[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> how to defeat activism

[MWP <mpalmer@jps.net>]

Francis H writes: >>Any vocation can sound petty if you decide to
describe in completely inaccurate terms.<<

Have any of you ever tried hacking instead of simply gushing about it's
subversive qualities blah blah blah? Believe me, if you do you will be
numbed into boredom within minutes. It is not rewarding work except for
those who get a perverse thrill out of playing the role of deux ex
machina in other people's lives.

No, I disagree with FH's view entirely. Or at least with the part of it
that suggests I am describing hacking in completely inaccurate terms.
And the analogy several people are making to daubing paint at random on
a canvas etc. is completely absurd. Hackers literally do enter strings
of code at random in the hopes of cracking somebody's password etc. It's
like searching for a needle in a haystack much of the time, and it is
hideously dull and tedious work that bears absolutely no relationship to
the intensive creativity of an artist's task. If you want an analogy
that works, compare it to the codebreakers of WWII, only instead of
fighting the Nazis, hackers (those with a smattering of political
consciousness, at least) are going after Capital, and often for far less
noble reasons. I am sorry, but I refuse to see hacking as a pursuit we
should be putting on the same pedestal (or higher, in one person's view)
as artistic creation. It just ain't so!

mp

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