Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Kierkegaard and Hackers
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 07 22:02:21 GMT
“The concept of hacking entered the computer culture at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960s.
Popular opinion at MIT posited that there are two kinds
of students, tools and hackers.
A “hacker” is the opposite: someone who never goes to class,
who in fact sleeps all day, and who spends the night pursuing
recreational activities rather than studying.”
Well, if I had any doubts about it, that does it. I am
a hacker. Or at least was…
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/hacker.html
“But Kierkegaard, who lived a century before the electronic
computer, gave us the most profound understanding of what a
hacker is. A hacker is an aesthete.”
Not only does that resonate with my idea of what a hacker
is but now I also have the full blast of philosophy, Kant
and Kierkegaard to justify any criticism of my admitedly
inadequate institutional profile: “I’m a hacker because
according to Kierkegaard I have a special sense of aesthetics
in what regards technology”. That should keep the ad hominem
attack makers busy for a while…
— MV
