold
  We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
  For the Union makes us strong

The article lumps together attributes of hackers and hackers, without arguing for not distinguishing them. But there certainly is a commomality. e.g. rms/fsf's free software is subversive, "unalienating" by accessing the seamy side, the reality of how things work. And Thompson's Turing Lecture (Reflections on Trusting Trust) is about as subversive as it gets.

There's politics and there's science/engineering - just about a different kind of law? Perhaps the important distinction is between rebelling for a better king versus rebelling for another king. Though maybe a lot of hacking is for its own sake, not a means to an end... rebelling without a cause.

Poor esr, once he became an authority with CatB, he lost the antiauthoritarians.

It's hard to read. It reminds me of high school and people who would move on to different music because their edgy music from yesterday became too popular. It's wanting to remain "special". You know what, you don't "own" it. It can morph like any person and any group. It grows, it matures it attracts new people, it sheds previous members. Oh, the good old days... let's bring 'em back!

I think there is a big difference between a) what ethical hackers post on publicly available parts of servers provided by their host academic institutions and b) what they say over a beer and why they do what they do.

I saw nothing to contradict my observation when I visited MIT. (Granted, class was not in session and I was obviously part of the FSF conference, so I'm sure I encountered a very much non-random sampling of MIT folk...)

b) what they say over a beer and why they do what they do.

What do they say over beer?

The same ambiguous counter-culture stuff that the urban farmers say over the same.

Who the heck is ESR and why do many of the sibling comments hate him?

[EDIT] Wikipedia suggests it is Eric S. Raymond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond I still don't know why people hate him.

ESR seems cool at first. You may think that, at worst, he uses an unfortunate choice of words now and again.

As in:

    "Oh, that thing he said, it must have been an
    accident that it sounded kinda (sexist|racist|
    conceited|sociopathic|selfish|ignorant)."

Keep reading, and you'll see that it's a theme, a thread that runs through his work. He seems to think he's quite the demagogue.

I think this article characterized the hacker spirit much better than the jargon file's narrow highlighting of a few aspects of one type of hacker.

In a way, the jargon file's definition reflects an early step on the deductive/prescriptive path that led to exactly what the author is lamenting.

I can't imagine that you've read either the article or the jargon file very carefully since the jargon file clearly describes two very different types of hackers.

It would be interesting to see your explanation of what the article's "hacker spirit" though.

Freshly, I had only read the page you linked and was turned off at its specificity. Views of hackers (even widely-shared ones) do not constitute a definition for what a hacker is.

The previous entry ("hacker") gets a bit more general, but is still quite computer-centric. It references non-computer activities to show that there is more to it, but does not really attempt to capture how these aspects fit together.

Specific quotes that I liked from the article:

>> Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the systems – about the world – from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more interesting things.

> the archetype of ‘the hacker’ is essentially that of an individual attempting to live an empowered and unalienated life. It is outsider in spirit, seeking empowerment outside the terms set by the mainstream establishment.

> unlike the straightforward activist who defines himself in direct opposition to existing systems, hackers work obliquely. The hacker is ambiguous, specialising in deviance from established boundaries, including ideological battle lines. It’s a trickster spirit, subversive and hard to pin down. And, arguably, rather than aiming towards some specific reformist end, the hacker spirit is a ‘way of being’, an attitude towards the world.

Now gosh maybe this is really just overgeneralizing "hacker" into a fancy word for critical thinking by someone who sees through groupthink and happens to be at the right place at the right time to do something clever. But if there's an aspect to "hacker" that means something beyond just someone who plays with computers, I'd say the article did a pretty good job trying to describe that general concept.

That's a more thoughtful response, so well done.

> ESR captures all the aspects fairly well

I'm gonna stop you right there. The idea that ESR is the final authority on what the "hacker ethos" is or should be is much more offensively wrong than anything in this article.

I didn't say ESR is an authority, just that he described it well. If you have a disagreement with what he wrote there, you should explain your disagreement, rather than attacking him as a person.

Taken as a whole, ESR is an embarrassment. But the parent didn't say that we should consider ESR an authority, final or otherwise. They only expressed their opinion that those words (penned by ESR) "captures all aspects fairly well".

>ESR is an embarrassment I have actually read some of his material and found your statement somewhat confusing. Is it that you dislike him as a person or is there something that I missed completely? Is there any other material that would give a clearer and perhaps more authentic explanation of these ethos (cause, frankly, I though that ESR did a good job there)? *Pardon my grammar, ESL bro.

Please forive the lenthy disclaimer/preamble: I very strongly believe that when we consider some subset of a person's words or their work - that we should treat it on its own merits, and not contaminated with tangential arguments about the person themself or their other, unrelated words, claims, works, etc.

So I mentioned my position (that he is an embarrassment) to make clear to the parent poster that I wasn't defending ESR per se - before immediately declaring that our shared distaste of ESR is not relevant to the discussion. I'm replying out of courtesy, since you asked, but I don't think discussing negative aspects of ESR is relevant to the larger topics here.

> more authentic explanation of these ethos (cause, frankly, I though that ESR did a good job there)?

I think ESR's comments on the hacker ethos are just fine. His other positions and writing in no way detracts from this. I think there are many places where ESR did 'a good job'.

> is there something that I missed completely?

I don't have any fair or balanced sources to share with you, but if you'd like to see links cherry picked by people who have a heavy anti-ESR bias, you can check out the not-so-rational "rationalwiki". I don't endorse nor agree with all that's said here, but it sheds light on why some people dislike ESR.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond#Footnotes

Edit: A more concise summary is found in this person's views: http://cal-harding.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-i-hate-eric-raym...

Also, see daveloyall's comments on this page. I don't fully agree with him either, but they are illuminating.

Thank you for taking the time out to reply. I won't press on this issue any longer; I believe that the links that you have provided are adequate starting points for understanding this issue a little better. Once again, thank you for the reply. PS: Some of the comments that ESR has made over the years are shocking; I was absolutely gutted to note as much after reading Harding's blog.

I don't think he wrote the entirety of the Jargon file, did he? Thought he only did the bits at the beginning and end of what became the New Hacker's Dictionary (portrait of j random hacker, etc.) but the original JF was something older he ended up maintaining.

Edit: never mind, just checked jargon-1 and the ethos entry either came from ESR or Guy Steele (both contributed to the rewrite afaik).

TL;DR: Yep, citing ESR does not help GP's case!

Thank you. I had wrote something about that in a comment I was working on minute ago, but it didn't make the final cut. I'll attempt to reproduce it:

ESR is so broken that he thinks being peerless is a good thing. The only time in my life when any of his writing made any sense to me was when I was myself so desperately alone that I didn't even realize what I was missing. I have considered reaching out to him, offering him a lifeline... But after reading his blog, I am sorry to predict that he would interpret any interaction with another human that results in his experience of an actual feeling to be an assault on his person, and that he is likely to respond in kind.

This seems out of place now that the comment thread has evolved. Anyway, it's clear that ESR is a polarizing issue. Citations pointing to the jargon file might be be less distracting if they are described as such, rather than as "ESR said..."

I feel like a better distinction would be academic hacking and counterculture hacking. One is founded in clever solutions/information-related ideology from an academic context, and the other in subversion from an outsider context (and of course there could be overlap). Of course a CEO could be a hacker in one of those senses.

ok, so your comment made me think. It seems like there are (vaguely) two types of black-hat hackers. The older type (legions of doom, captain crunch, etc), are just trying to get information, understand how things work, and don't particularly want to subvert anything.

In the last decade or so, we've seen the rise of groups like Anonymous, who are hacktivists....meaning they kind of do have a goal of actually subverting things.

The older type was before my time. But here's my thinking...

You can't really know how something works without also being able to make it do something that wasn't intended.

I feel counter-culture and a little bit punk every time I fix something instead of buying a new one.

I feel a little MORE CC and punk if I do it with bailing wire and pliers from my back pocket, on the spot, in front of people.

Hacking is counter-culture because culture is lame and hacking is awesome. You can't --and I mean, logically-- you can't be good at things without finding yourself going against the flow. Because being independently strong is just not where the flow is pointed.

For the older type (sigh), the act of getting information was subversive.

Given his stewardship of the Jargon file, I'm not inclined to treat ESR as a neutral source.

After reading ESRs opinion, do you agree or disagree with his assessment of the hacker ethos? And why?

No one is suggesting he is a neutral source, nor an authority, only that his definition may be useful

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