Hacker News Reader

Hm.

It makes me think of civil disobedience. And it makes me wonder: hackers today are used to tinkering with machines, whereas earlier hackers often worked with people. It feels like we lost something there. So many hackers today look at the world and The System and say, "It's too hard. Let's not try."

View on HN

>whereas earlier hackers often worked with people.

There's a book detailing the rise of hacker culture. There's a bit about hackers 'borrowing' tools from someone. The contempt they showed that man, and his tools, shows that working with people was even then not a skill that all of them had.

It sounds like you are referring to "Hackers" by Steven Levy. It's a great book and that's a great story. I've posted it here:

http://frammish.org/used_up.html

I only read this book last year, but it really is a cracking read

The Hackers Crackdown?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com