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(00:00:17.475) Intro
- Exposing and explaining assumptions are hard
- By their very nature, they undergird perception
- Often themselves being imperceptible
- You cannot see your own nose for much the same reason
- Being present so consistently, your mind edits it out unless you take pains
- To cross your eyes a bit and try to examine it
- This cognitive phenomenon is called adaptation and is easy to demonstrate
- Turn on a radio and tune it between stations or flip on a white noise generator
- Most people will eventually stop hearing the noise or at least won't notice as much
- If I recall it correctly, adaptation leads to a neat trick
- That you can play with video of falling water
- If you watch the motion of water long enough for your mind to adapt
- Then stop the image, for a brief second it will seem like the water is flowing in reverse
- Unlike these outward sensations where tricks can be employed
- To uncover mental short circuiting that diminishes perception
- Digging downwards from opinions and perspectives to the underlying perceptions
- Is not as easy as exercising some mental sleight of hand
- Interacting with others is the only means I can think of
- That brings assumptions into focus in a clear and constructive way
- For myself, the genesis of this monologue has been the persistent questions
- Asked by a listener and reader, goblin
- Who clearly doesn't share the assumptions
- I hold as a technology enthusiast and a hacker
- I have increasingly been thinking that enumerating close held assumptions
- And re-evaluating them would be a useful exercise for keeping an open and limber mind
- Doing so is clearly easiest with consciously embraced choices
- Like the thought process I openly shared around my decision to move back to Linux
- Even with an easier to focus experience like that, one that is more volitional
- Undoubtedly many otherwise invisible, subtler or longer held assumptions
- Informed the decision and the actions I undertook after committing to it
- In conversation with those who respectfully and calmly disagree
- With the assertions and actions that arises from my own assumptions
- Exactly what those are comes a bit more into focus
- I will share some examples that have arisen from specific disagreements
- None of these are meant to be critical in anyway
- Even though I may compare and contrast my own views and assumptions to those held by others
- The juxtaposition is the most useful way I can think of
- To bring my otherwise invisible assumptions somewhat into frame
- And to explain them hopefully in a more concrete and understandable way
- Hackable systems are everywhere
- Thinking about the specific situations, even social ones
- As a complex of interlocking, logical rules is not uncommon for hackers
- Except where constrained by some physical architecture
- Most hackers see these as opportunities to explore and experiment
- Only curiosity and creativity are required to make the attempt
- Curiosity encourages looking at what is often taken for granted in a new light
- As something begging more research, thought and investigation
- Think about how many everyday scenarios through which you move
- Without giving much thought, assuming things have always been this way
- Giving in to your curious nature leads to asking, why is this so?
- Are the rules and particulars there for some reason or are they arbitrary?
- Using creative thinking unlocks alternatives, seeing how something mundane
- Might be re-imagined if the underlying rules are not fixed in stone
- A few experiences have brought this systems approach to mind for me recently
- In particular how it is most commonly expressed in social situations
- Many hackers are creatures of habit, I know I sure am
- I think this is an instance of creating systems to free up mental cycles
- With well established habits that do not require conscious thought
- There is more time and focus to dedicate to far more interesting questions
- The root of these habits can be very thoughtful
- Based on well reasoned research and experimentation to find an efficient set of practices
- Or it could be more arbitrary, a random choice such as the first one that happened along
- What surprises me is how inflexible this framing can make some hackers
- Variation from routine definitely makes me uncomfortable, unless I have time to prepare for it
- I've spoken about the sense of dislocation that I feel when traveling
- I think it has a basis at least in part in this particular mindset
- As such, as I've traveled more, I've tried to embrace that dislocation
- Welcoming how it begs re-thinking assumptions and comforts I take for granted
- By contrast, I have colleagues that very steadfastly cling to their established habits
- As a technologist at a DC based thinktank, I often have to attend meetings and events in a suit
- Prior to this job, I avoided anything that required me to wear more than my standard uniform
- Like many other people I've known in the field of technology
- That was blue jeans and a tee shirt of some kind, either from a conference
- Or from a collection of obscure and humorous designs like ThinkGeek or woot
- I've shared my experience in adjusting to the requirements of my new career
- One of the last times I was at an event hosted by a federal agency
- The topic of why we have to wear suits came up
- My view is that while doing so is pretty much an arbitrary historical accident
- The cost of arguing to change it or get an exception is a waste of effort
- Spending that energy on the topics of the event is a far more fruitful endeavor
- A colleague from a large, commercial software firm simply didn't agree
- She kept insisting that the need to wear a suit is illogical, it has nothing to do
- With the actual qualifications of the participants or the merit of their contributions
- I will agree that she is not wrong but with something so deeply embedded in a particular culture
- In this instance a large federal agency and its expectations around public events
- You could waste a good deal of time that would be better spent
- Researching, preparing and refining the topics and knowledge you plan to bring to the event
- In discussing this experience with another friend of mine
- One more open minded to wardrobes less commonly associated with hackers
- He pointed out that both the typical programmer uniform and a suit are equally arbitrary
- While the social requirements of a situation are theoretically hackable
- That has to be coupled with the cost to do so, the likelihood of success
- And the knock on consequences of even making the attempt
- The example I shared here is a bit trivial but highlights a few points
- Just the realization that something is a system doesn't make it plausible to alter it
- Focusing on external targets for this sort of re-engineering often obscures
- That we often carry along any number of systems of habits
- That are may be just as arbitrary and perhaps easier to change
- One of the bigger recent examples is pretty well framed by a post I mentioned by Clay Johnson
- Where he points out that not only are Congress critters commonly technology illiterate
- But also many technologists are policy illiterate
- One view is not inherently more legitimate than the other
- Understanding that there are multiple systems resulting in a debate
- Begs that the focus of thought and reflection be broadened
- Not in the least to make sure that one party is unconsciously disrespecting the other
- Trying to be more open minded, to see the implicit habits and grooves in our own thoughts and actions
- Is time better spent to avoid talking past someone with a distinct, different background
- Than insisting in the name of hacking a system that ours is intrinsically a better system
- Free sharing doesn't mean without value
- My persuasive arguments about issues in the context of copyright
- Are very heavily laden with many assumptions
- I feel that cultural creation is not only enhanced by sharing
- But in many ways vitally depends on that act of transmission and joint reflection
- There is certainly some value in creating solely for ourselves
- The act of bring an idea into tangible existence as a melody, story or image
- Crystallizes thoughts and feelings in an immediate and powerful way
- Holding those creations exclusively for ourselves is limiting
- At least in terms of personal growth, in inviting comment and new experience offered by others
- A great deal of art only really flowers when another viewer, reader or listener
- Meshes the ideas and questions posed by the creator with their own perspectives
- Some schools of thought stress this more than others
- Like many threads in the modern school of visual art
- Where objective representation is explicitly rejected
- In favor of impressions, puzzles and other approaches that explicitly invite the viewer in
- Many, many thinkers recently have also argued that each creator
- Borrows heavily from the vocabularies expressed by the creators they in turn enjoy and admire
- In terms of conversing and engaging with each other
- Cultural works become signposts and symbols, a shared shorthand
- That make it easier to recognize each other and efficiently invoke and transmit ideas
- Think for a moment of the number of times in the past week
- That you referred to a passage from a book, some snippet of music
- A joke from a comic either traditional or on the web
- Or some particular scene from a beloved movie or television show
- I contend that the act of sharing, of publishing, of putting works out there
- Is key to generating this social currency around them
- Freedom in explicit models of unrestricted sharing like free software or free culture
- Aligns with the value generated by the normal and natural diffusion of works
- I, for one, do not start with an assumption that all works should be shared without restriction
- I am merely trying to suggest that moving towards easier and hence more sharing
- Correlates to an increase in potential culture value
- The creator should reserve the right to choose how to release their work
- If in making a more liberal choice for my own works I expect other to respect that license
- I in turn have to respect the wishes of how others want their creations shared
- I may try to persuade them that less restrictions will produce more benefit
- But with very, very few exceptions I personally won't cross the line they lay down
- Violating their intentions
- The handful of times I have violated someone else's copyright
- I don't feel I was acting as a pirate, by the definition I will provide
- I did so because I felt I had no other way to enjoy the work
- For example that it was not available in a format I could enjoy with my technology choices
- In every single instance I have put down cold, hard cash in some other way to benefited the creator
- Such as buying the work in a later released format I could enjoy
- The challenge in embracing greater freedom for audiences in turn to share and re-use works
- Is how to express that value back to the author
- In a way that supports the sustained effort and expense a work may require
- And that encourages the original creator to continue to produce valuable works
- I try to dedicate a portion of my blogging, podcasting and public speaking
- To promoting experiments that demonstrate effective non-traditional ways
- To ensure an artist is supported and encouraged
- While also embracing the considerable benefit to be found in sharing
- Whether that is in a more conservative fashion or much more generously
- When talking about DRM or file sharing in the early days of the podcast
- I would often qualify that I do not believe that piracy is ethical
- Piracy could be characterized as a form of sharing
- But I do not believe that all sharing is piracy
- I would agree that a pirate is someone who enjoys a work, regardless of its license
- Without sparing much if any thought for the inherent value it represents
- In terms of the effort and costs associated with making the work and sharing it
- To make things a but more complicated, I want to re-visit the couple of times
- That I have knowingly and willingly violated someone else's copyright
- While I may be unusual, and in my view not a pirate, for taking pains to support the original creator
- The act of illicitly acquiring and enjoying a work is a strong signal
- I think that even while true pirates rob a creator of direct remuneration
- By paying attention to where they are thickest, an artist can gain a sense
- Of opportunities of which they may not be taking full advantage
- This is not to suggest that acting on such signals is easy or cheap
- But rather to say that I doubt even inveterate pirates act in a purely random fashion
- The hacker in me sees this as a system to observe and understand as well as possible
- Before drawing the sort of deep judgements about the motives and damage of piracy
- To which I think many in the traditional entertainment industry rush
- Maybe my long, long experience of free software and open source
- Softens the view I take on sharing and exchanging works that arise from non-monetary motivations
- I've only dug into a couple of assumptions
- As a mature human with a rich social graph and many civic and community facing outlets
- There are undoubtedly many more
- Quite a few are just as rooted as these two in my experiences and self identification as a hacker
- I have a couple of other recent experiences that have helped
- To bring these normally invisible influences on my thoughts and actions into conscious view
- Whether I develop a new, longer running series of segments
- I will definitely return at least once or twice more to this topic
- Of how this hacker sees the world
- If you have specific questions or experiences
- I hope you understand now how by sharing them
- You can help me, and help others by extensions, better understand these assumptions
- As always, you can send me your thoughts at feedback at the command line dot net
(00:29:26.128) Outro
- Contact me
- I'd like to thank the Internet Archive for media hosting and bandwidth
- These notes and the show audio and music are covered by a Creative Commons license
