But perhaps what I see is that this is really nice, and why can't we share it with more people? Hacking isn't a zero-sum game. If we double the number of people trying to write open source, isn't that a win for everybody?
It's not like encouraging somebody else to write code takes my job away, or dilutes the amount of genius to go around.
Think positively, my friend. "Socialism" may or may not work when we're building massive factories built out of atoms, but perhaps the economy of bits works differently than the economy of atoms.
Disclosure: http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2014/01/03/hello-my-name-is-...
I never suggested that we should'nt be encouraging more hackers, the point I was making is that the article is suggesting that the hacker stereotype is bad because it makes people feel inferior.
I'm not in the same category at all, but I think of people like Feynman, he was not shy about criticizing policies he disliked, but he also worked tirelessly to bring more people into science.
(I listened to your interview on Javascript Jabber.)
But I also ran into some very encouraging people at key moments in my youth, for example there were various students at UofT who encouraged me to tinker with WATFIV and SNOBOL programs on punch cards. Some even let me use their terminals to play with APL.
I cannot say what would have happened if they had shooed me away and/or called security, but I think that my longevity in programming owes something to people who were welcoming.