That false comparison has always bothered me. Preying on the weak for fun instead of profit doesn't make you right, it makes you sound like a sociopath.
Mayhap that time has arrived.
It enables people who would rather be disconnected to disconnect themselves, and gives sociopaths the ability to do far more.
The internet doesn't create people without empathy, it reveals that deep down, a lot of humanity didn't have it to begin with. The way society is starting to structure itself, though, lets that shine through more clearly.
A lot? I doubt LulzSec is more than five people. For every pathological script-kiddie there are ten Free Software hackers. The Internet has revealed new ways for people to be destructive, but it has also revealed more ways that they can be constructive.
Compare:
I doubt society was ever much more virtuous than it is today, but we do hear about the problems more. There is the orthogonal and much more serious issue that many more people today feel unfulfilled in their lives than they did before, but I can't even begin to address that -- read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace if that interests or concerns you.
a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
Preying on the weak for profit
They both kind of have a sociopath sound to them
A society driven by preying on the weak for profit is far more distressing.
I don't think it's as visible to us as it used to be, but I think it's still very much there.
The person who is weak in this case is a customer. This customer is lacking in skills related to computer security. The person who is preying on the weak is someone who invested time into learning about the skills that the customer does not know. Let's say this customer was a farmer. He is using the money he too got from preying on the weak non-farmers to purchase protection.
In the case of preying on the weak for fun we also have some things being hidden behind the words. For example, fun in this case means stealing identities, trying to ruin relationships, and sending dildos to innocents.
It's cool though for the author because by having things written in these terms its easy for people to talk past each other. They don't realize the context in which he has placed the words in the article. When other people see the terms its easy to think that maybe "preying on the weak for profit" is referring to blackhats instead of capitalism.
Another thing worth pointing out is that the person who is volunteering to give away the information for free is actually someone who also put in a lot of time to learn all the things that the customer didn't know. So when he says "I could teach it to him quickly" he is really saying "I will provide the same service in exchange for you're weekend." The thing is that when these two "companies" compete only the one charging money is going to stay afloat. So the dildo sending altruist who wants fun to be the basis of society goes back to sending dildos while the guy who charged the money actually does the job.
In economics, the invisible hand, also known as invisible hand of the market, is the term economists use to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace. This is a metaphor first coined by the economist Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments... For Smith, the invisible hand was created by the conjunction of the forces of self-interest, competition, and supply and demand, which he noted as being capable of allocating resources in society.
Do car mechanics pray on weak for profit because not everyone learned how to fix their car? They trust mechanics because they devoted many years of their life at becoming good at what they do. Does that make them sociopaths? logic fail.
You could also say that white hat hackers provide a service of security for the benefit of those that spend their time creating other things.