hn-classics/_stories/1980/9126119.md

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THE HACKER PAPERS (PSYCHOLOGY TODAY AUG. '80) DRAWN FROM THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY LOW OVERHEAD TIME-SHARING SYSTEM(LOTS) FROM: G. GANDALF (Kenneth Peter) TO: BULLETIN BOARD SUBJECT:ESSAY ON HACKING Dedicated to all my friends at LOTS who will live their lives in a alien culture surrounded by humanity, and to Ernest, who was too human for it. As much as an essay, this is a story. It is a true story of people paying $9,000 a year to lose elements of their humanity. It is a story of the breaking of wills and of people. It is a story of addictions, and of misplaced values. In a large part, it is my own story. There is no one field in particular in academia that has a monopoly on production of single-interest people, and this practice can exist almost anywhere. There is the political power seeker, all-consumed by climbing up the bureaucratic rungs. There is the stereotyped pre-med, ignoring all but his MCAT scores. There is the compulsive artist or writer, forever lost in his work. Narrowness is widespread. But there is one field that seems to be more consistent in this practice. This essay, rooted in personal and painful experience, is about the people in computer science. In the middle of Stanford University there is a large concrete- and-glass building filled with computer terminals. When one enters this building through the glass doors, one steps into a different culture. Fifty people stare at terminal screens. Fifty faces connected to 50 bodies, connected to 50 sets of fingers that pound on 50 keyboards ultimately linked to a computer. If you go further inside, you can discover the true addicts: the members of the Establishment. These are the people who spend their lives with computers and fellow "hackers". These are the members of a subculture so foreign to most outsiders that it not only walls itself off but is walled off, in turn, by those who cannot understand it. The wall is built from both sides at once. These people deserve a description. In very few ways do they seem average. First, they are all bright, so bright, in fact, that they experienced social problems even before they became interested in computers. Second, they are self-contained. Their entire social existence usually centers around one another. Very, very few remain close to their families. Very, very few associate much with anyone who is not at least partially a member of the hacking group. While they do sometimes enjoy entertainment unrelated to their field, it is almost always with fellow hackers. Third, all aspects of their existence reinforce one another. They go to school in order to learn about computers, they work at jobs in programming and computer maintenance, and they lead their social lives with hackers. Academically, socially, and in the world of cash, computers are the focus of their existence. The hacker will probably not strongly disagree with what has been said so far. But he will ask the question, "So what?" The answer is: in creating a subculture and isolating it, we are destroying the chance that computers might be used wisely as an integral part of our society. We are precluding the human values so necessary for the wise application of this technological achievement. The most brilliant young minds at our top universities are learning how to play with multi-million dollar toys first, and how to utilize them constructively second. Even if we ignore the costs to society as a whole, we have to look at the costs to the people involved. The computer is a modifier of personalities. It is highly addictive. People who gain this addiction for a period of several months tend never to give it up. And the symptoms are very sad. The first thing to go is other academic interests. Basically what occurs is that the hackers motivation to challenge themselves in any field not directly linked to computers gradually disint- egrates. On the level of grades, straight-A students tacitly accept C's in noncomputer courses. On the level of actual learning, the same students shut off outside subjects even more completely than their grades would indicate. This
Initial commit 2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00			`[Source](http://www.textfiles.com/news/hackpape.hac "Permalink to ")`

			THE HACKER PAPERS (PSYCHOLOGY TODAY AUG. '80) DRAWN FROM THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY LOW OVERHEAD TIME-SHARING SYSTEM(LOTS) FROM: G. GANDALF (Kenneth Peter) TO: BULLETIN BOARD SUBJECT:ESSAY ON HACKING Dedicated to all my friends at LOTS who will live their lives in a alien culture surrounded by humanity, and to Ernest, who was too human for it. As much as an essay, this is a story. It is a true story of people paying $9,000 a year to lose elements of their humanity. It is a story of the breaking of wills and of people. It is a story of addictions, and of misplaced values. In a large part, it is my own story. There is no one field in particular in academia that has a monopoly on production of single-interest people, and this practice can exist almost anywhere. There is the political power seeker, all-consumed by climbing up the bureaucratic rungs. There is the stereotyped pre-med, ignoring all but his MCAT scores. There is the compulsive artist or writer, forever lost in his work. Narrowness is widespread. But there is one field that seems to be more consistent in this practice. This essay, rooted in personal and painful experience, is about the people in computer science. In the middle of Stanford University there is a large concrete- and-glass building filled with computer terminals. When one enters this building through the glass doors, one steps into a different culture. Fifty people stare at terminal screens. Fifty faces connected to 50 bodies, connected to 50 sets of fingers that pound on 50 keyboards ultimately linked to a computer. If you go further inside, you can discover the true addicts: the members of the Establishment. These are the people who spend their lives with computers and fellow "hackers". These are the members of a subculture so foreign to most outsiders that it not only walls itself off but is walled off, in turn, by those who cannot understand it. The wall is built from both sides at once. These people deserve a description. In very few ways do they seem average. First, they are all bright, so bright, in fact, that they experienced social problems even before they became interested in computers. Second, they are self-contained. Their entire social existence usually centers around one another. Very, very few remain close to their families. Very, very few associate much with anyone who is not at least partially a member of the hacking group. While they do sometimes enjoy entertainment unrelated to their field, it is almost always with fellow hackers. Third, all aspects of their existence reinforce one another. They go to school in order to learn about computers, they work at jobs in programming and computer maintenance, and they lead their social lives with hackers. Academically, socially, and in the world of cash, computers are the focus of their existence. The hacker will probably not strongly disagree with what has been said so far. But he will ask the question, "So what?" The answer is: in creating a subculture and isolating it, we are destroying the chance that computers might be used wisely as an integral part of our society. We are precluding the human values so necessary for the wise application of this technological achievement. The most brilliant young minds at our top universities are learning how to play with multi-million dollar toys first, and how to utilize them constructively second. Even if we ignore the costs to society as a whole, we have to look at the costs to the people involved. The computer is a modifier of personalities. It is highly addictive. People who gain this addiction for a period of several months tend never to give it up. And the symptoms are very sad. The first thing to go is other academic interests. Basically what occurs is that the hackers motivation to challenge themselves in any field not directly linked to computers gradually disint- egrates. On the level of grades, straight-A students tacitly accept C's in noncomputer courses. On the level of actual learning, the same students shut off outside subjects even more completely than their grades would indicate. This