[kriro]

I really don't like the link to "the profit fetish" in the last paragraph and the implicit undertone of profit being a bad thing. In fact I completely disagree and would call hacking (in the sense it is used in the article) a very direct expression of profit seeking. You change one state to another one that you prefer. If the costs to achieve this are less than the added value that's (economic) profit.

[gue5t]

The point of being a hacker (in the traditional sense) is that your utility function is completely wack. You prefer to make the lights on the screen (and by proxy, the state of the registers) the way you envision than to have free time for hobbies intrinsically inbued with external relevance.

The prevalence of computers in modern commerce makes this easy to overlook. Hacking isn't about building things the rest of the world appreciates and understands--it's about mastery and appreciation of abstract systems.

Edit: to make myself completely clear, profit is inherently evil, c.f. the notion of selflessness.

[mason240]

>The point of being a hacker (in the traditional sense) is that your utility function is completely wack. You prefer to make the lights on the screen (and by proxy, the state of the registers)

Acquiring money is not the only way to profit; it's whatever your "utility function" is. Money is just an easy one to quantify and analyze.

If you spend 10 hours on Saturday freelancing for $130/hr versus spending 10 hour working on OSS versus fucking around with code, you are still applying your capital (time, skills, hardware/software) to obtain a profit (money, fulfillment, enjoyment).

That's what's great about capitalism: you get to choose how to apply your capital to obtain the outcomes you want, even those outcomes are not monetary.

[vezzy-fnord]

How is this intrinsic to capitalism, exactly? It's true for any society in general where people are relatively free of coercion so as to devote time to their self-interest. The fact that you're speaking of capitalism in a mixed market economy shows this.

[rancur]

there actually is something wrong with profit: that desire never stops, never says enough, and is oblivious to human suffering.

there are plenty of lazy people, but in their midst are hardworking people trying to survive. Profit chooses to oppress.

The optimal system grows only for the sake of its own employees.

[woah]

There's nothing wrong with profit. What's wrong is monopoly and oligopoly. Defining an activity as only being up to your ideological standards if it is done for free means that your ideology will never make a dent in a power structure that pays people for their labor. Free as in freedom, not free as in beer.

[qu4z-2]

> means that your ideology will never make a dent in a power structure that pays people for their labor.

But it is fun!

[Mikushi]

> I really don't like the link to "the profit fetish" in the last paragraph and the implicit undertone of profit being a bad thing

I'm on the other side of the fence, I have yet to find a good argument that defends profit when you weight it against all its fault. As far as I'm concerned the profit race is about the worst thing our specie ever came up with, it's directly responsible for destroying our planet, for the death of millions and as we speak for the lack of future for our specie.