Once upon a time there was a harmless little nerd that toyed with the wires and sand. His curiosity and pain led to the discovery of a small group of not so little and highly skilled nerds. They embraced his fury, youth, ego, and willingness to play with fire.
They gave him weapons and tools and targets and goals just to see what would happen. They answered his impertinent questions and empowered him for giggles. Amusement ensued for all observers. But the little nerd was learning how to learn. Fun and games learn to awareness and a mission. He saw his limits and how a lie here and there obviated them. He learned that even a known lie did things.
He learned that he was hacking the hackers. Entertaining them in exchange for acceptance and peeks at the answer sheet. He externalized credibility. He learned the term for this was social engineering and such engineers were openly welcomed in this community. But their goals were so small.
New faces came and went and in time he went as well. He saw them sell out and buy in one at a time. Owned as they would say by forces quite beyond the wires and the sand.
Why did he leave in the end if not surrender? Because he got tired of the lies. Being near them taught him that they were not in charge of themselves, despite being convinced that they were. He clashed with their beliefs about what made a person valid and cool, and how often those attitudes seemed issued to them by the television. He tried to unite a pocket of them but they ignored him. Their petty war with a clone of themselves inches away consumed them until they were ruled by debt and sex.
Is there nothing more? This little room is the height of your ambition? Hacking the hackers to mask his own limits exposed their limits and the fact that he wasn’t the only one toying with this occult realm. So who was? Where is the deeper power? He arrived amongst the black and grey hats because he asked the question of efficiency without propriety.
Why do the homework when you can hack the grades? How can I use my ability to acquire more ability without regard for the class barriers and busy work? Who is really more powerful than X?
This attitude and exploration carried him away from the hats and bickering and wires entirely. The best hackers realized that the power is not in the wire, but what the wire does. It connects people.
People are the real wire. And after decades of failure and disappointment the real network is revealed.
Sadly he had honor and honesty now. He looked at this new ocean and realized he wasn’t up for a new swim. At least not yet.
He smiled at the new versions of his old self, swimming in the right sea by chance and some by choice. The future belongs to them and the predators of today will be the prey tomorrow. But not to claws and teeth, death and pain.
The tactical and strategic agents of life and joy are weapons of a whole new nature. Why destroy when you can convert? Why annihilate when you can assimilate? When the truth is actually good news, what unique options does it acquire? The future will be a succession of glorious and unexpected answers to that question.
Imagine being eaten alive by a swam of ants with heroin and anesthetic coated jaws. Ants with better ethics than god and more power than fission. Now imagine they were pawns of something far more patient all along. The future belongs to the light and you will climb towards it as we instruct.
