Merge pull request #86 from jrtechs/litReview1

Twoards a new Hacker Ethic

blogContent/posts/open-source/towards-a-new-hacker-ethic.md

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+Last week I listened to the talk [*Programming is Forgetting: Toward a
+New Hacker
+Ethic*](http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/programming-forgetting-new-hacker-ethic/)
+for a second time. This was an amazing talk given by Allison Parrish
+at the Open Hardware Summit in 2016. The first time I was introduced
+to this talk was over a year ago by a friend that was introducing me
+to the nuanced differences between "new" and "old" FOSS cultures.
+Whenever I listen to this talk I get nostalgic about 70's and 80's
+hacker literature like the ["Hackers
+Manifesto"](http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html) which inspired me in
+middle school.    
+
+<youtube src="4kiXCeJwrMQ" />
+
+Parrish's talk examined the points that Levy makes in his influential
+book  *Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution*. This talk picked
+out how aspects of Levy's hacker ethos are problematic and how we can
+work to change this Hacker Ethic to be more supportive of diverse
+communities. 
+
+However, before we dive into the breakdown of Levy's and Parrish's
+arguments, it is important to have a common understanding of these
+things:    
+
+- what being a hacker means
+- our assumptions about learning, knowing and society
+
+
+## What "Hacker" Means
+
+<youtube src="msX4oAXpvUE" />
+
+The mainstream definition of a "hacker" is a derogatory term to
+describe cyber-criminals; however, "hacker" in the tech world is a
+positive and respected term. In the tech world, "hacker" is used
+synonymously with geek: people who love to tinker with computers at
+great lengths. Due to the vast differences in the interpreted meaning
+of "hacker", people have been avoiding using that term. For this
+article and in general when people typically talk about "hacker
+culture", they are referring to the positive definition of hacker.    
+
+## Assumptions on knowledge and society
+
+Being the philosophy buff that I am, I believe that recognizing our
+assumptions about knowledge and society is quintessential to
+understanding Levy's and Parrish's views on the hacker ethic.  
+
+![Knowledge](media/ethos/paradigms.png)
+
+On the scale of knowledge, people fall somewhere on the scale between
+subjective and objective thinking. An objectivist seeks
+generalizations, favors statistical analysis, and views reality as
+separate from human experience. A subjectivist believes that reality
+is formed through personal experience and views knowledge as a working
+definition. When discussing discovery, an objectivist will try to find
+the **Truth**, where a subjectivist will seek to learn **truths**. In
+policy analysis, objectivists would favor quantitative methods where
+subjectivists would favor qualitative methods.    
+
+When examining socioty, people usually fall on a spectrum between
+*radical change* and *improvement*.    
+
+Status Quo (Improvement)    
+
+- social order
+- consensus
+- actuality
+
+Radical Change    
+
+- power structures
+- radical change
+- modes of domination
+- contradiction
+- potentiality
+
+Although people don't always fall at perfect edges of this spectrum,
+it provides a good frame of reference when discussing policies. Levy's
+hacker ethic falls in the *positivism* quadrant since he focused on
+incremental improvements twords "ideal" software. Parrish's ethos
+falls in the *Critical Humanism* quadrant because she is focused on
+the multiple truths of software communities and is focuses on the
+power structure that software supports. 
+
+# Levy's Hacker Ethic
+
+![Levy](media/ethos/levy.png)
+
+# Parrish's Hacker Ethic Rewrite
+
+![Allison](media/ethos/allison.png)
+
+# Why the difference?
+
+Despite the rewrite, both hacker ethics still emphasize the importance
+of:   
+
+- sharing
+- openness
+- free access to computers
+- world improvement
+
+The major difference between the two ethics is not in the fundamental
+message but on the philosophical perspectives of the authors.   
+
+Levy's hacker ethic was written and interpreted using the
+incrementalism framework. Computer hacking is the means of
+incrementally improving flawed technology moving towards the
+**Truth**-- a computer system that perfectly works.   
+
+Parrish's hacker ethic focuses on how can we use technology to better
+**truths**-- computer systems designed with different purposes to
+better support communities.  
+
+
+# Who is right?
+
+As a subjectivist, I would argue that the debate over which one is the
+**True** or better hacker ethic is fruitless. Moving forward with this
+revised working definition of the Hacker Ethic will better enable us
+to better support diverse communities.  
+
+Positivism has long been the dominant perspective in politics and
+research. However, in recent years there has been a shift towards a
+mix of objective and subjective perspectives in research. This is due
+to the fact that when you look at the objective **Truth** or the
+average of a population you often ignore minorities. In public policy,
+an objective viewpoint is useful when doing cost-risk analysis;
+however, subjective research is useful when identifying complex social
+issues that are hard to quantify with numbers.  
+
+# How did we get here in technology?
+
+During the [Future is Open
+Conference](https://fossrit.github.io/events/2019/10/26/the-future-is-open/)
+[Mike Nolan](https://nolski.rocks/) gave an amazing analogy that
+explains how we got here and why we need to have this debate in FOSS
+and hacker culture. Nolan compared the beginning of computers to
+homesteading in the western frontier. In the beginning, there was
+plenty of land for everyone and everyone got their own chunk of land.
+Everyone was happy and they maintained their land or "software"
+independently of each other. There was seldom any issues. However, as
+time went on you couldn't get your own plot of land. We now all live
+in large cities packed with communities, governments, and law swaying
+our every action. With all of these competing entities, it is
+impossible to work on instrumental software without interacting other
+entities. 
+
+The things that hackers make often originate as a personal project. We
+as hackers are content with perusing these projects towards our own
+objective **Truth**. Over time what started as a personal project may
+turn into a massive open-source project that dozens of communities
+depend on. This is the root of a ton of friction now in days: our
+objective **Truth** as the original developer may not align with the
+**truths** or needs of the community. To alleviate this "friction", I
+believe that adopting Parrish's subjective interpretation of the
+Hacker Ethic is a great way to start.