HPR4437: One Possible Definition of "Hacker"

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Hello folks of Hacker Public Radio.

"A hacker is someone who invades computers". "A hacker is someone who codes". "Hacker is someone in love with technology". "Hacker is a geek, who is a person who likes nerdy things".

All of those are more or less correct and of course you know someone that applies one of those popular concepts of the term. I'll defend one other, that can be as imprecise as every other, but, I feel, brings the concept closer to the general meaning of the word: "A hacker is someone in pursuit of efficiency and knowledge, be it in some specific field or maybe in anything that can be known".

To be a hacker is more a characteristic of the brain than of something someone does. It's targeted to what achieve emotional, relevant responses to the person, that has to do with purpose. Everyone has a purpose, and we can see purpose as a matrix.

PURPOSE:

I  | 

M | Relevant      | Relevant

P | purpose       | purpose

O | + no success  | + success

R | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

T |

A | Not relevant  | Not relevant

N | purpose      | purpose

C | + no success  | + success

E |

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SUCCESS

Where is the happy hacker located? Let's remember, a hacker is someone that seeks out meaning. The definition proposed in this show is: "A hacker is someone in pursuit of efficiency and knowledge". So, the blessed hacer is the one on the top of the matrix of purpose: it is someone that has a purpose that is relevant to him. He does not need success, he needs a reason to pursue it, even though the results are not always 100% dependent on him.

If someone gives him (or her, of course) one ideia of purpose, and he adopts it as his personal search, he can achieve great success  be it on any area you can imagine. But, if it is not of his heart, he will end up being less than he could be, feeling unsuccessful. Because, a hacker is not searching for efficiency on the void: he needs his brain inputted in what has relevance on this own, intimate understanding of the universe. And this is why "a hacker is someone in pursuit of knowledge and efficiency". Both together, conveying as a meaning, a meaning the hacker dedicates himself to, and that makes him happy, even in days, months or years without observable results.

That need of purpose is not common to humanity.

There are many many people happy in working on what comes at hand, receiving the payment, ranting about the payment and living the life Learning, pursuing purposes, lacking empathy (as hackers sometimes do), are not traits of personality of many many people. They do not try to use their brains to maximum learning, to have transcending conversations, to, eventually, teaching other people, formally or informally.

Why this contrast is presented? Because a hacker is someone different, not only in the tastes and preferences. It's not a matter of what you like more, or how you prefer to do or not to do things. It's an entirely differen mind, more sensitive in some parts, more out-of-this-world in some others.

Those were some points of a possible definition of hacker — that involves efficiency and knowledge as a particular composition of his thinking and feeling structure Passing through the blessings and difficulties of this particular mode of seeing the world, the universe and so on.

So this is why there are computer hackers, life hackers, hackers, simply... and not everyone will end their lives knowing how to make a computer say Hello World. — Because a hacker can know and do many things — like crocheting clothes on Second Life — but not necessarily will have any interest in programming

And every hacker is different.

Are you one? Do you think someone can become a hacker or is this a form factor, a person comes to be without operation of the will?

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Here with you is Antoine.

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