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An Interview with McKenzie Wark on the 10 Yr Anniversary of “A Hacker Manifesto” (lareviewofbooks.org)
1 points by rubencodes 4327 days ago
2 comments

Irritating author Mckenzie Wark rips off a culture he does not understand and does not participate in; produces lots of verbiage and attempts to colonize cyberspace with a sad mixture of rehashed postmodernist philosophy and tragic dreams of revolutions past and never-were.

Sorry, but Mckenzie Wark is not a "hacker" in any sense of the word. As near as I can tell he's a careerist whose main skill is a mastery of the politics of the echo chamber. His obscurantist style is a regression to the worst excesses of post-hegelian academic discourse. And no matter how technophilic it is, cannot mask the fact that the author does not know what he is talking about.

That academic philosophy provides a welcoming habitat for such authors is an indictment of the academy; not a valedictory for it's inhabitants.

“I think the possibilities for new futures come not from resisting but from accelerating technical development even under present conditions. There’s no way back; we can only go forward.”

Brilliantly summed up.