[kodah]

I never even really hear the term "hacker" anymore. I'm not sure what's driven it out of the industry. I've been programming since I was nine and I was never called a "hacker", even to date. I was called a "nerd", a term which used to be a pejorative for young boys who spent a lot of time on a computer and had a-typical interests and attire. I was made fun of for reading programming books when I finished my other work, I was chastised by teachers for playing video games, etc... I was young and old enough to watch the crypto-anarchist videos and understand that hackers were something different from what I was. They had a mission and an objective to their sense of curiosity that often resulted in chaos. Then console gaming came about and everyone started using the term in some flowery sense.

That was how I viewed it, anyway, until I realized that around that time is when computing became professional. CS and CE became a degree at major colleges and "nerds" were making serious money. It became desirable to refer to yourself as a nerd out of style. Basically, nerds took the word back.

[sureglymop]

I think the word has been used in so many different ways... that maybe it's better to just create your own definition.

Mine would be this (for both nerd and hacker): Someone with an almost insatiable curiosity, who will tinker around with hard- and software even in their free time, next to work and studying for example. Someone who has side projects... Someone who is so interested in the inner workings of the things and technology around them that even encountering normal everyday technological things will result in ideas popping up in their head on what out of the ordinary but interesting things could be done with those things.

Personally, I identify with it because of that endless curiosity. I think that in a way it may seem a bit weird because... the curiosity is so burning that we just can't stop tinkering and hacking around until we get what we want to do.

Also I believe that a black hat hacker is the same... I'm not talking about the ordinary small criminal but about the guy who hacks something that is thought of being safe and unhackable. Because that is the guy who just couldn't stop and couldn't accept that, his curiosity was so overwhelming that he even did something ethically questionable.

[zem]

i think two things drove it out:

1. the long-standing confusion between "someone who tinkers with programs" and "someone who maliciously breaks into systems"

the tinkering contingent fought diligently against letting the black hat contingent coopt the term, but then

2. the tech-bro/marketer crowd caught hold of it, and it became associated with other cringy terms like "ninja" and "rockstar". (tangentially, "wizard" also got dragged down that way).

so now if you call yourself a hacker, people are more likely to think of both black hats and tech bros than of the (still out there!) people who just want to do interesting stuff with computers.

[darksaints]

Hacker culture and cracker culture go hand in hand, and it has been that way since the very beginning of it all. Hacker culture primarily evolved from phreaking culture, which was reverse engineering and security bypassing...cracking, essentially. And for personal gain, no less. Nearly all of the famous hackers have histories of legally questionable actions.

And it should be that way. If you want any chance of knowing how to build good things, you need to know how to break them. That's as true for a bridge engineer as it is for Woz.

Personally, I find the attempt to distinguish between hacker and cracker to be some sort of no-true-scotsman retcon. I've always viewed the whole concept of hacker culture to be amoral...and the attempt to distinguish between "good" or "bad" hackers has just watered down the term.

[jayd16]

I most often hear "hacks" and "hacky code" to refer to unmaintainable shortcuts and/or "clever" tricks, these days. So in that sense a "hacker" would not be something I would want to be called or call a coworker considering the modern usage.

[tkgally]

For those reasons, I personally would not object if YC decided to change the name of Hacker News to something else. The current name seems misleading, at least to me.

[ddingus]

That would be a shame really.

[sigmaprimus]

Yes, the whole idea sounds like a progressive attack by the word police looking for another target to cancel. A not so long time ago there were these thick stacks of paper bound in twine, glue and leather called dictionaries that contained words and their understood meanings and it made it far more difficult to change a words meaning, it seems as with everything in this modern world the time for a meaning to be changed has accelerated to the point that ridiculous definitions can be twisted and imposed upon any word now.

Personally I prefer the darker meaning of hacker than the 2000s "G rated" version of hacker but that's probably because of my age.

So

To all the hackers, crackers and phreaks still out there...all your bases are belong to us, we are legion, we do not forget, expect us.

[AndrewDucker]

What's particularly funny here is that the "has fun making computers do things" definition of hacker predates the "breaking into things" definition. What you're referring to was called a "cracker"until the 90s.

[ddingus]

Exactly right.

[ddingus]

You know if I were you, I would take the labeling and blaming out of this, and just recognize that there is a sort of attack going on.

Many of us you came up during a far less authoritarian, and somewhat simpler time, definitely feel it.

And I think that is a discussion worth having, but I don't think it's one that we should further politicize.

[beermonster]

I think hackers call themselves hackers. Linus describes himself as a hacker unless he’s talking to the press. In which case he uses the term programmer as they do not understand the term and it only leads to confusion.

Interesting couple of articles from The Register

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/03/debate_hackers_for/

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/09/debate_hacker_result/

[jltsiren]

Hackers are those recognized by other hackers as hackers. It's like the tech equivalent of an artist. Describing yourself as one usually sounds pretentious, unless it's clear other hackers/artists recognize you as such.

[beermonster]

Yes and of course their peers who are hackers. But certainly not other IT staff they may work with unless they’re very lucky IMHO

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Ah, exactly same experience.

I clearly remember some of my friends stating "I don't want to be 30 an still be playing videogames"... As if it was a bad thing.

I thought it was weird at the time to make such statement.

[7thaccount]

Maybe they meant it like "don't want to ONLY be playing video games" as in they'd be fine with video games in moderation as long as they had a social life, career, money for vacation and travel, a good hobby, family...etc.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

No, at the time it was definitely zero videogames intended. We were like 13 at having a partner and playing videogames were more or less mutually exclusive in our teenager's brain

[crossroadsguy]

Being called a nerd is not desirable aa such, even now. The salaries though? Of course.

[kodah]

I disagree. I'm happy to be called a nerd. Sometimes I use the word ironically as a pejorative, but that's usually to make fun of the ghost of an old trend.