Books

The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the New Economy

Average customer rating:

Long on sociology. Short on philosophy.
Excellent through ch 4, then loses focus
Very bad and very simplistic
Written by a sociologist for sociologists
Intriguing Viewpoints

The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the New Economy
Torvalds, Castells, Pekka, Linus, Manuel Himanen
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download

Hacking | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: B00005AVX6

Book Description

You may be a hacker and not even know it. Being a hacker has nothing to do with cyberterrorism, and it doesn’t even necessarily relate to the open-source movement. Being a hacker has more to do with your underlying assumptions about stress, time management, work, and play. It’s about harmonizing the rhythms of your creative work with the rhythms of the rest of your life so that they amplify each other. It is a fundamentally new work ethic that is revolutionizing the way business is being done around the world.

Without hackers there would be no universal access to e-mail, no Internet, no World Wide Web, but the hacker ethic has spread far beyond the world of computers. It is a mind-set, a philosophy, based on the values of play, passion, sharing, and creativity, that has the potential to enhance every individual’s and company’s productivity and competitiveness. Now there is a greater need than ever for entrepreneurial versatility of the sort that has made hackers the most important innovators of our day. Pekka Himanen shows how we all can make use of this ongoing transformation in the way we approach our working lives.

Customer Reviews:

Long on sociology. Short on philosophy........2006-01-12

Briefly, as to general flow of the book some reviewers here have already mentioned that the marrow of this book is to be found in the early portions with chapters 5,6, and especially 7 very nearly if not completely skipable. Castells' futurist epilogue while a bit far reaching at times is a welcome respite after the preceeding chapters. Torvalds introduction piece while intended to provide some hacker credentials and tone-setting for the book, I imagine, though fun came across as a bit glib and was essentially unnecessary.

I believe Himanen's main points can be summarized as follows:

1. People are working longer and harder based on an out of date paradigm and find the work they are doing is less rewarding especially in regards to true personal satisfaction.

2. On the other hand hackers can be described as those people who, regardless of the field in which they work, do what they do for personal satisfaction and the inherent rewards of furthering their area of interest and peer recognition.

In other words hackers are much like those who traditionally work in academia, the sciences, and the arts. In fact Himanen acknowledges as much during the course of the book.

None of this is in itself problematic, however given the famaliar ground covered here I kept hoping Himanen would do more than simply conjure (almost arbitrarily) a generic value system and just slap it on a group of people he generally terms hackers.

My real displeasure with this book was its failure to offer any suggestions, in light of the obvious and underlying ethical considerations inherent within his argument, as to how one might create a society of hackers. If his intent was to keep to interesting historical and sociological observations then he could have, possibly, gotten through this without touching on deeper ethical currents. All along though Himanen challenges the presumptions of our current views on work, money, fun, creativity, etc... Nothing wrong with any of that, however such musings, and indeed the title of the book, suggests that at some point he might be inclined to address some deeper questions. Questions such as how does someone with few resources and limited access attain the position that allows him/her to engage in more self fulfilling activies? Whose responsibility is it to ensure the essentials of survival are provided for so that people can pursue their passions? None of this is really given much attention and I suspect it isn't even seriously considered by Himanen. While some might argue that it was not his intent to raise and answer such questions, I believe his book suffers for his failure to delve more deeply into the basics of how to get beyond where we currently are to achieve his lofty but admirable goals.

Another minor source of irritation was his heavy reliance on Weber. Obviously the title acts as a clear indicator of his intent to explore Weber's ideas. Again nothing wrong with going to the well as it were, however at times it felt too much like a retreading of Weber's own work.

I find it interesting, and philosophically useful, when an author provides a dissenting viewpoint to her/his own proposal. Or at least attempts to provide a fair assessment of a viewpoint they wish to discredit. Such attempts also work to lend an air of credibility to the authors stance and help the reader understand the framework of the argument better. Unfortunately Himanen does not do this here.

On the positive side this is a very easy read and can be a nice introduction to more challenging works on the themes mentioned or alluded to througout the text. The author is engaging and playful and doesn't run the risk of scaring off readers who don't typically enjoy trudging through heavy academic works. This ease of read is probably why a major publisher such as Random House picked this up and chose to release it. On the other hand, and for the very same reasons, this is most likely why a more scholarly publisher like the Oxford University Press or the like did not.

In short alot more exploration of his own proposals and presumptions (i.e. the 7 values of the Hacker Ethic, etc...), as well as trimming some of the unnecessary portions (i.e. 10 pages on an imagined Protestant Genesis, etc...), as well as providing some illumination on the other side of the issue, would have made for a much better read.

Excellent through ch 4, then loses focus.......2004-12-20

I bought and read this book because I enjoy reading about hacker history and culture. When I started, I simply read and flipped pages, thinking I wouldn't find much of deep importance. After about 20 pages I was extremely interested in the book and started underlining the author's main points. By chapter 5, and especially in chapter 6, the author lost my attention and I ended up giving this book a three star review.

The valuable core of 'The Hacker Ethic' lies in its comparison with the Protestant work ethic. The author explains that philosophy's roots in monastic life, and contrasts it with the 'hacker ethic' and its roots in academic/scientific practices. As a history major I thought this comparison was fascinating and it made me examine my own work habits more closely. The author's illumination of time-centric vs. task-centric work was especially interesting.

Linux kernel inventor Linus Torvalds wrote the prologue, so the entire book approaches the free/open software world from an overtly Linux perspective. One mention of BSD appears in a citation of Eric S. Raymond's 'Cathedral and the Bazaar.' ESR criticizes the BSD development model ('carefully coordinated... by a relatively small, tightly knit group of people') in comparison with Linux, where 'quality was maintained not by rigid standards or autocracy but by the naively simple strategy of releasing every week and getting feedback.' I think 'naive' is the operative word here. Linux has certainly prospered, but companies like IBM, Novell, and others are playing increasingly bigger roles.

If you can read Linus' prologue and the first four chapters in a book store, I recommend doing so. I believe the author does a nice job making comparisons with the Protestant work ethic, but doesn't quite know where to go next. Reading four chapters should take a couple of hours, and you'll walk away appreciating the keen insights author Pekka Himanen has to offer on 'The Hacker Ethic.'

Very bad and very simplistic.......2003-06-19

A very simplistic work by a minor philosopher (I use this word lightly). Wow, so bad, so dumb, such a waste of time. Those other books you are considering reading first? Go again.

Written by a sociologist for sociologists.......2003-01-30

I originally picked up this book more for amusement than anything else, considering it another one of those books about kids who stay up all night writing radical programs and their nocturnal habits. I was wrong. This book is best decribed in the prologue written by Linus Torvolds himself. He states that when he first met the author it was at a convention of 'sociologists talking about technology'. Well this book is written by just such a person... a sociologist. And one by my observation who decided to write a book about technology without any real knowledge of the spectrum of subcultures in the technology arena. In a way it seems like a sociological report one would make to his peers, who without any real background in the subject would deem well written,as previous reviews above have shown, but for the rest of us, there is much more interesting literature out there. And hopefully sometime in the very near future he will cease his contributing his, at best, amateur opinions on this subject to himself, and allow those with a true insight to document the culture. While I greatly respect Linus Torvalds and his contributions to the world, he only lends credibility to a book that no one else wouldeven consider without his name being mentioned.

Intriguing Viewpoints.......2002-03-28

This book compares the so-called "hacker work ethic" as compared to the old "Protestant work ethic," examining so-called hacker culture and their motivations for working and completing projects, as opposed to the world view of working "because you are supposed to." It makes a number of interesting observations, and points out that in our world, the pressure to "work, work, work" never seems to escape us, in spite of all the technological advances of our world designed to "make life easier."

It also points out that "true hackers" are willing to work at something in order to improve it and are not always motivated to do so by the almighty dollar. I long have worked with engineers who come in to work at 10 or 11 am but stay until almost midnight every day and never quite understood why until now. It's the desire to continue to tinker with and ultimately complete a project.

I will never be a "true hacker," since I lack the aptitude and ultimately patience to sit at a computer screen all hours of the day and night trying to solve programming problems, but books like these give me a much better understanding of the ones who are.

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