Mastodawn

Killab33z May 1

Psst, hey: HACKERS ARE NOT TECH BROS. The vast majority of hackers never become tech bros. The ethics of hacking runs completely counter to that of tech bros.

Hackers make hardware do things they weren’t intended to do. They circumvent barriers. They string together contraptions that repurpose old stuff to do new things. Hackers aren’t that interested in money; they’re more interested in showing off their skills. They love to learn and make demos and create and share free tech that other hackers then build upon. All they want is acknoweledgement and the respect of their peers.

Tech bros are parasites. They’re greedy bastards who love to erect barriers between people and tech. They extract, addict, monetize. They turn everything fun and useful into a transaction, a dopamine trap, a subscription, a surveillance tool, an advertising outlet, and a vector to extract money from labor and suppliers.

Please don’t get them mixed up.

#hackers #hacking #techbros

CaveDave Apr 30

@drahardja virgin tech bro vs chad trans gay furry

@drahardja Watch Mr Robot if you are still unsure after this well-written description.

@drahardja This 💯!

Excessive Minimalism Apr 30

@drahardja
Hackers make hardware do things they weren’t intended to do.
Techbros hype software to do things they'll never be able to do.

ollibaba Apr 30

@excess @drahardja Hackers make hardware do things they weren’t intended to do.
Tech bros make people do things they don't want to do.

sidereal Apr 30

@drahardja Hackers make computers do things they couldn't do before, and give away the results for free.

Tech bros take away things that computers used to do, and charge rent for the "service."

@drahardja hackers do extract and making surveillance tools too

Grey the earthling Apr 30

Tech bros are human avatars of capitalism, hosts infected and controlled by the parasite.

F4GRX SÃ©bastien Apr 30

@drahardja hack the planet

@drahardja I'm not sure I buy this distinction. Stephen Levy's description of the hacker ethic in Hackers (in particular free speech absolutism, what is now called "meritocracy", and the idea that rapidly accelerating adoption of technology will make the world better and decouple us from burdensome traditional power structures) is much closer to contemporary "tech bro" ideology than its opposition.

A decade later, this combination of ideas was criticized in the early stages of the dotcom boom as the Californian Ideology, and still mostly tracks with what we would call "tech bros" today. Occasionally, you see people from that era (e.g. John Carmack) be criticized for saying something that would've been a boring consensus opinion in online hacker circles back in the 90s.

The ideas that people find now find problematic were always present.

@drahardja And I would say that hackers hate techbros more than the average person because techbros are leaving a horrible taint on tech stuff.

💜 DetectaBeryl 🩷

@drahardja were people actually mixing these up?

cwicseolfor Apr 30

@Rasp @drahardja Mastodon is almost a separate reality from the universe most non-techies and end-users inhabit. To the layperson it's all vague wizard stuff.

Source: I can barely still write HTML, am in the absolute outer fringe of technically-inclined, and still got looked at as some kind of magician-prodigy until I went off to college where I could gratefully cede all that to the real compsci kids.

JSON Alexander Apr 30

@drahardja I do have to speak up, from my own experience what you described in regards to "showing off their skills" and wanting "acknoweledgement and the respect of their peers" is only a small and, if I may say so, fairly toxic part of hacking culture; myself and most others I know in this community build, learn and do things on our own terms, for our own enjoyment, and barely even remember to share anything or intentionally don't share things due to past bad experiences, for me this is 50/50

More simply hackers are anyone with an interest in technology for the sake of technology, tech bros are grifters who's grift happens to include technology

tungsten cube gf Apr 30

@drahardja the coolest people i know are hackers, genuinely

hacker: I made this toaster play Doom, just because I can.
techbro: I increased this website's engagement by 17% and in doing so raised teenage suicides by 5%.

know the difference. it could save your life.

ity [unit X-69] - VIOLENT FUCK May 4

@gothodile @drahardja

Damn I need to find something obscure to run Doom on

I wonder if my TV's firmware...

Ko Simon toku ingoa

@gothodile @drahardja I found online someone who made a Galaxy Watch run Windows 95, because why not, I guess?

Kofi Loves Efia

@gothodile @drahardja I have never been able to wrap my head around the facebook whistleblower disappearing into the meta rebranding.

jesterchen42 May 1

@drahardja Kudos for the correct description of a hacker! Haven't read this one in a while, felt good. :)

Callista Graves May 1

@drahardja thank you for using the term correctly!

HowToPhil May 2

Princess Dalius May 4

@drahardja
Techbros think they are hackers, and sometimes it's not obvious that they aren't.

Techbros do "repurpose old stuff to do new things", they take things that are free and monetizr them.
Techbros are "interested in showing off their skills", they use buzz words to impress investors.
Techbros want "others to build upon their creations", but in the sense of making them dependant on the Techbros product (or getting free labour out of it).

ity [unit X-69] - VIOLENT FUCK May 4

@drahardja how do you mix up techbros with hackers, they are like, polar opposites

(I am technically speaking a hacker, right?)

Yet another Josh

Absolutely.

When I gave my LoRa / Meshtastic talk at #Gnuradiocon last year, I was surprised I wasn't given a cease and desist.

I've given other hacker con talks, but never openly violated patent law on stage 😂... Until last year!

@drahardja I sometimes wonder how the parallel dimension is doing, the one where hackers are better capable of "monetizing"|financing their work than tech bros.