Hackers in the Bazaar "blog" posts š
Paul Grahamās essays are interesting. Theyāre really conversational, but personally challenging to retain. Upon reading some of his essays, I found myself to resonate with some of the things written so much that they agreed with my own internal monologue. So much that I had some difficulty highlighting the opinions that differed from my own. Get ready for the incoming dumpster fire of words!
First, Graham talks about our teenage school hierarchy, involving the stereotypical āpopular kidsā and ānerds.ā He begins by working out the difference between the two groups, with comparisons that Iām pretty sure anyone would be familiar with, regardless of whether youāve actually experienced the American education path. Itās the kind of typical stuff dramatized about every high school in almost every movie ever. The protagonist is the smart kid who is novice at social interaction, and gets picked on by the not-so-bright popular kids who either have relatively better looks, athletic ability, wealth, or all of the above. Iāve been lucky enough to have grown up in school environments nowhere near as toxic as those described by Graham, but that doesnāt mean I disagree about them still existing today. Iām not the biggest fan of his generalization and separation of these two groups as if everyone can be labeled as one or the other (or somewhere in between), but he makes one distinction between nerds and popular kids that was interesting: the claim that popular kids subconsciously devote their time and efforts to maintaining (or gaining) their popularity, while nerds subconsciously devote their time and efforts to becoming smarter. The result is that nerds didnāt devote as much time and effort into the popularity contest, and are thus āunpopular.ā And the latter devotion has the benefit that itās more applicable to the real world, where the kid-fabricated society found in schools is no longer prominent. I find it overall interesting that Graham chose to focus on the hidden community that schools unintentionally cultivate. Though I do have a slight issue with how he just seems to state the problem without offering any potential solutions. Seems like the biggest problem is making teenagers realize earlier how the search for knowledge is important, while schoolās popularity contest is pointless. If that message was gotten across, the hierarchy of popularity might just totally vanish (assuming the kids are smart enough to weigh the meanings of importance and pointlessness). Really, in my opinion, it doesnāt seem that important to fix this problem. First of all, I have no idea how this problem could be solved, so if someone else has a better idea, they should do it because I donāt care enough about it to fix it, especially given my privilege of not having experienced such a toxic environment. Second of all, is it really that big a problem? Sure, degenerates who put all their energy into maintaining their image will continue to reproduce, but nerds will, too. Nerds are still being made, and Iām content with that. Our society is also seeming to become more and more sensitive to literally everything, so maybe this harsh hierarchy will just cease to exist from that fact itself. With how much we canāt say today, what will the popular kids be able to say to effectively be dominant to the nerds?
Wow, that gives a good connection to Grahamās other essay, about what we canāt say! Not sure why we had to read this, to be honest. It matches one of the internal monologues Iāve had before. Yes, itās very important to form our own thoughts, regardless of how controversial it may be viewed to the general public if we were to say it aloud. Itās additionally important to form discussions about these otherwise forbidden thoughts with close friends we can trust. Doesnāt everyone just kinda do this already? What makes Graham think that a lot of people are actually too afraid of thinking what theyād like to think? Maybe whatever I believe is controversial in my mind isnāt controversial enough to apply to what heās referring to. I guess what he wants us to do is think even further than we already may be, since he does mention that people who think theyāre super open-minded (I think I do) are actually the opposite. Most people draw a line that they wonāt cross during discourse, and that is the line of what Graham calls us to think past. But after this, comes the problem where I donāt know what I should be thinking more about. Yes, Graham does spend the majority of his essay discussing ways to discover what should be thought about further, but I donāt have any desire to do this any more than I already am. It doesnāt seem like it would be enriching at all, since the current internal monologues I have with myself leave me content. Anything further and I feel like Iād really be uncomfortable. Yes, Graham would yell at me for saying that, but Iām a lazy person. I donāt feel like being a philosopher and Iām unable to see how I can apply his methods to anything relevant enough for me to pursue.
When Graham writes specifically about hackers, many of the things match up pretty well with Steven Levyās stories of hackers. My idea of a true hacker is still those MIT AI lab students. I havenāt yet been able to get that idea of a hacker out of my mind. Neither the Homebrew nor On-Line hackers really stuck on me for my idea of what a true hacker is, though all three generations do have several things in common. Graham explains that hacking is a medium, just like painting or playwriting, and that these days are the glory days of it. Hacking should be done on the fly, as malleable as can be. Itās to build on something that already exists or to make it better, and these things were all embodied in all generations of hackers of the computer revolution. Graham basically reiterates some tenets of the hacker ethic without explicitly mentioning the term. Hackers enjoy the freedom of information, and the declining civil liberties weāre being given (namely with intellectual property) are an undeserved punishment to these hackers. Without the freedom of information, hackers are unable to express the rest of the hacker ethic, namely to create art and beauty on the computer to their fullest potential. There is another stance Graham takes involving big companies vs. startups that matches Levyās stories, and thatās how big companies arenāt able to keep up with real hackers. Big companies have many more logistics to take care of, and therefore are unable to be as flexible as, say, a startup consisting of all hackers who can take as many risks as they want because theyāre starting from ground-zero. Specifically, Graham mentions Apple and how the hackers were able to make the next generation computer, whereas IBM were thinking they were going to create the next big thing. Another example I can think of involves the On-Line company, how they were able to become so successful because they started as a small comapny consisting of Ken William, the hacker (and his wife). Having an Apple computer all to himself and no limits on what he was to do and not to do under his own supervision, he was able to let loose and make things never made before. Nowadays, these ānever-before-madeā things are way harder to find, but nevertheless exist. Finally, Graham also mentioned something that was creepy enough to match my own plans for the future, about the āday jobā and ānight job.ā I figured that my dream to one day have the motiviation and develop my own independent video game for fun will never happen in an actual job setting, because Iām money-hungry and want that bag of cash anyway, and thatās not going to happen with some risks if I made my video game and did only that. So, in my head, I settled that I donāt care what I do for a day job, as long as it makes that cash. I could be bored out of my mind, and thatāll be fine with me because Iām making that bag. Then, I could go home, play some video games, and hopefully even start developing it when I find that wave of motivation that comes once in a blue moon. And thatās the worst-case scenario! I could be lucky and find a day day that I actually enjoy and have fun with. Then, when I go home, I can continue to game dev and be happy at that time too. So Iāll be somewhere between 50% to 100% happy with my daily life. Good enough for me!
Anyway, thatās the end of my post. I bet this entire dumpster mound of words is extremely hard to follow, and Iām not even sure I answered the prompt to the fullest I could have. But I did manage to write what I wanted to, and I hope thatāll be all that really matters.