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Comment by Jtsummers | Hacker News Reader

It's been this way for (EDIT: at least) 30 years. And the discussion has been going on just as long. Though it used to be, especially on /. back in the day, rants about "hacker" versus "cracker". I once tried to point this out to my parents, never again. It just doesn't matter. We've elected to continue applying a label to ourselves that the media uses in a totally different way. Language changes, often in ways counter to what we want, accept this and move on.

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I am not trying to change the world but when a potential business partner hears I am a hacker I don't want them thinking I am going to steal their credit card info.

So why don't you introduce yourself as a "programmer" or a "computer wizard" or a "tinkerer" or a "developer" or any other term and opt to use a term that's been synonymous with breaking into computing systems for 3-4 decades?

Any why would you want to introduce yourself to a business partner as a hacker anyway? If they understand what you mean, you're telling them that you're going to give them a product that works, but only because of magic and duct tape, not because it's a professional product. If they don't understand what you mean, they'll think you're a criminal.

Either way, in the business world, hacker has only negative connotations. Only within hacker circles does the term become a positive.

Qualify it then. "I'm a computer hacker, I take <tools> and apply them to <domains> to create <solutions>." Or use it as a weed-out phrase, to find the potentials that are more familiar with computer culture and able to distinguish your meaning from society's meaning.

It seems much easier to use a different word to describe yourself than it will be to convince everyone else to define hacker the same way you do. The whole point of language is to communicate ideas to people. Choosing a word you know in advance your audience is likely to misinterpret doesn't seem like very effective use of language to me.

A true hacker would be pleased at the idea of making a potential business partner uncomfortable about his talents, and relish the challenge of meeting their goals despite that discomfort.

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