Let’s define what I mean by the term “hacker” first. There is so much FUD out there around this term. Large controlling institutions want you to fear hackers, want you to think the hacker mindset is dangerous. This could not be farther from the truth. Hackers are simply empowered individuals that want to figure things out for themselves. With hacker properly defined, let’s get to the meat, why I want my daughter to be a hacker:
1. Hackers are not consumer lemmings – As large institutions continue to brainwash American citizens into becoming slaves to the systems they’ve created; hackers know that there is a life outside these systems of user dependence, a better life. Institutional dependence is literally killing us. Our dependence on the institutional food system has left us disease ridden and physically incapable. Dependence on western medical systems is bankrupting us. Our two major political parties both preach institutional dependence; one insists dependence on big government institutions, the other dependence on big corporate institutions. Hackers preach self and small community dependence. i.e. independence.
2. Hackers avoid what I call “The Knowledge Trap ” – Our education system is mostly about teaching people what to think, not how to think. This is true from kindergarten through undergrad. Hackers are more focused on skills than knowledge, and people with skills survive. Most importantly it’s attitude that make hackers effective. Knowledge is least important because they have the skills to get the knowledge they need when necessary. And their independent attitude makes them resistant to appeals to authority.
3. Hackers can hack anything – They are not just limited to computers and electronics. They can plant vegetables and by doing so hack the food distribution system. They can install solar panels on their homes and hack the energy grid. They easily shake the fear that advertisers and politicians instill in mainstream society’s psyche. Big institutional systems don’t faze hackers, they can see beyond them.
4. Hackers favor open systems – Hackers use and favor open non-controlling tools and systems. They support software freedom, and this ensures that non-restricted tools will be available to hackers for generations to come.
I’m sure there are many more reasons to encourage the next generation to embrace hacking. Feel free to add your reasons as comments. Happy Hacking!
Cool Post! Came across your site from Identi.ca
I don’t know you, but you must be the best dad ever.
Thanks Andrew. I try to be a good Dad. My girl is still a toddler, but if I can instill a sense of empowerment in her, encourage her to explore, and foster curiosity… well that would be success in my eyes.
A sense of empowerment is certainly better than a sense of entitlement. I wish more people thought this way.
Please put ‘addThis’ into your template so I can more easily share your posts. This was a nice one. You have a typo- you wrote ‘backrupting’ instead of ‘bankrupting’.
cheers,
Joshua
Thanks for the addThis suggestion. Done. Typo corrected as well. Thanks again!
Great post! I love all four reason why your kid should be a hacker. I’m kind of in the same boat. I think yours is more thought out than mine is though.
I got back into Linux (about 2 years ago), when I realized that I didn’t want my kids to be mindless Window users. I said to myself, “It is my responsibility/duty to expose my kids to as much FOSS as I can.” They’ll make the final decision, but I would have least done my part by showing them the awesomeness which is Open Source.
So; I quit Windows (cold turkey) and started running Linux full time. Well, let me not say “cold turkey”. I still dual boot for video games, but for EVERYTHING else – I’m on Linux. That way, when they finally get their own machines I can be their tech guy, to smoothly guide them through… instead of sending them to the wolves which is IRC. No one is telling my kids to RTFM!
Maybe you missed the point a bit. It is not about being smoothly guided. It is about learning how to find out by yourself. It is done by RTFM!
I totally agree. It is amazing, you could have read my mind.
I prefer C and C and the GNU. I did not get my degree in any IT related field, and yet I am a software developer.
I don’t like java for the Borg-like methodology. The choice to write code in harmony and conforming to standards that make sense should be a choice; then it is beautiful. Java forces conformity and makes the choice for you, and becomes bogged down under the weight of it’s own administration.
My daughter will grow up Canadian, knowing how to build a fire and clean a fish. She will approach every circumstance with a critical eye, not a fearful one. She will develop solutions rather than create problems, or worse – compound society’s problems with her own.
When you say hacker, you mean resourceful, intelligent and motivated (if not driven). I am right on board!
im empowered with your credit card information
Glad someone feels empowered by it. Debt vessels like credit cards typically make me feel enslaved and oppressed.
You did not define “hacker” clearly, because you yourself do not understand what a hacker truly is.
“3. Hackers can hack anything – They are not just limited to computers and electronics. They can plant vegetables and by doing so hack the food distribution system. They can install solar panels on their homes and hack the energy grid. They easily shake the fear that advertisers and politicians instill in mainstream society’s psyche. Big institutional systems don’t phase hackers, they can see beyond them.”
A “hacker” is a person who simply has the power, knowledge, interest and intent to modify software. So a hacker cannot do the things you mention above. A hacker might be able, but isn’t simply by nature.
What you are referred to is a “cracker” one who can “crack” security to gain control of something one did not previously have control over.
Also, your preaching against “big government” is completely ridiculous. Not only is every service you use everyday controlled and regulated (quite well) by the government of your country, but all popular software development is started, funded, and controlled, by large singular entities. E.g.: Free Software Foundation, GNU Project, Software in the Public Interest, Red Hat, Canonical, Microsoft, Apple, etc. These companies control the software’s development. You are only free to modify your own copy of the software, and you have no definite say in its development.
Hi InaTux,
Yup, my definition of hacker is intentionally inclusive… and will continue to be.
As far a big entities go, to use one of your examples, the free software foundation is a small entity, I think they have about 9 employees. What makes the FSF effective is the large community that rallies around it. That’s the difference, large organizations are more likely to be corrupt than large communities without central power. And to say that individuals have no say in the development of free software, that’s preposterous. Totally false. Linux was started by one individual after all.
qchapter,
Linux, the kernel, was started by one individual. But GNU (the operating system, c library, compiler, shell, scripts, and everything that makes up a functioning operating system) that sits atop the Linux kernel was started by a group of individuals, the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation being the main contributors then and to this day.
In community based distributions such as Debian, users have a say so, so long as they have a majority. With companies such as Canonical, users have no say so, in example our article “Free Software is a democracy, Mark Shuttleworth!” where Mark Shuttleworth refuses to change the title-bar button positions back, even when many users disagreed with the change.
Hey InaTux,
I just took a look at your site. You guys provide an awesome service for the free software community. We may not agree on everything, but I can tell we are on the same side generally. For those that are not familiar with InaTux Computers: http://inatux.com/
qchapter,
Thank you for that!
We do agree largely. And I personally agree with the article. I merely feel the need to discuss semantics; Hollywood has made “hacking” this thing only about breaking security to — let’s say — take control of the United States’ nuclear missiles or to rob a bank, when we all know it’s definitely not centered around that.
In my opinion a hacker is largely the same as a scientist, looking for answers to the mysteries of the universe, answers to something, anything really. And scientists typically start to see the world as science, math, and physics. My point was, they see things this way, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can have success at everything.
To “hack the food distribution system [and] energy grid” sounds to me more like cracking security (to defy them), not modifying them to make them more useful, as a hacker would.
I am arguing semantics, I only feel the article could have been more clear on what “hacker” means to the author. But I do agree with the article.
Hi InaTux,
It sounds like you’re following the FUD definition of what a hacker is, if you’re limiting the skill set to only computers and electronics. A hacker can find the underlying scheme of anything they set their mind to. It’s a mindset, not a specific discipline. I think hackers are attracted to computers because the underlying knowledge is basically bottomless, but hacking is certainly not confined to only computers and electronics.
I also disagree with your comment that individuals cannot contribute to Linux. There is absolutely nothing stopping me or you from creating our own Linux distribution, even one based on another flavor of Linux. Sure, Linux companies can include binary code in their own distributions, but I can strip out the offending code, and re-release the distribution myself. This power is guaranteed by the GPL, and is one of the reason Linux remains competitive against commercial OSs.
Have fun!
Hacking certainly is not confined to only computers and electronics, I never said it was. I said it isn’t simply by nature, you can be a computer hacker and not know a thing about gardening, I know many people who know a lot about computer hacking and nothing about architecture and physics.
His definition of hacker sounds more like a “hacker” in a Hollywood movie; where being a hacker is all about breaking security.
Again I said “You are only free to modify your own copy of the software, and you have no definite say in its development.”
And as I say above “In community based distributions such as Debian, users have a say so, so long as they have a majority. With companies such as Canonical, users have no say so, in example our article “Free Software is a democracy, Mark Shuttleworth!” where Mark Shuttleworth refuses to change the title-bar button positions back, even when many users disagreed with the change.”
GNU/Linux is commercial as well. Commercial is not the same as proprietary, personally I encourage software developers to make money on their software, it should be a reasonable price or I won’t pay (just as with any software). So long as I have the right to access, copy, modify, and share the software (and it’s source code) I’m perfectly happy paying for my software.
InaTux,
You can argue all day about the semantics of the term hacker. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the proliferation of the hacker/maker culture mentality, what ever you choose to call it. We need to spread it around.
And of course, no single individual is going to take the Ubuntu reigns away from Shuttleworth. But it doesn’t matter, Mark can do whatever he wants with Ubuntu. What does matter is that there are distributions out there that are fully licensed under the GNU Public License, so anyone has the power to take the code and create their own distro. That’s where the individual’s power lies, and that’s why we are lucky to have GNU and the FSF.
You know if you are going to correct a definition at least get your correction right. It was taken up by an MIT group and referred to anything from moding software to putting the Principles car together in his office in one night. So given the terms original entry in to geek culture I would say the author is more write than you are.
hacker /n./
[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker’. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker’, `network hacker’. The correct term for this sense is cracker.
The term `hacker’ also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see network, the and Internet address). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see hacker ethic).
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you’ll quickly be labeled bogus). See also wannabee.
Final to your problem with point three. A great deal of the software used every day is made by a few people, not the mega institutions in the corporate world.
The fact taht we can modify the software _and_ redistribute when using FOSS means we have a great deal of say in the software development.
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I have to say I am all about this mentality. I have never heard it put in terms of hacking though, the first point I have always heard in anti-globalisation and green movement referred to as local resilience. You might be interested in the Transition movement, check it out: http://www.transitionnetwork.org/
Sam,
Thanks for the link to The Transition Network, I wasn’t familiar with it. Yeah, I think the term local resilience seperates the individual from the action necessary. It’s all about individual empowerment.
I recommend checking sources of funding before joining or spreading the word about any organization. The rich elite fund a lot of environmental movements such as Greenpeace (via Rockefeller and Ted Turner). Such organizations are only political movements which use environmental reasons to further their own agendas (population control, carbon credits [world bank profits from them]).
Btw, the author had a good definition of Hacker, Inatux is a fool anyways. Don’t pay any attention to him.
Brandon,
Inatux was just elaborating on my definition, and given that he has a business that serves the free software community, he deserves your respect, not petty name calling. And maybe I missed something, but I don’t see where Sam mentioned Greenpeace. If you’re simply trolling, at least make an effort to be a bit more amusing. Entertainment has value.
It was a general comment about foundations and organizations. A lot of them are faux movements or hijacked what used to be a real movement. I was simply recommending research on Transition Network.
I’ve also read Inatux’s site, he does do a lot of good work. I shouldn’t have called him a fool but he’s quite wrong in this regard and in a few others like Ubuntu’s views on democracy.
Not trolling, though often people think I am because of my strong opinions and lack of filter
By this definition, we should all be hackers.
We all should be. It would take us back to being a Maker culture instead of a Consumer culture. Don’t get me wrong I like a lot of modern benefits (interweb, anyone), but I really can’t stand the cultural trend towards expecting somebody else to wipe nose.
I try to instill the same sense of curiosity in my boys (ages 4 and 6). I got a heartwarming reward one day when I was at a science museum with them, trying to solve rooms full of puzzles in order to be able to crack a ‘code’ in the final room, which let you snap a photo of yourself for the ‘wall of fame’.
Each room had 4 puzzles you had to solve to get a clue. You input the answers into a touch screen to get the clue, and after getting all 4 clues, you take them to the final room.
My oldest son quickly realized you only needed to solve three puzzles in three rooms before you could guess (through process of elimination) what the final clue was in each. Taking three of the final four clues to the final room, he guessed the right combo to unlock the wall of fame camera.
Some might call this cheating, but I was proud of him for analyzing the system and seeing how to bend it to his advantage. Even the museum attendants were impressed at his ‘hacking’ the system.
Great post!!
Just wanted to point out a typo – “… don’t phase hackers” should be “… don’t faze hackers”.
Thanks! And thanks for the correction.
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Great article. If I ever have children, this is certainly how I will be teaching them.
Inatux, your going by an inaccurate definition in my opinion. Although the large, singular entity that defines the meaning of words does a great job, sometimes further study is necessary to know what a word truly means.
Research those that came up with the term hacker. Read about those who have been “labeled” hackers. It’s only then that you’ll realize the true definition encompasses far more than computers and electronics.
Awesome post, I think you have pretty much nailed the term “hacker”. Your daughter is very lucky to have you as her dad!
Great article! I really hope that one day we realize that the system in place is stifling our collective creativity, and can come together as friends and allies to create a world based on true freedom and community, everywhere from software to energy to the production of food.
Inatux, you seem wrong on several points … crack open a copy of something like 2600, the “hacker quarterly”, and you will see that the hacker mindset extends to all areas of life …
Also, hi corenominal, thanks for Crunchbang!
Thanks Corenominal! And thanks for all your hard work on Crunchbang! Everyone, take a look at the Crunchbang Statler alpha, the best lightweight Linux Disto out there, based on Debian Squeeze: http://crunchbanglinux.org/downloads/statler/alpha-01/
I like your definition; this is how I try to raise my children. We garden, we homeschool, we use Free software, and we strive to live free in many other ways. Nobody can do it all, but you have to find ways to empower your life and break free from the institutions.
Alan,
I’m so glad to hear that you garden with your children. I currently have spinach, onions, mint, and cilantro growing in my little suburban yard, and hope to expand into two large raised beds in my back yard soon. Currently my veggies are growing in my front flowerbed, don’t tell the HOA,
I disagree with your views on government. I think that having institutional safety nets to fall back on is necessary. Ideally, the community would be the safety net (which happens in smaller communities), but people in general (especially in “Western” society) are too isolated for that to work, and communities don’t always have the resources to help everyone. In addition, communities often tend to devolve and exclude as much they include and support. So, we still need the government, or maybe some idealized vision of a church (think Desmond Tutu or MLK, not Falwell), to support those who are outcasts. That being said, I agree thoroughly with the attitude that people need to get away from consumerism, and the following points you make.
Hi Aeiluindae,
I respect your opinion on institutional safety nets, and they can be effective when managed well… unfortunately, in my country at least; they typically are managed very poorly, and are very wasteful. Communities can be fully supportive, especially those that create their own resources, examples: community garden shares, tool shares, etc. People today are isolated partly by choice, and partly because they are distracted by the glitz of the industro-economic consumption machine. It doesn’t have to be this way.
The best description I’ve ever heard, and I repeat all the time to educate others is:
“Hackers are to Crackers as auto-mechanics are to car thieves.”
People who robbed banks can be called ‘safe-crackers’,
they are never called ‘safe-hackers’!
Great article, I couldn’t agree more, and I try to do the same with my kids.
One suggestion: the difference between hackers and crackers was alluded to in some of the comments, but not spelled out in the article. The big entities you refer to deliberately refer to crackers as hackers to confuse people and convince them that hacking is evil and anti-social (when it’s actually good and pro-social, but anti-central-control). As we can see from Inatux’s comments, this deception has worked with many people. It would be good to point out the difference clearly up front (and that you are not advocating cracking).
Shocky,
Quite true, and thanks to you and Fulko for highlighting the distinction.
I find it funny that most hackers seem to be either anarchists or pre-1920s capitalists
Ian,
I find that most hackers elude generalization. I do find that most are mindful of what individual independence really is, to make a generalization.
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So true, great post man!
Very interesting post, i thought a hacker just hack in electronic and computer domains, but yes, a hacker is more than that, he hack all he found
.
What Mr E. Raymond said (and i think he knows something about “hacking”…): “The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker culture. There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things, like electronics or music — actually, you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art. Software hackers recognize these kindred spirits elsewhere and may call them ‘hackers’ too — and some claim that the hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium the hacker works in. But in the rest of this document we will focus on the skills and attitudes of software hackers, and the traditions of the shared culture that originated the term ‘hacker’.”
So, he thinks, as i think.. without ever reading him before “the Cathedral and the bazar”, that hacking is a way of thinking, living, doing things.. and also.. educate my kids. Having five, and i try to do my best to teach them to think by themselves, giving them some limitations, but also a door open (i can’t say windows… sorry !!!
) to communicate, discussing about things.
I’ll never be the best dad of all times, and i don’t care, but i think that the best i can do for them is to teach them that they are always free to choose. In/with their minds and consciousness.
Hey!
Thanks for this post… I’d like to translate it into french in order to publish it on the website http://owni.fr
Should I?
Guillaume,
Yes, please do! And post the link here.
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Hi ! been translating your article (talking about my 4 sons) in french : http://olsc.org/hackers. The link is already passing from one to another, don’t you mind about that ?
Whatever, thanks for the article !
Olivier, thank you for translating the post! I encourage translation and sharing of this blog. It is formally cc “No right reserved” now. Link to the original if you want… or not. Doesn’t matter.
Hi ! Thanks for this amazing post ! I really enjoy it, go on, nice work !
When you go away to college, you are brainwashed by the liberal professsors who dominate our college campuses. We all live in little boxes, all in a row.
Everywhere, one is told how to think.
Hey Mac,
I’ll have to disagree there, I don’t think college professors are explicitly in the brainwashing business. If you really want to make a citizen’s arrest for brainwashing, you might be better off directing your anger at the advertising industry, at political action committee’s, and the political parties themselves. These groups are doing far more damage to our citizen’s psyche than any rogue liberal professor could ever dream of.
But you’re certainly right when you say that everywhere we go we are told what to think, how to act, what to wear, etc. That is why a hacker mentality is crucial to forging a meaningful life for you and your family. It’s the recognition of these influential forces, and sequentially, the sloughing off of said forces that is important for the future of the world’s communities and individuals.
The points you make have some merit, but I can tell you that brainwashing does take place in college because I was brainwashed by the liberal professors there. And I was brainwashed in a state funded college no less.
I went off to college an opened minded individual and came out a close minded liberal. It took a number of years for me to realize that liberal thinking does not make you free. It saddles you with a group mentality. You lose the ability to think as an individual. It becomes all about group think. Liberals want more government and less individual.
Mac,
Some Liberals do want more government control, true. I don’t want to side track this blog entry into a political argument because it really has little to do with the liberal/conservative American political dichotomy. With that said, I’ll do my best to piss off both sides, blue and red. Both sides are brain-washers. Liberals want you to submit to the government. Conservatives want you to submit to the all mighty corporation. What incites my anger is both sides use the rhetoric of freedom to promote policies that take away individual freedoms.
What matters is your local community, your neighborhood, do you know your neighbors? Can you borrow a cup of flour from them? What also matters is your family. Are they being taught to question authority, to look at the systems that are created to restrict us, and consider if there’s a better way?
Great insight on your part. Your daughter is a lucky girl to have such a wise daddy. I will look forward to seeing more of your writings in the future.
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Great article! I’ll be sharing it!
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Saying that farming will make you independent from big business is like saying that lighting candles in a cave will make you independent from the sun. There are 101 things that can happen to your crop and to your candles, there ain’t one that’s going to happen to big business or the sun. Moreover, if something does happen to your crop, you’re going to rush to the supermarket.
Trying to be “independent” will make you poorer, and, by lowering demand on efficient production, will make the world poorer.
Alexei,
As I will make clearer in future posts to this blog, our global supply chain wont be around forever. Western prosperity over the past century was made possible by cheap fossil fuels. The era of cheap oil and cheap fossil fuels is over. The point to becoming less dependent on big business and the global supply chain is simple: when the shit hits the fan, your family will have the skills it takes to survive. Yes, crops fail and candles melt, but what you’re overlooking in your argument is big businesses fail too.
Can you give me a scenario where big business fails? The worst that could happen is that the prices will rise, but no matter how much they do, farming will always be more expensive than buying, by the very definition of free market economy.
Alexei,
Is General Motors big enough for you? http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/01/news/companies/gm_bankruptcy/ We are moving into a new era Alexei. Without cheap fossil fuels old guard free market economic policy doesn’t apply. What I’m saying here is: Things are changing fast enough that historic examples and forecasts are useless. So even though I can conjure up plenty of examples of big businesses failing, It doesn’t matter. The hacker mindset is so important because the old rules don’t apply anymore.
General Motors is just a company, its bankruptcy might raise car prices a bit, but otherwise it’s just healthy capitalism, survival of the fittest.
> Things are changing fast enough that historic examples and forecasts are useless.
It is unfair of you to make apocalyptic predictions and at the same time tell people that their forecasts are useless.
Other than that, it seems that the root of our disagreement lies in our different estimations of how bad the oil peak is going to hit us. We should probably leave it at that.
It might be unfair in debate class, but it’s true; we can’t accurately make forecasts when we face such monumental economic and ecological change. We obviously disagree about our estimation on what this change will do to our lifestyles.
Alexei, you sound like a full blown communist. A lot of people think communism is all about community sharing, big government giving everyone a job etc. However, its even more friendly to business. Look at all the big corporations in China, big ties to the big government there which also happens to monitor and control their people. They use a scientific technique known as “social approval and disapproval creation” which actually causes the public to support your policies and enforce them with little actual government involvement.
Everything there is dependent on the government. If you’re rich, you can bypass one child per family.
This hacker/maker idea that qchapter is talking about is very important. We cannot simply allow ourselves to run off of “surface data”. We should all be digging deep.
Brandon,
I am actually a full blown capitalist, leaning towards anarcho-capitalism. I wholeheartedly support big business because it makes the world wealthier. Frankly, I don’t know how I made the impression of a communist
qchapter,
This is a great post! Thank you for sharing your wisdom and taking this interesting spin on “hacker”. I totally agree with you and can only add that there are many levels that we can “hack into”. For example, meditation can be a great way to learn how thoughts and thought-forms influence our action or to detect the relation between how we raise/educate our own children and what kind of habits we create/implant in them.
Meditation also helps to find so many thoughts that we usually think that they are our own, but they are not…
Your idea can be easily turned into a full blown, eye-opening, and yet very useful book for educators, parents or western (and not only western) society.
The matrix is everywhere and most people feed it willingly or unwillingly.
Alexei, kak teske, I can say that USSR was broken apart, the current financial system is based on fiat money (it is just a matter of time before it will no longer function “normally”), the Roman Empire “collapsed” what other evidence do you need to understand that big things also fail and sometimes lead to not so pleasant outcomes? It is very easy to see what’s happening in the capital system as well. Bubbles, after bubbles…. You can understand a lot more about these things in general, just check out http://www.vodaspb.ru/ or http://www.kpe.ru/biblioteka/konceptualnye-znaniya These sources (unfortunately most of them in Russian) do talk about what qchapter came to realize himself. He is very right and he is at the opening of pandora box.
Starting thinking for yourself and knowing yourself is a step to take “hacking” to the totally new level.
Thank you qchaper and I wish you all the best!
Alex
Alex, thats very thought provoking what you had said about meditation. Could you explain?
“Meditation also helps to find so many thoughts that we usually think that they are our own, but they are not…”
Alex,
Your examples aren’t quite what I was talking about. While the reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire are more complex and political, it is merely the collapse of a government. Economically, it had little effect on people, the fall of a political entity isn’t going to make farmers stop farming, traders stop trading etc.
The collapse of USSR was mainly triggered by the fact that 70 years of economic retardation didn’t provide it with any income source but oil exportation and when the oil prices dropped by almost two thirds in 1986, the government found itself bankrupt.
I don’t deny that capitalist societies are free from recessions, it is foolish to deny that (although the recession wouldn’t be nearly as bad if it wasn’t for government intervention), what I am saying is that no recession is going to make the capitalist system fail or collapse. There will be a recession at the oil peak, but no recession is going to stop people from trying to make profit, which is the heart of capitalism’s success.
Capitalism, in essence, is the right to own private property. Everything: the greed, the markets, the financial sector, the stock trading, etc. — are just natural outcomes of that. Capitalism is the first, most simple and most natural economic system. Any divergence from capitalism, no matter how attractive, involves robbing people of private property.
While it is evident that qchapter isn’t satisfied with capitalism: “large institutions continue to brainwash American citizens into becoming slaves to the systems they’ve created”, our argument was not about capitalism but about the magnitude of the oil peak recession. I’ve stated my position, but I’m not very interested in arguing about it because it is a difficult matter of predicting the future.
As for the Pandora’s box, people predicted the fall of the “capital system” for as long as it existed, and the system grew and prospered defying all conspiracy theorists, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and one day qchapter.
Hey Alexei,
I really hope you’re right, and I’m wrong. I’m not advocating the dissolution of market capitalism. I’m simply advocating community and individual independence from the corporate supply chain that we’ve become dependent on. I really do hope I’m wrong about this, but by becoming more independent my family will be better off either way.
Qchapter,
Philosophy and economics aside, there is nothing wrong with having skills and being independent, I am an aspiring “hacker” myself. But if it turns out that people will need those skills for survival, I owe you a beer!
Alexei,
I will give you another perspective since our conversation can easily be turned into a political one.
Yes, there are many benefits of having a large system, because you can achieve so called “economies of scale”. Nothing wrong with that, if it is managed properly, honestly, and ordinary people are educated enough/skilled to make their own judgment on the effectiveness of this system and whether the quality of management is sufficient to achieve system’s objectives and they have power to change the system. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most large organizations or systems be it the government of any level or a corporation.
Besides any hacker can tell you large systems are usually prone to systematic risks, or there are way too many single points of failure. Take for example, the current urban environment and food supply/delivery system. Why the Roman Empire failed, but ordinary people continued their ordinary lives – farming, trading, etc? Because there were no mega-systems that millions of people relied on for their simple survival – replenishment of energy via eating food and drinking water and I am not even speaking here about other less-critical systems, such as electrical grids, the Internet and so on.
Or another analogy…. What is probability of a complete failure of a single mega system or millions of independent geographically dispersed self-sustaining (at least to some degree, not to take it to the extreme here) “households”?
Now let’s do some real life modeling here…
I was in Washington, DC during this past winter blizzard and you should have seen what happened with this system. It became completely paralyzed – just a little bit of snow made the whole system seriously crumbled. Many people did not know how to drive in the snow… Some gas stations ran out of fuel, some stores ran out of supplies, such as water and some people were seriously panicking because unlike qchapter nobody trained them how to depend on such simple things as growing your own onion or potato or other useful and yet simple skills.
If you would try drinking tap water it actually contained a huge amount of chlorine and fluoride during the winter blizzard and some time after that. Unbelievable levels! What kind of damage these chemicals can do to your body is a different subject. Of course, many people say – boil the water, pass through the filter. Well, it helps to reduce the pollution, but does not eliminate it…
Of course, there are 2 sides of the coin for each situation and what this winter blizzard stormed also led to is community-driven help. People had to wake up from their “ordinary” lives and were very happy to help their neighbors and so on. People became more united in some sense because of this situation and I believe after-capitalistic system will have more community-driven values vs. individual-profit-at-the-expense-of-everyone-else values.
qchapter is not even smart, but a very wise man of bringing this subject up. In the age of mega systems on which millions of people rely for their basic survival having mastered a set of skills that can help to be a bit more dependent on yourself is priceless.
P.S. It’s also very interesting to see what mass media fail to mention during the current volcanic ash problem… Talking about mega systems…
They say that if it rains during the ash period it will become very dangerous… But why, they for some reason fail to mention… Because any student of chemistry will know that S + H20 will turn into a very serious acid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid) that can cause so many problems to the public health and even devices (be it car, tires, electronics, radars, you name it).
—-
Brandon,
As far as your question about meditation… This is a very vast subject and I recommend checking some books or websites on this topic. Check out book “Awareness” (OSHO) and others..
I am going to give you a few examples here to help you understand what I meant:
- Fear of Nature… If you have ever watched “Man vs. Wild” program on Discovery channel or any program of that sort, and if you want it enough, you will soon find yourself looking at our Mother Nature as your enemy. This is ridiculous, because Mother Nature supplies us with everything that we need to live – air, food, water, pressure, sun and so on. But watch this TV program and observe your thoughts… Then after a while, go to a park or a forest for a little while. Observe your thoughts, you will see that the same thought-associations and thought-chains will be provoked in you… Why? Because you’ve been programmed by this particular program to be afraid of Nature. Even the title of this program is very direct about this…
- History… I think this is the largest and most serious informational tool that is used to mislead people and “program them” to live in this non-real matrix… It’s very interesting how you base your own opinion and create an emotional feeling inside you towards some person in history… Do you seriously think that these are your own thoughts? Did you really know that historical character personally?
- Religion… I know this is very vulnerable subject and I don’t want to get anybody offended here. I just want to note that many people fight feverishly on the subject which religion is the correct one or better one… Without going into details on what organized religion is and how people are often times misled, I can tell you that people do forget one thing. It does not matter what religion you have. People are mistaking the tool with the end result. Religion is just a tool to create a better human being, but look what we have done with our differences? We have gone to wars, killed so many pure-heart light-wisdom natives, even today continue our fighting…
Think for yourself how we relate to people of different nationalities, ethnicity and religions… Are these our own thoughts??? Really??? Does a child is born with these attitudes and thoughts towards Chinese, Russians, African Americans, Native Indians, Muslims, Jews????
Or there is something else going on…. Try to hack this! I promise this will be the best hacking exercise ever!
qchapter, I apologize for such a big reply. I just want to thank you and our participants in this thread for this wonderful discussion which certainly can lead to improving ourselves and the general human condition of being awaken.
Alex,
I’ll try to separate our argument into two issues: 1) is there something in the near future that will make the masses require survival skills, 2) is capitalism going to fail and is it replaceable by something else.
Number one is hard to argue about, I don’t think anyone in this thread can provide convincing evidence in favour of one scenario or the other. I personally think that the oil peak will not cause a catastrophe, but I’m not insisting.
Now number two, here I have a very strong opinion and I disagree.
Allow me to start by defining capitalism again. Capitalism is not a system, it is the absense of one. Capitalism is the right to own and trade private property. The enormous wealth that the world has accumulated today (and especially the poor; many in the US are complaining about poverty but I doubt that anyone is willing to trade places with a pre-Industrial Revolution worker) is because of human greed and free competition. It is the driving force for making production more and more efficient, commodities cheaper and cheaper.
Capitalist system can’t fail because it’s not a system. Companies can fail, economies can suffer recessions etc, but as long as people have the right to own private property the society will be a “capitalist” one.
The key is: capitalism is the right to own private property, period, nothing more. Once you give people the right to own private property any society automatically becomes “capitalist”! The term “capitalism” acquired its modern meaning only in mid-nineteen century! It is a shame that Marx’s negative rhetoric has grown to become the standard term to describe the glorious free enterprise.
> I believe after-capitalistic system will have more community-driven values vs. individual-profit-at-the-expense-of-everyone-else values.
You know what’s the funny thing about communism? You, and me, and everyone are free to live in communist societies right now, this very moment. Everyone, more or less, can buy themselves a farm, live autonomously, build little communities, give their belongings away and redistribute them according to need, abolish money etc. It has always been possible. Why is no one doing it? There are so many people in the US right now that critisize big business, human greed, “profiteering” etc. but you don’t see those lazy, greedy hipocrites giving up their suburban homes, cars, cheap food and clothing. They buy from big business and claim that big business is “exploiting” them.
Both “communism” and “capitalism” are results of anarchy, the difference is that capitalism is what happens in real world and communism is what happens in the dreams of people too hesitant to make it reality.
(Then there is socialism, I hope no one in this thread want to try that again!)
Alexei,
We are going away from the topic with the respect of this author’s post. Let’s refresh the original idea:
1. qchapter wants his daughter to be a hacker or in other words, a response-able, self-sustaining, wise person who can figure out things for herself.
2. As the practical application of this approach was growing your own vegetation as a way to minimize dependence on these mega systems who are controlling the way we live. And this is only one of many practical applications. There can be a lot more – from educating our kids to the way we live and “consume”. [What's wrong with becoming wiser and caring human beings?]
3. You disagreed with the author on the basic premise that he is incorrect and the large systems or a capitalistic way of living will prevail. qchapter approach is prone to make someone who follows it poorer and less successful.
You have your reasons. You don’t necessarily share the same views on this subject. That is totally fine. But there is little evidence too that the current level of consumption, the way of living will go on without the change. And when tough budget deficit times come they will be re-possession of the “private property” by certain authorities.
Since you opened this subject a bit further, let me respond to your points.
On the first point – “is there something in the near future that will make the masses require survival skills”. qchapter referred only to his own daughter and shared his views with us. He is not promoting or forcing everyone to take his views or his approach to the heart. If someone wants to continue living the same way, it’s her/his right. But some people find it enlightening and very useful to re-learn the old way of doing things and becoming an autonomous thinker and find support in the community so that we can all benefit from the wisdom of one.
On the second point that “capitalism is not a system”. Alright, it’s not a system. What is it then? A way of living? A term that describes the current world affairs and certain principles?
If you can formulate that for me, than you will realize that even in your post “The key is: capitalism is the right to own private property, period, nothing more. Once you give people the right to own private property any society automatically becomes “capitalist”!” you are talking about “rights”. Well, not to get into details here, but, my friend, you are defining an element of a legal system here. And any legal system is usually designed to support and maintain a set of moral values (or principles) and protect certain rights.
Hence, if you define rights, you define classes, you define objects and subjects and a set of principles that can be used to describe how “that something called capitalism” is working. By definition we have a system.
Since if there were no order, no capitalist would be able keep its “private” property. Look at the world economy right now – we have functional Adam Smith division of labor not only at the state level, but even at the planetary level, where everything is so integrated and yet each country or region performs its currently designated function.
So, it is a system.
Nevertheless, you are missing my point. I am not talking about the capitalism in general since any “-isms” are simply fanatical aspects of something created intentionally and (you are right) in our minds so that people like you and I can argue about it for centuries.
. We are talking about the way people live right now (the current snapshot of political-social-economical-etc infrastructure that has been built and exists today) – with the heavy reliance on grocery/food store chains and what TV tells these people to do without being wise enough to differentiate what’s good for them and their kids, the society and the Planet. You basically “outsource” your food needs to these big food store chains, and “outsource” your intellectual-food needs to TV, movies, books and history. A human being in this system becomes an easily fooled and controllable bio-organism with some sophisticated behavioral patterns. 
What’s wrong if some people refuse to be these “puppets” (there is even no need for a catastrophe to happen).
On your final point why people don’t live the “free way”. Well, some people try and do live this way. There are not many of them, but they do exist. Unfortunately, some people in the West they are not even aware of other ways of doing things. They have not been exposed to it or have been exposed to it in an intentionally negative way so they won’t try it.
That’s why qchapter’s bliss of such an enlightening conclusion deserves support and further development. After all, we are not living just to get more private property in our hands…
Respectfully,
Alex
Alex,
First of all, qchapter and I ended our discussion in a friendly mild disagreement. When I posted originally, I didn’t know that he was thinking of the oil peak when talking about independence; when he clarified it we ended up disagreeing on the magnitude of the oil peak’s effects, but ended the discussion there. I also said that I have nothing against hacker culture in general, enjoying “hacking” myself.
In my last post I tried to separate a point of disagreement with you.
About capitalism being a “system”: while dragging me into a semantic loophole you managed to miss my point entirely. Here is what you quoted: “The key is: capitalism is the right to own private property, period, nothing more. Once you give people the right to own private property any society automatically becomes “capitalist””. And it is exactly what I was trying to say by saying that capitalism isn’t a “system”. It is not organized by any force or ideology, but by human nature. Who enforces that right is irrelevant (in anarcho-capitalism, for instance, rights are enforced by private organizations).
Alex, let’s avoid wandering off, I am trying to narrow our disagreement down to a specific question: can capitalism fail and what it can be replaced with.
I assert that there are two alternatives to capitalism: communism and socialism.
Communism has never, ever, existed on a large scale. It’s been given a million chances for existence but it will never exist because even its proponents are too greedy to start communes, let alone capitalist pigs such as myself. Communism will never exist on large scale because people naturally want more, bigger, prettier stuff. It has proven to be a dangerous and destructive fantasy.
Socialism, on the other hand, is very real and very dangerous because it gives too much power to too few people (to say nothing of its ineffecacy). Socialism has earned itself an awful reputation of abuse. If I end up in a post-appocalyptic world, I will wholeheartedly fight against any socialist movement.
Alexei
Big business makes the world wealthier? LOL
You forgot to add “bank” to the end of world. Ie, World Bank.
Anarcho capitalism… sounds like a society run by acquisition-oriented individuals and consumers. I like the idea of getting rid of the state, but I don’t want to keep the system that goes along with it minus the regulation.
I did mistake you for a communist, since a lot of them preach big government and big business alliances.
Brandon,
Your comment shows complete economic ignorance, pretty much every sentence of it. I’m not even going to argue, instead suggesting to start with Wikipedia. Capitalism, Anarcho-Capitalism. Socialism, Communism.
Alexei
Capitalism only works for the rich, it depends on exploiting the poorest people, the fat cats sit back and profit on the labours of others
weefreeman,
Capitalism works fine if you stop counting money in other people’s pockets. It is responsible for massive cheapening of goods and a massive improvement in the quality of life, while all other economic experiments failed and keep on failing. Also, while the word “exploitation” worked good enough for Marx, it is laughable today: factory workers are filthy rich compared to 200 years ago (and their labour has always been voluntary).
There is a reason Marxism isn’t taken seriously today, weefreeman, it is because it has been thoroughly discredited in theory and practice and the vast majority of its adherents today are the ones that don’t have an Econ 101 level knowledge of economics.
Really a good article. I am sharing it on FB and Twitter.
Cool Stuff except for the statement about dependence on ‘western medical systems’. If by that you mean life spans elongated past where they would be by any other means frankly I’m loving that dependence. (And whats the Eastern alternative?)
Conor,
Western medicine has contributed greatly to our increased life spans, but it is bankrupting Americans left and right today. Of course much of the cost incurred by the current healthcare system is due to the brokenness of our industrial food system. It is all interdependent at this point.
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tldr
Very, very cool post.
I want my daughter to be a hacker too
Just became a father and my son will be a hacker ^_^
Very good
Hi. EMAIL ME!!! I’m hacker. Can get you a myspace, facebook,yahoo,msn/hotmail, gmail, aol…etc password. I do charge money though,but will show proof i have it. Are you interested? please email me at (email removed – don’t advertise on my blog fool!) (I was formly known as XXXXXXXX on yahoo but my account was deleted)
**I CANNOT RECOVER A LOST/STOELN/FORGOTTEN PASSWORD**
Ha! That would make you a cracker not a hacker. Thanks for adding another example of miss-use of the term “hacker” to our discussion.
It agree, very good piece
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How many times have I shuddered when my friends answer their kids questions of ‘why?’ with the short, snappy stock answer of ‘because it just is?’ – Ive lost count.
Its in the early years that children are the most curious. Every time my six year old son asks a question be it ‘What happens to the sheep in the fields?’ or ‘Why are you taking the front off that burglar alarm control panel?’ I give him the real explanation (“We eat them” or “Because the installer wont give me the code to change the configuration of MY alarm”) and as much information as I can so he’s not left wondering.
My biggest fear is not that he grows up being spoon fed bull****, (which goes on all around us, whether we choose to admit it or not), but that he never questions it and doesnt gain the knowledge to make his own decisions.
Hiya,
Thanks for bringing this subject to light.
I bieleve hakers are needed, without them we would be in serious trouble as nobody would be there to point out the flaws in our systems.
Excellent work
qchapter~
You’re right. There has to be a baton passed to the next gen. There must be those able to keep tabs on what’s happening around us.
The upcoming gen is the first to have had PC’s in their lives from day one. Glad you’re there to support your young ones,
T
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Some thoughts – all IMHO
1) “Hackers are not consumer lemmings” should be “Hackers know they don’t have to be consumer lemmings but they can be if they choose”. Let’s put it this way: whilst it’s fun to build your own TV set, I bet the one you can buy from your choice of the many TV set producering companies out there works and looks better and is probably a great deal safer. Now apply that concept to all your household goods. Wrt large institutions. Some of the best hackers I know work for Microsoft, IBM and Sun. Large institutions don’t want to stiffle the hacker mentality – they actively encourage it – because they want to *profit* from it.
Point 2) Often knowledge *is* the end game and is not the least important thing but the most important. Usually it’s an answer to a specific question that drives a hacker – if they don’t currently have the skill required to get the answer then they’ll go about acquiring the skill. The skill is merely a tool; a means to an end. Case in point… When I found my first buffer overflow vulnerability I knew amorphously what it was but I didn’t know how to exploit it. So I had to learn how a processor works, how memory is handled and teach myself how to code in assembly. I acquired these skills simply to prove a single vulnerability existed. You should encourage your kid to pursue a specifc question and challenge them to answer it themselves and if needed help them acquire any new skills to get there. The sense of achievment and empowerment and your pride they will win will become like a drug.
Point 3) Whilst anything can be “hacked” generally most accepted hackers do their hacking in the computer or electronic fields and whilst you might get turnip hackers I’d prefer to call them a farmer. And I’m not sure if most hackers can hack anything to be fair. Most of the hackers I know are very skilled is certain areas but become quickly unstuck when they move out of their comfort zone. Very few of them match the “Renaissance Man” or polymath criteria you’ve set.
Point 4). First off, I think this is a generalization: not all hackers do favour open systems. Plus – what’s wrong with using a closed system? I don’t have time to write an OS from scratch; I don’t have time to write a browser from scratch or a mail client… or whatever. I have specific things I want to do, specific knowledge to seek and I don’t want to waste my time when someone’s already solved a particular problem for me and it happens to be closed then so what? Lastly, by your definition a hacker shouldn’t worry if a system is closed. They can hack it if necessary. Indeed, it’s by pulling apart closed systems where most hackers get their start in life.
Whilst it’s great that you want your daughter to be a self reliant, self thinker I think you’re coming at it from the wrong angle… I mean by this, your distaste (paranoia?) of the big bad wolf of consumerism. Hacking shouldn’t be about poking large corporations in the eye and saying “stuff you, society, I’m outta here!” You should want your kid to become a hacker simply for the joys of learning because knowing how things work and how they are interconnected is a beautiful thing to have and to observe in others.
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If only more people would read this.
i wish you guys were my dads.
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qchapter~
I found this interesting article through owni.org,
and made a Chinese translation on my blog.
here is the link
http://atseowni.blogspot.com/2011/09/blog-post_24.html
Hi grisfilm,
Thanks so much for the translation! When I wrote this I had no idea it would reach so many people. It was a “thinking out loud” post. Seeing it translated into other languages is humbling and exciting.
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