I really appreciate the example of the filmmaker. I stumble with the speedrunning metaphor, though, because it confuses the goals. Speedrunning a game is fun and impressive if you want to experience it that way. But it misses the entire joy and art of the game itself. I’m sure you know this, but it’s an off note for me because it seems like a different case than with the movie where the goals are the same in Hollywood-style vs hacker-style. Perhaps along with the ethics note, there’s a key aspect of defining your goals *first,* separate from the way the system defines them for you. I think you’ve written about that elsewhere, right?
I saw the false walls for the first time when I had my first full-time job at Meta. I spent a year working as hard as possible for a promotion that I was promised and then told “we don’t promote anyone in the first year.” I then figured out the actual way to get promoted- who needed to be in my evaluation- and spent 6 months sucking up to her instead of doing any work, and got her to sit in it. I got a 40% raise. Once I saw that, I couldn’t work there anymore. I had speedrun the game.
People ask me why I didn’t stay longer and get another promo and another promo, but I lost interest and faith in the system. Something I wonder about the hacker mindset: do all the people speedrunning games just keep speedrunning them? Or do they design ones that can’t be? Or do they feel “done” with video games as a genre and do something completely else?
This was great Henrik, really enjoyed the stories and your thoughts about the hacker mindset.
I also appreciate how it ends with a focus on the technical. I think that’s a really proper antidote to the high agency mindset that just says “anything is possible” and at times, makes people believe life and the craft they’re chasing is easy, if they just find the right hack to do it correctly. I wanna chew on this more!
Do you have any favorite stories from your personal experience of how you’ve employed this mindset? I’d love to hear them.
the moment i saw this i immediately thought of the Gwern article lol
One book that influenced me towards this mindset is A Burglar's Guide to the City. It's about how architecture can (and was) manipulated to perform theft. Very good book.
I’ve used this in my live life. After my divorce I deconstructed my ideas and learned how to be the man/husband I admired in others. That was going wonderfully but she passed away. I spent another five years healing and working through my vision of not recreating what I had before but what kind of woman would fit with who I am now. I had several relationships but quickly realized they weren’t the one, but when I finally did meet the one I married her 100 days later. I’ve never felt closer with anyone. = )))
The one caveat that I think needs to be given alongside this idea of a hacker mindset is that the tools need to exist to enable the hacker to "teleport through walls".
In the example of speed running, the tools are inherent to the system and all that's needed is the deep understanding you described. However, in the case of Rodriguez, he needed access to cheap film and tech like VHS to cut his teeth on video editing. If the tools are inaccessible then it's much harder to hack the system. Rodriguez happen to come up in a time where video was becoming much more accessible. If he had been making movies in the 50s then maybe his teachers would have been right to advise him on having a crew.
I think this is a great essay and captures this hacker phenomenon well, but it leaves out a bit of the context. How many other filmmakers tried to do what Rodriguez did and failed?
recently started teaching myself how to swim because i have no money to pay an instructor. i go in the pool, do a couple drills. whatever keeps me floating on my back or face is what i know i should keep doing. whatever doesn’t keep me floating, i try to avoid. breathing exercises i practice through youtube.
This is great. I had somewhat this intuition too, but when I explained to others what my plan was and why I wanted to do it I often got perplexed looks - like I was crazy not to get onto the main road and heading towards getting completely lost! Of course, now I realize that to them I was walking in a direction they simply did not understand, because they didn't have the same map of the territory as I had. Anyway, such wonderful work, very happy to have the honor of reading this. Thanks again.
And of course the entire success story of SpaceX is precisely due to this hacker mindset. Great piece, as always.
The government contracts helped
I was thinking how to teach this. it's not easy. what's the pedagogy. I have some first thoughts.
but I realized, I can't teach this if I don't have it. then I realized I do!
I have the hackers mindset in education (home schooler). and it's a scale, so there a set of patterns of thought.
thank you for waking me up to a very useful frame. I've read about it before, but smth in your writing sparked me
The twitter link is broken, search should read "Dangerous Professional from:patio11" instead of "Dangerous Professional (from:patio11)" ;)
How odd, mine works for me but not yours. Twitter is reaching new levels of broken
Are you using the app perhaps? I'm on browser.
Browser, too. Hm
Dangerous Professional (from:patio11) works just fine for me on Browser.
This piece reminds me of: https://drmaciver.com/2022/05/learning-to-walk-through-walls/
I wish the ethical bit had been more than a footnote, but great piece.
Love the speedrunning connection. I love to watch explanations of famous speedruns. Those dudes can see through the matrix.
I really appreciate the example of the filmmaker. I stumble with the speedrunning metaphor, though, because it confuses the goals. Speedrunning a game is fun and impressive if you want to experience it that way. But it misses the entire joy and art of the game itself. I’m sure you know this, but it’s an off note for me because it seems like a different case than with the movie where the goals are the same in Hollywood-style vs hacker-style. Perhaps along with the ethics note, there’s a key aspect of defining your goals *first,* separate from the way the system defines them for you. I think you’ve written about that elsewhere, right?
I saw the false walls for the first time when I had my first full-time job at Meta. I spent a year working as hard as possible for a promotion that I was promised and then told “we don’t promote anyone in the first year.” I then figured out the actual way to get promoted- who needed to be in my evaluation- and spent 6 months sucking up to her instead of doing any work, and got her to sit in it. I got a 40% raise. Once I saw that, I couldn’t work there anymore. I had speedrun the game.
People ask me why I didn’t stay longer and get another promo and another promo, but I lost interest and faith in the system. Something I wonder about the hacker mindset: do all the people speedrunning games just keep speedrunning them? Or do they design ones that can’t be? Or do they feel “done” with video games as a genre and do something completely else?
This was great Henrik, really enjoyed the stories and your thoughts about the hacker mindset.
I also appreciate how it ends with a focus on the technical. I think that’s a really proper antidote to the high agency mindset that just says “anything is possible” and at times, makes people believe life and the craft they’re chasing is easy, if they just find the right hack to do it correctly. I wanna chew on this more!
Do you have any favorite stories from your personal experience of how you’ve employed this mindset? I’d love to hear them.
Thanks Henrik. Love your work.
the moment i saw this i immediately thought of the Gwern article lol
One book that influenced me towards this mindset is A Burglar's Guide to the City. It's about how architecture can (and was) manipulated to perform theft. Very good book.
I’ve used this in my live life. After my divorce I deconstructed my ideas and learned how to be the man/husband I admired in others. That was going wonderfully but she passed away. I spent another five years healing and working through my vision of not recreating what I had before but what kind of woman would fit with who I am now. I had several relationships but quickly realized they weren’t the one, but when I finally did meet the one I married her 100 days later. I’ve never felt closer with anyone. = )))
The one caveat that I think needs to be given alongside this idea of a hacker mindset is that the tools need to exist to enable the hacker to "teleport through walls".
In the example of speed running, the tools are inherent to the system and all that's needed is the deep understanding you described. However, in the case of Rodriguez, he needed access to cheap film and tech like VHS to cut his teeth on video editing. If the tools are inaccessible then it's much harder to hack the system. Rodriguez happen to come up in a time where video was becoming much more accessible. If he had been making movies in the 50s then maybe his teachers would have been right to advise him on having a crew.
I think this is a great essay and captures this hacker phenomenon well, but it leaves out a bit of the context. How many other filmmakers tried to do what Rodriguez did and failed?
recently started teaching myself how to swim because i have no money to pay an instructor. i go in the pool, do a couple drills. whatever keeps me floating on my back or face is what i know i should keep doing. whatever doesn’t keep me floating, i try to avoid. breathing exercises i practice through youtube.
This is a great piece. I've been trying and struggling to explain this to my girlfriend, and you did a way better job so I sent her this instead
This is great. I had somewhat this intuition too, but when I explained to others what my plan was and why I wanted to do it I often got perplexed looks - like I was crazy not to get onto the main road and heading towards getting completely lost! Of course, now I realize that to them I was walking in a direction they simply did not understand, because they didn't have the same map of the territory as I had. Anyway, such wonderful work, very happy to have the honor of reading this. Thanks again.
Curious about the list of things that you have unseen to get better at writing.