Born to Hack

I believe American culture is rooted in finding more efficient ways of doing things. We are capable of working hard about things that we’re passionate about, but for everything else, our  brains are hard wired to find easier, simpler, faster means to achieve goals. This is true for all of us and the virtues of this characteristic are well known but only tell one side of the story. But, before you begin to whip out your American flags and patriotic hymns , this same drive for efficiency also drives us to be lazier, corrupt, to game the system, hack the numbers, swindle, lie and cheat.  Put simply in every avenue, we’re born to hack.

Hacking isn’t limited to computer activity. You can hack anything. Why do we do it? I believe we do it to work-around what we believe to be menial and boring and get to the activities or parts of the activities that we enjoy- (e.g. winning, completion, crossing the finish line, at all costs). Here are some examples that support my point- we’re born to hack.

Games

For every honest player, I bet there are at least 2 people eager to learn how to hack the system, and another person who actually does it.

1. Man has been breaking rules since the dawn of time. War Games and the simulations that were designed to mimic them have been hacked since the beginning. Kings used political pressure to ensure victory of a chess game. Big brothers under penalty of a pounding would coax little brothers and sisters into surrendering properties in Monopoly and so on (sorry).

2. Counting cards and the notion of beating the house qualifies as a hack. It requires you to cultivate a deep understanding of the system and exploit it’s weaknesses. This isn’t cheating, though many think that it is. It is just awesome game hack.

3. In the digital world, there are hacks of all kinds and this is perhaps the easiest to grasp notion. Players can exploit flaws and the system to see their opponent’s moves and goals and respond accordingly. In the political field, we do similar things across the globe with espionage, to the point of cyber war.

Health & Fitness

1. We’re constantly looking for magic pills to make us stronger, faster, thinner, and energized. We could focus on tapping into gifts we’re given, understanding and nurturing the natural flow of things but most of us don’t. After all who has the time. Steroids and drug use are prevalent in just about every popular professional sport, save for Soccer, which I guess isn’t that popular here in the states. Runners do all sorts of things to exploit their bodies to overclock and push them to the limit. In all of this, I can’t tell you at what point optimization ends and hacking/gaming the system (in the negative context) begins.

2. Obesity and weight loss is the biggest issue for Americans. I speak from personal experience and can say with confidence (as a former heavyweight turned athlete), that out of all the ways we hack, this is at the top of the list. It earns the top slot because we hack the hack. We have many diet and fitness programs that work, yet a majority of fat Americans will tell you they don’t. Why? Because they add the rationalization loop to make the hard work easier on the brain. They make excuses for caloric exceptions of cheesecake and burgers. We’re really good at hacking our motivations for food drives. Fitness classes work. Hagen Daas and Fitness Classes don’t work.  And when we hack the body hacks with mind hack rationalizations- the result is failure.

Mind Hacking- Rationalizing our thoughts and behaviors to avoid doing what’s necessary. We make excuses to work around our what our minds and bodies are telling us.

Politics, Law and Business

1. How many subtle linguistic tricks and work arounds do we have? Has anyone even attempted to map out the politcal correct speech dictionary in a big book of douchebaggery? It would take a lifetime for a team of people I’m sure.

2. If there’s one thing that we produce in the U.S.A. it’s Bull Shit, and what I mean by that is the mental and linguistic efforts to deceive, circumvent, any hindrance to any individual, group, or organization’s efforts, anywhere across every medium. We are really great at hacking society via Bull Shit. Most pretend to be value driven and proceed to rationalize and B.S. their way around holding themselves accountable to the same standards.

3. The latest layer of complexity in the murky brown BS world, is the notion that we will transform business into a video game for customers and employees. Great, because teaching everyone that work/life is one big game will remove any moral imperatives and encourage hacking on all sides of the consumer/business/employee structure. This is in fact, the way things are trending.

Conclusions & Discussion Points

If it is becoming like a big game,  The Game of Life:

Why should we fight our nature to hack the system?

At what point does hacking become immoral? At what point are we crossing the line between efficiency and optimization, playing to our strengths, exploiting the system, and doing something wrong?

The answer is a murky gray one. I’d love to know what others think on the subject.

The reality, in the Information Age,  on the cyborg lifestyle scene, I believe we’ve been life hacking at a whole new level for at least a decade, in pursuit of freedom from boredom and indentured servitude. It’s a required mentality to compete with innovation and globalization. I believe that pursuing freedom in this day requires a dedication to hacking your reality, your work and life to mold it the way you see fit.

Let’s accept the Matrix scenario as our premise, since many of the rules can be bent, others broken and accountability at just about every societal level is virtually non-existent, to the extent where we minimize suffering caused, why shouldn’t we hack our lives for our own personal gain?

Tell me why I should stop seeking to maximize the value of my time effort and energy? Explain why I shouldn’t delegate and automate my way into early retirement. Corporate citizenship is a bullshit moral imperative for sheep. Don’t get me wrong, I have principles, but explain to me the merits of accepting the gamified premise & rules of a societal game where those at the top, middle, and a few at the bottom aren’t even following.

Life is short. Make it what you want. Live with virtue and deep compassion for fellow man, but don’t hold societal premises and definitions too high. Corporate culture and many of societal rules are attacks or hacks on our sense of virtue and morality. They are designed to obligate, guilt trip and otherwise force you into submission. How is that fair or ethical?  Most of it is bullshit- built to hack.

-Nicholas