Reading 00: True Hackers
From my impression of the reading, it seems that to Levy, a hacker is someone whose main goal is to understand something. They will do this by playing around with it, and ultimately, in seeking that knowledge, they may push that very thing to a whole new level because of their curiosity. They are people who do this regardless of what rules or standards may be there to discourage them or hold them back. For example, Samson was able to create music out of the TX-0 by “writing programs that varied the binary numbers in that slot in different ways to produce different pitches” (Levy, 21) despite the fact that people thought what he was doing was impossible. To Levy, a hacker is also someone who believes that information should be free and shared by all as “a free exchange of information, particularly when the information was in the form of a computer program, allowed for greater overall creativity” (29).
To be honest, this portrayal of a hacker seems much more respectable than the ones we get from today’s media. In film, we often see hackers in the role of vigilantes or anti social assholes who only care about themselves. Movies don’t really show off the curious side of a hacker, which is probably the most important hacker trait, but rather they just make them seem like they are already all knowing. In movies, it’s not really about learning for a hacker. It’s about showing off what you know.
I am actually quite fascinated with this idea of a hacker that Levy presents. However, I don’t think this idea of a hacker only applies to computer people. If we did not have people with mindsets like these hackers, we would be quite stuck in our boring old ways all the time. There would never be advancement in technology, science, art, or anything for that matter. In the book, Levy says “you can create art and beauty on a computer” (31). I think this is important because it emphasizes the fact that curiosity and creativity complement each other well and can lead to great new things. At some point or another, almost everything we use nowadays was an innovation. When the first car was invented, I’m sure there were many people who thought it would have no future, but look where we are. You can see this too in art. If artists like Derek Charke let stuck up traditionalist classical flutists get to him, then we wouldn’t have kickass avant grade flute tunes like Raga Sept. Now, it’s not that pieces like Telemann’s Flute Fantasie № 11 in G Major aren’t also kickass, but if people weren’t willing to explore and expand on what they knew, then we would be stuck riding horse drawn carriages and listening to the same kinds of music for centuries. Hackers need to let their creative juices flow to bring about truly great and innovative things.
Right now, I wouldn’t really consider myself a hacker because I don’t really do much computer exploration outside of class. I’m not that creative, and I don’t think I’m passionate enough to work on things outside of class for the sake of learning or exploring something new with computers. There’s a part of me that does want to be a hacker, and part of me that doesn’t. The part of me that does is actually pretty curious about certain computer areas and wants to bring about something new. It’s just that I’m not driven enough in that direction to actually go about fulfilling those desires. The main reason I don’t want to be a hacker is that I’m afraid of what that lifestyle could do to my personal life. Stories like xtraeme scare me, and I don’t want my life to be ruined by a passion.
