Reading 01: Hardware Hackers

In my opinion, spreading the Hacker Ethic to a wider audience was really important for the course of history. Without the spread of these technologies to a wider audience to explore, think of how different the world would be. Innovation would be much slower if we left it to those “true hackers” in the labs of MIT. If hackers truly want to embrace the “You can create art and beauty on a computer” (30), the “computers can change your life for the better” (34), and the “Access to computers — and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works — should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!” (28) components of the Hacker Ethic, then it only makes sense to try and actively spread the beauty of computers. After seeing the eagerness of students at George Washington High School to learn how to program a computer, “[Albrecht] began teaching evening classes for the students at Control Data’s office. Albrecht discovered that the youngsters’ delight in learning to take control of the Control Data 160A computer was intense, addictive, visceral” (166). If Albrecht had not made the conscious effort to spread computers to the young people, then the Internet may not have been as good as it is today as Bob Kahn, the inventor of TCP and IP was one of the students who Albrecht touched. I think it’s pretty safe to say that humans have an innate desire to explore, to learn, and to create. The motivation may vary, but I know that for me, and many people like me, when you first see a new technique, technology, or craft, you want to explore it at least a little bit. Eventually, you may end up loving it and delving deeper into its secrets and capabilities.

I find it interesting that in the book, they highlight Felsenstein’s and Lipkin’s different views on technology, but they also highlight that they worked towards the same goal of spreading the use of computers at Community Memory. “Efrem did not share Lee’s belief that technology could help the world” (161). Personally, I understand both arguments. Technology can be used to bring people from all over the world together and share ideas. The average American, now, can know about the turmoils plaguing other countries and do what they can to help. However, like Elfrem sees technology, it can be used for evil like “antipersonnel weapons during the war” (163). Unfortunately though, that’s the price we pay for any great breakthrough in technology. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but while people will see its good uses, others will try to find its evil uses.

I have mixed feelings about comprising your ideals to have a larger impact on the world and success. You see companies like Apple and Microsoft who ascend because of their contributions to spreading technology to the wider public. At the same time, their competition with other companies and trade secrets limited the collaboration that these companies could really do with each other and the general public to create even greater technologies. This is somewhat changing with some companies like Microsoft having a much more welcoming stance towards open source. Yes, these competitions in a way fuel innovation (and also loads their pockets), but how interesting it might have been if all companies were “swapping programs and sharing techniques” (166) instead of keeping them to themselves. I think that would be pretty awesome, but I just think that the inherent greed of people will never let that happen.