Reading 01: To Be or Not to Be

  This reading, while lengthy, captivated me significantly more than the typical school-mandated reading does. I went into the reading with the guiding question in mind, trying to decipher or unearth what it means to be a true hacker, and whether or not I want to be one. As I progressed through the reading, I believe my answer shifted.

At first, the TMRC’s passion for creating amazing things excited me. Reading how Peter Sampson, Peter Deutsch, and Jack Dennis sleuthed their way into the computer room and produced some of the most innovative programs and technology was nothing short of inspirational. I recall a brief conversation with my high school cross country coach, where he commented on my older brother’s passion for making comic books (and starting his own comic book business), and my younger brother’s passion for collecting football and baseball cards. He then proceeded to ask me “so what’s your thing?” It is a question I have asked myself over and over again: what excites me? What do I obsess about? Reading about the first hackers and their utter obsession to “bum” a couple lines of code out of a completely optional and passion-fueled computer program in the 1960s initially had me thinking: absolutely I want to be a hacker. I want to have something to obsess about. 

But as I continued to read, I recognized the drawbacks to having an obsession. Despite his genius, Richard Greenblatt unfortunately demonstrated these drawbacks through his reportedly unbearable smell and ridiculous 30-hour-a-day coding sessions followed by 12 hours of hibernation. Are these the sacrifices required to be a true hacker? If so, maybe I don’t want to be a hacker. I like having a normal schedule and getting quality sleep too much.

When I previously pictured a hacker: sometimes I pictured a nocturnal cybercriminal who excels in bypassing the most complex firewalls constructed. However, after beginning to read Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, what I now picture is someone who’s absolutely in love with and obsessed with solving a problem (typically something cutting-edge), and perfecting that solution. And I think when you boil down the Hacker Ethic, you can really see that the output is what truly defines a hacker. Every tenet of the Hacker Ethic serves to promote the perfection of a solution: eliminating bureaucratic red-tape, judging based on ability and not your profile, enabling unlimited access to computers, etc. All of these principles serve to promote the creation of the most-advanced, perfect, and beautiful technology possible, which is derived from a unique curiosity. But unfortunately, that comes with sacrifices, such as sacrificing sleep, or relationships, or a degree. For me, graduating from a top school with a degree is something that has been so ingrained in my plans that it is unfathomable to imagine a universe where I give that up for some passion. And that definitely impedes my ability to be a true hacker. This is not to say I find the idea of a “true hacker” to be repulsive; I think it is absolutely inspirational to sacrifice the “norm” to pursue innovation and disruption of what the norm is. But I will also admit that currently I am not willing to sacrifice Saturday gamedays, a consistent sleep schedule, and engaging in heated debates over sports’ most insignificant questions. After all, the true hackers “did not talk sports” (70).

This part did not really fit into my discussion above, but I wanted to mention how the hackers’ Chinese restaurant activities, while comical, were actually phenomenal insight into who the hackers really were. It seemed as if the consumption of food was irrelevant; what mattered to the hackers lay in the ordering of the food. In a sense, they managed to turn a task as simple as ordering food into a game: the first challenge was to order in Chinese, so they brought Chinese dictionaries to complete that level. Then, the next challenge was to “unlock” unique Chinese dishes, the most notably being the sweet and sour bitter melon. And when the daughter of the owner retaliated against this order, Gosper took offense because her inability to speak Chinese “went against the logic of an efficient Chinese restaurant system,” a system he respected (69). And even when the dish was so vile it was almost inedible, the hackers continued to order it every year because “it had its logic” (how?). This experience shows the hackers’ desire to apply logic to solve these incredibly unique problems that they sometimes create for themselves. Nobody asked the hackers to order in Chinese or consume an inedible dish, but because it was challenging and because it could be solved with logic, they did. 

And that is a defining characteristic of a true hacker.