12 Apr 2018

"Geeks" vs "hackers"

Both cultures seem to be heavily built around computer-related knowledge, but relating to computers is nothing more than a flavour. The difference that i’d like to call to attention in this post is that “geeks” pursue knowledge for the pleasure of experiencing new, while “hackers” pursue knowledge to improve their aesthetic taste.

That difference might be more fundamental than one might think on the first sight. While person may switch from one side to another and back, cultures formed by people with certain mindsets persist and have a lot of recurring patterns.

Of course, i could have used E- and W- words, but unfortunately that is too loaded cliche to be easily perceivable and i would have been forced to elaborate more on history and other details and the post would have more chances to be left unfinished.

Being too abstract and not attaching any common names to these categories, on the other hand, could have led to text being too boring, either for me or for my imaginary friends.

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