
If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged - fogus
http://geekfeminism.org/2010/07/27/if-you-were-hacking-since-age-8-it-means-you-were-privileged/
======
rdtsc
That is simply not true.

We weren't poor growing up but we were not far from it (at least according to
the Western standards). I remember having to eat only once a day and wearing
clothes with holes in them because we couldn't afford to go clothes shopping.
My father, a good engineer with a university degree lost his job after the
Soviet collapse and my mom had to work 2 janitor jobs.

However, if my father knew someone who had a broken radio or TV he would get
it for me so I can take it appart and play with the innards. I had a soldering
iron and a neighbor had given me his old voltmeter. So I was learning quite a
bit without having expensive equipment.

I started to like computers, because I saw them at schools. The Americans had
donated us some nice shiny IBM computers and we were fighting to get access to
them after school. My mom notice my new infatuation with computers, and she
saved enough money for half a year and then bought a Russian ZX Spectrum
knock-off and a tape player.

I had asked my neighbor (who was a TV repairman) to hook the console up to our
old black and white TV. Then I learned English so I could read all the
programming manuals. My friends used to copy and pirate games. But I enjoyed
writing basic, assembly, pascal and C. If you segfaulted, you had to reaload
the compiler from tape so you waiting for 10 minutes. It was a fun but very
arduous process.

Anyway, the fact that we were poor didn't prevent me from hacking since I
remember. All it matters is to have good parents who really support and
nurture education.

(By the way mom was not allowed to go to school after her 7th grade because
she had to support her family. I think she vowed that her children will get
all the education they want no matter what).

~~~
hbd
_"My father, a good engineer with a university degree"_

Are you sure you (and those who upvoted) know what social class is? To be fair
there are many definitions, but having a university degree would be put your
father as middle class in most of them.

 _"All it matters is to have good parents who really support and nurture
education."_

And that's in most cases parents who themselves are educated, which has been
shown in countries with free education.

 _"That is simply not true."_

Just because you have a different experience doesn't mean you're the norm or
that the argument is invalid.

~~~
rdtsc
> And that's in most cases parents who themselves are educated.

Read my comment again. My mom wasn't educated past 7th grade. She knows simple
arithmetic enough to count money and pay bills. She doesn't know what an
isosceles triangle is though.

My father was educated well but he had lost his job and didn't have work for
years. We didn't have enough food to eat. But what my parents had, was a
desire for me to be educated. Not by forcing me to necessarily get good grades
but by encouraging my hobbies.

EDIT: removed an unclear sentence

> Are you sure you (and those who upvoted) know what social class is? ...
> having a university degree would be put your father as middle class in most
> of them.

What about a homeless person on the streets who has a PhD? What class are they
in? I would say they are in the "poor" class. What about not being able to buy
food or clothes? What class is that? I would say in the Western society
nowadays that would qualify as "poor". Granted there were some who didn't have
a place to live and fared a lot worse, but we were not far from it either (at
least that's how I felt and remember it). Education and social class don't
necessarily go together.

> Just because you have a different experience doesn't mean you're the norm or
> that the argument is invalid.

Of course. I think that is implied since that statement is followed by my
personal story. However I knew some kids my age that went through a similar
experience.

It seems in general these type of situations are common in countries that have
decent education but ultimately suffer an economic meltdown. So my experience
was probably more common for those who grew up in ex-Soviet union and
experienced its collapse. We ended up with a lot of educated people who,
despite their education, became very poor.

------
cheald
What a load of bollocks. My parents were dirt-poor (on an first-world scale)
growing up. I did all my early learning on an IBM PC-XT (which was given to
us). It was nearly decade-old technology by the time I started in on QBasic,
and not worth very much at all. _I_ bought _my_ first computer at age 14, with
money that I'd made over the summer gutting and renovating houses.

Sure, in a sense, I was privileged, in that my dad did everything he could to
give me a competitive advantage by introducing me to logic (I wore out his
Martin Gardner books), chess (he never pulled a punch. We played for years
before I beat him), classical literature (what extra money he had went to
books. He has a library I still envy), music (he has a degree in music, which
helps explain the lack of financial resources), and mathematics (he taught me
algebra and trig years before I ran into them in school). He inspired a thirst
for learning in me, and did everything he could to develop my ability to think
critically _because_ he didn't have financial resources. If that's a
"disgusting flaunting of privilege", then I don't know what to tell you. I'm
not going to apologize for having parents who cared about me enough to push me
to develop my ability to think. They did the same with my other siblings - two
younger sisters and a brother. None of them are programmers, despite the fact
that they grew up with more money and technology than I did.

What this article really reads like is someone with a martyr complex making
excuses for why they aren't good at whatever. Sure, there are people who are
in CS who were privileged, and given a leg up by parents who could afford
expensive technology, but it's flatly offensive to say that everyone who was
interested in computers from a young age is a spoiled child of privilege who
flaunts that privilege in others' faces.

~~~
oldgregg
Same story here. Our family was poor-- getting evicted was like a family past
time. My brother and I were salvaging 8088s and 286s when 486s/Pentiums were
selling for an unimaginable amount of $1400. We would dial into the library
with our 2400 baud modem-- I designed my geocities homepage offline and then
uploaded it using Lynx because it was the only free internet access I could
find.

------
Perceval
The article doesn't really have a point. The title is really the only thing
that the article is trying to demonstrate. "Privileged" is a code word in
feminist discourse, and is applied to virtually any and every distinction that
social beings make.

The overall thrust of the article is to shame—i.e. if you had an opportunity
that others didn't have, you should feel guilty about it. It's not clear to me
how this kind of discourse moves society forward. Everyone has different
opportunities, no one is pretending that poor people have just as easy a time
as rich people. If you have a claim to status ("I've been hacking since age
8") that's based on a pre-existing advantage, you should feel guilty for
claiming such status.

This type of discourse is not about hacking or hackers or geek culture, it's a
discourse that is deeply offended by the very existence of status or
distinctions, and has trouble believing that any source of privilege has been
earned (unless you happen to have a subaltern identity).

~~~
dgordon
Well put. To use an example that's well-known here, this is like pretending
that Bill Gates only became Bill Gates because he had rich parents and got
access to a computer at 14 years old in the late 1960s, and that his great
intelligence and willingness to work harder than most people have even
considered working at developing his ability were irrelevant or incidental.

The implication that if you're white, male, middle-class or up, etc., then
you're only where you are because of unfair advantage and should be considered
an "oppressor" is everywhere in this sort of so-called discourse. Look to the
Soviet Union or Khmer Cambodia for what this ideology, empowered and taken to
an extreme with some slightly different axioms, can lead to.

By the way, thanks for teaching me a word -- "subaltern." I was disappointed
to see that it's mostly an identity-politics buzzword, but I'm sure I'll find
a use for it.

------
pgbovine
oh wow, this article is bound to get flogged on HN ;) before the onslaught
begins, i'd like to add my own short anecdote. reading this article reminds me
of when i took my first CS course as a freshman in college over a decade ago
... i remember that there were clearly 2 groups of students (i belonged to the
latter):

\- those who, like this article describes, had hacked since a young age (sorry
for the gross generalization, but these tended to be middle or upper middle
class white males)

\- those who had maybe taken AP Computer Science in high school but otherwise
had no real programming experience (these tended to be minorities in race,
social class, and gender)

i remember that despite the best efforts of the teaching staff to 'level the
playing field', the people in the former group clearly had a much easier time
while many people in the latter group were _intimidated_ by those in the
former group (even when no ill will was intended). i dunno where i'm going
with this anecdote, but that just popped into my head :)

~~~
Unseelie
The same attitude is effaced on HN about persons in liberal arts studies. A
hacker was brilliant enough to see that the world was headed into computers,
or their parents were, and they were led down the right path.

People are bound to want to claim that people deserve what they get, it
justifies their wealth, and comforts them in the face of another's misfortune.

Anyone who had access to a computer at 8, whether their parents worked hard to
buy it, or had flows of wealth, was damn lucky, and needs to recognize that
they are damn lucky. Anyone smarter than the average has to recognize that
they're damn lucky. And if there's any posthumanists in the crowd, they should
figure its quickly in their interest to view society from a perspective where
the weak get supported: we're all of us quickly falling into the category of
the weak.

~~~
all
Lucky, yes, but not privileged. The plethora of stories listed here, to which
my own could be added, show that we were just lucky to get hold of computers
so young.

------
donaldc
Whether this is true for a given person depends on when they were 8.

For a 48-year-old, this would certainly be true. For an 18-year-old, not so
much. The march of technology has more or less solved this one particular
issue.

------
p01nd3xt3r
I am a black male. My father made 30k a year. He could never afford a computer
for me but I have been hacking since 10. A computer teacher of mine sent me to
see some friends of hers on a "Kids to go work" day and I got an internship
out of it. I was there so much (and even sleep there if they would let me)
they let me work for a computer. My point is that if your really want to do
something you will find a way to do it; that is a true hustlers mentality.

FYI: Im a beast on the basketball court too.

------
tptacek
Ugh. I sympathize with this argument but its flaws are so glaring that it's
trivially knocked down, which is a shame, because there is a class privilege
argument to be made about this field. Before you say "programming since age 8
just means you had rich parents", you have to address the fact that most kids
with rich parents don't become hackers, and that even if you're not
impoverishing yourself to support the hobby, you're still making sacrifices
(notably social) to support it.

~~~
jerf
I've had a computer for a long time, but looking back, when I was 8 I was
lower-middle to middle-middle class at best. I say "looking back" because I
didn't really realize it at the time, but in hindsight it's pretty clear. My
dad bought a Commodore 64 not because he was rolling in filthy upper-class
lucre, but because he saw the future coming and made that a priority for
himself. And it had been out for a while before I got one; I think my dad said
he bought it at $299. Which is of course still more than $299 today, but
there's a lot of people who could scrape up enough for the C=64, disk drive,
handful of floppies, and some TV somewhere (mine certainly wasn't a new TV!).

I find it hard to apologize for being lower-middle class at the age of 8-ish.
Over the years he clawed his way up to middle-middle class and I did end up
with a family computer of more value in my midteens, but, well, again, I have
a hard time apologizing for this.

(Which was actually somewhat harder to work with than the C=64, in many ways;
open source was terribly young and I had no access to the Internet for quite a
while. The BBS software percolation system wasn't necessarily the best.
Everything commercial was out of my reach, _especially_ before open source
started forcing dev environments down in price.)

There has to be _some_ point where people take responsibility for themselves,
after all; nobody forced me to actually _learn_ about it instead of just
playing games like all my friends of equal class who also had such machines.

~~~
dgabriel
Please don't miss the point: you had the opportunity, as did many of your
middle class peers, to discover your aptitude for computers at an early age.
This is not an opportunity afforded to children in low income homes. _You are
not required to apologize for this._ Please don't. Just recognize it for what
it is, and be grateful you had an early chance to discover something you love.

My 8 year-old and I are starting a side project to build Ubuntu machines out
of discarded parts for low income families in our city. One of the reasons
we're doing this is that kid out there who _might_ be a genius programmer, but
would otherwise never get the chance to hack a kernel or troll a newb on IRC.

~~~
dgordon
I agree that "recognize it for what it is and be grateful for it" is the right
reaction to having had an opportunity that a lot of people didn't have, but
it's much different from the attitude of this and similar articles.

Good luck with that project -- if you find even one kid like that or anywhere
close, you'll have done a lot of good.

~~~
dgabriel
The tone can be off-putting, but it comes from being treated like dirt by
snotty kids who think that their good fortune == inherent superiority.

------
JanezStupar
Whatever, moar feminist fascism.

I did get my first computer when I was age 8. That was back in 1991 and all I
got was nearly 10 year old ZX Spectrum. I guess I WAS privileged, but the
privilege was that my parents, although old (mother was 41 when she conceived)
and uneducated, they both only have primary schools - father is barely
literate, mother heavily dyslectic. But they have seen the future and wanted a
piece of it for their kid.

I had the lousiest clothes, the worst shoes and least friends. But I had
forward thinking parents and my own computer ever since.

I believe these "its all male conspiracy" radical feminists should spend more
time working with younger girls instead of ranting in books and teh webz.

Before you start downvoting me - know that I know what women are capable of. I
was raised by one that is a total badass and kept tearing men new ones
throughout her life (she was a truck driver back in 70's, etc.). But these
whiny girlies need to woman-up and do some work.

~~~
mattkern
Sorry, but hardly fascism. It's appalling how few people actually know what
fascist means.

~~~
tibbon
Feminist fascism doesn't have to imply everything about fascism. Its a
compound phrase. Just as 'fly fishing' has little to do with the wright
brothers. He's more talking about militant feminism (again, which has little
to do with the military). Militant Feminism seems is where women try to find
every reason in the book that white, middle class, men are the root of all
evil. It may or may not be a real thing, but that's what people are thinking
of when they say this.

------
ryanricard
One beef with the article, one with the tone of many of the upvoted replies:

As for the article, I'd argue that the strict ability to _afford_ a computer
matters much less than the _understanding_ of why a computer is useful, how to
get the most out of it, and even _that it can be programmed_ by kids.
Possessing the knowledge that computers can be programmed by kids to do fun
and useful things is, I'd argue, correlated with socioeconomic status. Passing
that knowledge onto your kids is also correlated with the gender of those
kids, it seems.

Of course, the fact that one comes from a privileged position doesn't require
an apology. Nobody is asking anyone for a heartfelt "I'm sorry" note, or a
reparations check, or whatever. One can be aware of one's position of
privilege without being ashamed of it.

I for one fondly remember the feeling of empowerment when I was able to fire
up my dad's copy of Visual Basic and create a working facsimile of Blackjack.
I was using a _real, grown up tool_ to create _real, cool stuff_ all by myself
(well, not really, but it sure felt that way). I'd love to give any kid the
chance to feel that sense of limitless power.

~~~
Tichy
I must admit I wasn't programming anything useful as a kid. I was more into
graphical effects and games.

------
nzmsv
When I was growing up, my parents wanted me to be a normal kid. This means I
was made to play outside a lot.

A couple of my friends' parents were programmers, so they had computers at
home. They could write programs in BASIC and Pascal and make them do cool
things. I wanted to do that too.

I had a notebook where I would secretly write BASIC (it was terrible code, by
the way). My school had computers, a whole 10 of them. They were 286s running
DOS. When I would get a chance, I would plead with a teacher at my school to
let me stay in the computer lab after hours and try out my code.

I got my first computer at 14. Now, it wasn't _my_ computer. I could have at
most an hour a week on it. This was a rule that was strictly enforced. So I
was still writing a lot of code on paper (usually hidden under my math
notebook).

So I was never encouraged to become a programmer, I was actively discouraged
from doing that. But somehow even without access to a computer I wanted to
code.

At a certain point my parents just gave up trying to make me a lawyer or
doctor. So there's a happy ending. Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one with
this kind of story.

------
jcapote
Bull. Shit. When I was 8 years old, I started computing, but not at all
because I was privileged. Just because someone has a computer at a young age
doesn't mean they're parents went out and bought a state of the art computer.
As an immigrant family we couldn't afford much in the way of leisure, but they
at least knew a good deal when they saw one. So, when they saw a "computer" at
the local flea market for a $100, they went for it. That means that I was
hacking BASIC in DOS on a Tandy 1000 while all my friends played flight
simulators in Windows 3.11 on their immensely more expensive/powerful 486's.

~~~
mattkern
Seriously. My parent were broke, too, and they went to some spiel on a
timeshare to get a blisterkey timex mini computer thing (this by the way is
how we got our family toaster, as well). But it spoke basic. And I started
there. With a free POS computer that was more like a calculator.

Arguments about privilege and CS degrees are apologetic and sound an awful lot
like excuse-making.

Access means a lot, but it's irresponsible to alienate entire classes with
broad-stroke generalizations. This is the same sort of crap that makes the
Left look so lame. And I can't quite get the intent behind the post. If it's
simply to increase access, then that's a noble cause. But it sure seemed more
like whining.

------
nathanielksmith
Despite being excessive at points ("disgusting flaunting of privilege") I
think the article points out a real problem. In my experience, the only way to
fill this gap is to actively--as adult programmers--"bootstrap" the computing
lives of lower class children in our communities.

For example, I volunteer with a church ministry that refurbishes old machines,
installs Ubuntu, and gives them / grants them to those who need them (we just
call it the Hardware Cooperative).

Our last machine went to a child who just turned 10. His family is low-income
and their lone computer was a decade old HP running a virus-filled XP that
rebooted every few minutes.

We gave him a speedy little box with Edubuntu on it and he was thrilled by it.
He took to it immediately and was engrossed by Tux4Kids and more.

Without our donation, it was obvious that he wasn't going to go anywhere with
computers on that XP machine. Without us "bootstrapping" the process for him,
I don't see how he ever could have developed an interest in computers, but now
I'd say there's a fairly big chance.

So yes: check your privilege if you've got it. But more proactively, look to
see how you can prevent these kinds of gaps in the future.

~~~
jafran
This is totally awesome.

It draws a real contrast between programmers and the article's author(s).
Academic style discourse never attempts to propose any solutions or valorize
any sort of action whatsoever. Instead, the point is mainly to grandstand and
to call out everyone. Those of higher socio-economic standing are always at
fault, those of lower are always blameless/helpless/or otherwise without
agency.

~~~
dgabriel
I agree that the project is awesome, but without those who criticize and
analyze, no thought gets put into how to make the world better.

Note: there is no "fault." There are built-in injustices in society that are
not due to some inherent evil lurking in the hearts of wealthy white men. By
the same token, people who are poor or lack certain privileges are not stupid,
bad, or inherently lesser humans because they do not possess the same
knowledge and skill set as someone who has/had more advantages growing up.

------
drv
It is unclear to me what argument this article is trying to make - the
headline makes me think it is about getting early access to computers due to
rich parents, and it partly is, but then it dives off on a tangent about
gender. (Disclaimer: I fit the stereotype of the title exactly, as I am a male
who started programming when I was roughly 10 on a computer bought by my
parents.)

This is only personal experience, but my family had a computer when I was
young (8 or 9, and my siblings are a couple years younger). This was a family
computer, not mine personally, and my brother and sister were both exposed to
it as well, with equal opportunity to experiment and learn, but neither of
them developed an interest in programming or computer technology like I did.
There was no gender bias when computer access was given - we all used it on a
regular basis. Maybe this is untrue for other families, but my sister had just
as much opportunity to uncover computer science aspirations at roughly the
same age as me.

I certainly agree with the idea that "class" (or at least parents' foresight
in buying computers) influenced my ability to get involved with computers
early, but I didn't observe any gender bias in this early exposure. Surely
this is becoming even more true with the proliferation of computers in
everyday life - if you can use Facebook, you have enough access to learn much
more about computers. The only impediment is your curiosity about the topic.
Perhaps there are other gender-related factors that determine whether one is
likely to be a self-motivated proto-hacker, but computer access doesn't seem
to be one of them.

------
mian2zi3
I don't buy it. I grew up on a subsistence farm and we were, I think, living
well below the poverty line. I started programming when I was 8, on a Timex
Sinclair 1000, which my brother and I saved up to buy. We learned by trial and
error and a ZX81 assembly book that came from the library. I picked
raspberries one summer (among other things) to buy a C64.

> Me and some of my black friends were talking about the other guys in CS.
> Some of them have been programming since they were eight. We can’t compete
> with that.

That's an unfortunate attitude and just not true. This reminds me of a thread
(on mathoverflow I think, but I can't find it) where the general consensus was
working hard throughout grad school (in math) was the great equalizer, and
mattered more than how much background you came in with. The same is true for
undergrad and CS.

Moreover, it isn't a competition. Someone else being an amazing hacker doesn't
detract from what you know. In fact, having such people around can teach and
inspire. I'd much rather be a small fish in a big pond (as I am.)

~~~
all
"working hard throughout grad school (in math) was the great equalizer"

The trouble is that so many people don't do that. But also there is only so
much that effort can overcome. I have been coding for nigh on 30 years, having
started with a hand-me-down Trash 80, Model I, Level 1. I have worked in all
kinds of environments and hired coders who fell variously into both camps.
Almost without fail, the coders who have been coding since they were kids do
better. It is almost like breathing for them. I don't know how to explain it,
but they have almost a Zen-like relationship with the machine that no degree
or amount of compressed effort will match. I would like it to be so, but it
just isn't the case in my experience.

------
mattlanger
Interesting how many of the comments in this thread take the form of "This
article is bullshit! I started coding when I was eight because I got my first
computer by way of [something other than privilege or affluence]."

Because if you've been coding since you were eight then you should probably
know by now the difference between anecdotes and data.

[Full disclosure: I did my first hacking with BASIC and Rexx at around seven
or eight because my parents were wealthy enough to afford an Amiga 500--but
this experience would never inspire me to write an article claiming that
_everyone_ who started coding at a young age must have come from similar
socioeconomic conditions.]

~~~
abstractbill
_Because if you've been coding since you were eight then you should probably
know by now the difference between anecdotes and data._

And if you've been coding since eight, you should also know that it takes only
_one_ counterexample to disprove a claim that X always implies Y.

------
colkassad
When I was eleven my father -- a painter who worked fourteen hour days --
bought me an Atari 400 because it was the one thing I wanted most in the world
at the time. We were not privileged...my father just recognized a desire and
talent in me that he wanted to help foster. I love you, Dad.

------
scott_s
I'm not sure where I fit in this discussion. I was comfortably middle class
growing up. But I didn't have a computer until I was a sophomore in high
school. And while I thought it was cool and I spent time on it, I didn't do
any actual programming until I took a course my senior year of high school.

In my freshmen year of college, as a CS major, there were plenty of students
who had been programming much, much longer than me. In theory, I was at a
disadvantage because just about everything was new to me. But, in practice,
everything evened out by about junior year. Yes, the students who started
programming well before college were at an advantage for the first few
programming intensive courses. But very quickly, a CS curriculum goes into
material most people don't teach themselves.

------
mcs
I'm going to be that guy, but I disagree with that as well. I lived in a very
poor area in Southeast Texas and built my first computer (literally) from junk
parts I found in ditches. I had a little help but it was pretty easy to figure
out since everything had notches to make sure everything goes in the right
place.

I was 8, coincidence here.

With a pirated Windows 98se from my mom's boyfriend at the time, it worked out
alright. I tied up my mom's phone line with netzero, and that's when I started
my adventure into the web.

Edit: For clarification, I had built a 233mhz machine with 32mB of ram. I put
98se on it because I hadn't learned of linux yet, and it probably would have
been too much for me at that time anyway. Ubuntu didn't exist.

Around age 10 we finally got DSL, and by that time I had gathered up enough
money to build a "real" machine, with an Athlon XP. Again, with all pirated
software.

Software piracy enables more to younger poor people than your parents being
wealthy in my opinion. Not saying it's right, but it sure allowed me to do
things I otherwise wouldn't have been able to do.

That article is more relevant for people that grew up in the 80s, when
hardware was less available than it is today. I started my adventure in the
2000s.

I'm 18 now, work for a startup, and I have quite a little nestegg from social
marketing apps I've built in the last few years. Nothing my family did really
had any effect on my interest in computers.

------
ido
20 year olds today were 8 in 1998.

In pretty much all of the western world, by the 1990s (and even mid/late 80s)
owning a computer was within the reach of all but the retched poor.

My parents bought a PC XT clone in 1987 and they were at best middle-class.

------
terra_t
Bull.

My parents were working class slobs, but they bought me a computer at the age
of 10. It was a TRS-80 Color Computer which was the cheapest thing you could
get at that time. It was just about the only thing they spent money on for me.
I got no piano lessons, no braces, no model rockets, nothing -- except a Dad
who wouldn't take a foreman position when he was offered one, a Mom who taught
me to "stay in a dead end job you hate no matter what"... Hell, the
schoolteacher and carpenter next door wouldn't talk to me family since they
thought my parents were just a bunch of scabs...

------
Tichy
Honestly, I don't think those computers were that expensive. My first Computer
was not even a C64, it was a ZX Spectrum. Not sure how much it cost - but if
that was too much, you could get "build your own" kits for ZX 81, I think they
were << 100$ (maybe 50$)?

Without a doubt, there were a lot of people in the world who couldn't afford
it. But in the western world, I suspect not that many. The privilege is more
having parents who are understanding and caring enough to make the investment.

Granted, you also needed a TV... How common were TVs back then? I am pretty
sure a TV was way more expensive than a ZX Spectrum.

While for the C64 you needed an extra storage medium, the Spectrum could save
to and load from normal tape recorders.

Edit: this link says the initial price was 125GBP
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Research> Unfortunately I still don't
know how much that was in $ or DM.

~~~
mian2zi3
I remember mine (1981-2) being $100, but that was a long time ago. We hooked
it to a junky old black and white TV somebody had thrown out. I think TVs were
pretty ubiquitous by then.

~~~
mian2zi3
And (TVs) certainly not a sign of privilege.

------
joshfraser
guilty as charged.

i attribute a lot of my success and my love of computers to my dad buying me
an apple 2E and a programming book when i was 10. now hardly a day goes by
when i don't think how lucky i am to be doing something i love. so yes, i was
privileged and for that i am incredibly grateful.

------
ganley
Wrong, unless "privileged" means "not in abject poverty." We were distinctly
lower-middle-class. I bought my first computer myself with my lifetime-
accumulated birthday/lawnmowing/snowshoveling money.

------
benharrison
My Dad purchased his first computer when I was 10. I learned a tremendous
amount from my experiences with it, and for that I've always considered myself
fortunate. My parents didn't have a lot of money, but they were able to afford
a computer and they loved me enough to encourage my interests in it. So in
that regard I definitely feel privileged.

Growing up I knew of a few kids who were just as interested in computers but
weren't as lucky. They had all the potential in the world, but lacked the same
opportunities I had. I was always aware of my "privilege", so I've felt it
important over the years to help out in community computer labs and to help
deserving kids by giving them older computers when I would get my hands on
them.

But that said, I've also known plenty of 'privileged' kids with access to
technology at their disposal but had no interest, or took no initiative to
learn advanced concepts. For instance, my brothers didn't have the same
interest in computers as I did. They were into other things, even though they
had just as much access to our parent's computers as me.

I believe the most important factors for developing strong skills in computers
(or anything else for that matter) is desire, effort, and dedication. These
things don't have a price tag, and are not limited to certain groups of
individuals.

------
mgenzel
Ok, I'll add my anecdote too. Hacking != Having a personal computer. I started
programming on my 3rd grade (required-to-have) programmable calculator (that
had 10 steps & comparison to 0 only). Then, my father showed me Pascal on his
computer at work (and programmers in the 1980s Soviet Union did not upper
middle class make; plumbers made more), and I started programming on paper,
and bringing in my paper programs to my father's work to "check". Then, the
school I went to was a special math school (merit, not privilege) and they got
computers (the only school computers in our city then) in my 4th grade. When
we came to the United States, we were on welfare, so, no personal computer
till I was in college. And yet, the schools had computers, you know. Granted,
old macs, but computers.

The reason the "anecdote" is relevant is that the article doesn't state any
probabilities or historical context here, it's just "If A, then B". There were
plenty of periods in America when that couldn't have been true even for most
people. E.g., in 1970s, if you were hacking, it didn't mean privilege, just
luck in having access somehow. If you're learning to hack _now_ as a child...
Come on, pretty much anyone can get access to some type of device now, even if
it's just in the library.

------
solson
Most geeks I know were the BOTTOM of the social class in school and in
society, partially because they started programming at 8 or before. Like me
they were borderline aspies who were more interested in things than people.
The type of person that gets completely obsessed with computers and gaming at
a young age tends to be a dorky white guy (but not always). It's just the
cards falling where they fall and has nothing do with sexism, racism, or bias.
From my life observations, if there is a social bias in society, especially at
school age, it is AGAINST kids who program at 8.

That entire post reeks of victimhood. The comments concern me even more, with
the constant haranguing about racism, sexism, bias, etc. The entire premise of
the piece seems elitist, snooty, and spiteful.

There aren't too many white guys in CS and there aren't too many black guys in
the NBA and there aren't too many female kindergarten teachers. It doesn't
need fixing. Knock it off with the social engineering and let us be who we
are, without being lumped in with another -ism that must be corrected by a
central planner.

------
Tichy
Those feminist brains are so warped: "There is a subset of boys and men who
burn with a passion for computers and computing. Through the intensity of
their interest, they both mark the field as male and enshrine in its culture
their preference for single-minded intensity and focus on technology."

I am supposed to feel guilty for what? Being intensely interested? Because
that is something girls can't do?

------
abstractbill
No, it doesn't.

I bought my first computer in the 80s, when I was 9 years old, for 10 UK
pounds that I had saved from delivering papers. My family was quite poor, and
my parents never would have bought me a computer. My ZX81 was considered old
and crappy when I bought it, but I taught myself to program using it.

------
tibbon
I am white, grew up middle classed, able-bodied, raised christian, in the US,
had two parents, and I am a man. What am I supposed to do?

Should I feel guilty? Should I make all efforts to use affirmative action to
always hire women/minorities over men? Should I no longer meet with like-
minded people and talk about our experiences in computing? Should I quit my
job and go into teaching social studies in public school instead?

The article makes a few interesting points, but I am not convinced of the
correlation and they are grasping at air. Plenty of us weren't rich kids, and
not all rich kids went into technology. Not everyone with a computer at home
went into technology either! My younger sister has had a computer available
for a longer percentage of her life than me, and isn't in technology either.

------
wvenable
I got my first computer (a Commodore 64) when I was around 8 -- my entire
family chipped in and it was pretty much the only Christmas present I got that
year.

My school had a few Commodore 64s and we got to have one in our class room for
a few months. I was instantly interested in computers and read all the
computer books we had in the school library. My grade 3 teacher was the one
that recommended to my parents that they get me a computer.

If anything in that article is actually true, I think it's ancient history
now. Computers are quite literally everywhere now; even those 10 years younger
than me were better off. The point about girls and computers is definitely out
of date; I have a 13 year old daughter and her and all her friends have
_constant_ access to computers.

------
starkfist
The class privilege in hackerland is when Youtube gets bought for a billion
dollars because one of the founders is getting married to the daughter of SV
royalty, not that your parents could afford a $600 computer in 1985.

~~~
quadhome
Because?

Presuming you're referring to Chad Hurley, you think that Google bought
YouTube _because_ he married Jim Clark's daughter?

Jim Clark, who as far as I can tell, didn't invest in Google, doesn't work for
them, and isn't on their board.

~~~
starkfist
Jim Clark got them the investment from Sequoia. Google would have bought them,
but the reason they bought them for a billion dollars instead of a hundred
million is because of the intertwined social aspect of all the people at
Google and Sequoia involved with the deal.

~~~
quadhome
Both firms were funded by and had close ties with Sequoia.

And that's why Google bought YouTube for more than they were worth?

~~~
starkfist
No.

~~~
quadhome
I don't understand then. :-(

Thanks for your time and responses.

------
zandorg
First, I skimmed the article and it doesn't surprise me to hear feminist
rhetoric like this.

My parents are only middle-class and got a Sharp MZ-700 in 1985, when I was 7.
It had MS-BASIC (loaded from tape!) but had no decent games. Then, I got a C64
from an aunt and uncle in 1987, and it was great. A disk drive and freezer
cartridge in 1988 and I learned 6502 programming.

So I was hacking since 8, but not especially privileged. Some of my friends
had computers too, but they never learned to program. I did.

[EDIT] My parents weren't scientists, University educators or or computer
scientists as in a lot of Silicon Valley cases.

------
wccrawford
I got into programming in 4th grade.

I had a sinclair 1000 when I was a kid. <http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html>
Yes, $100. NOT a rich family's computer.

Eventually, I got a Commodore 16. $100 also.

Then, when that died and I was crazy about it, I got a Commodore 64. $600.
Well, -I- didn't get it. The family did. I had to share with my sister and
mother. (Dad didn't care.)

Eventually I got my first IBM-compatible. Again, shared. It was about $2500,
if I remember correctly. This was about 10 years after the first computer our
house had, I think.

I didn't have other hobbies. There were no expensive lessons or instruments to
buy for me. Video games? Atari 2600, then 7800 that were bought used and dirt-
cheap.

No, you don't -need- to have a wealthy family to get into programming early.

------
Psyonic
This is true for almost everything. In poor households, the children are
generally required to perform more work to help support the household. For
example, the cleaning lady at my work brings her son with her to help... can't
be more than 14. Even if he had a computer, thats 2-3 hours everyday that he
can't be using it, or practicing basketball, or whatever else he might succeed
in. Poor parents also can't pay for coaching, etc.

This article boils down to: privileged people are privileged. True, by
definition, but also meaningless.

------
dsspence
I had early access to computers but never programmed or hacked (besides
changing resource files in Mac OS) until taking a formal Pascal class in high
school. I remember committing my first crime of copyright infringement, giving
the elementary school our copy of Mario Teaches Typing to install in the lab.

As someone who liked computers but didn't start programming until later, I
would argue if you started hacking at age 8 you are just a geek (me too),
nothing more, nothing less.

------
Qz
I was hacking since before I was 8, and my family wasn't well off back then
(although my dad's computer skills did get us to that point many years later).
Of course, that young hacking still hasn't gotten me anywhere special yet at
the age of 27.

If you read the article though, it's more directly addressing the issue that
computing as a male geeky hobby at a young age has shaped and defined the
current computing culture, and that is undeniably true.

Changing, yes, but not changed enough, yet.

------
phoenixsol
I wouldn't say privileged, but certainly lucky. My father worked very hard on
the railroad for his money. He wasn't 'privileged' himself, either; he came
from a poor family and rose to the middle class by working like a dog.

Also, I knew some 'very poor' kids who had these machines. Funny, I don't
remember them being expensive (but what did I know; I was 8 ;) Maybe they
were; I'm too lazy to research it.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
He was "privileged", it's just that the term has a particular meaning when
used here that is different from "rich" or "wealthy" which you and it seems
every other poster in the thread so far has missed.

There's a fairly comprehensive introduction to it here:

[http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-
what-...](http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-
privilege/)

 _"Since social status is conferred in many different ways — everything from
race to geography to class — all people are both privileged and non-privileged
in certain aspects of their life. Furthermore, since dynamics of social status
are highly dependent on situation, a person can benefit from privilege in one
situation while not benefiting from it in another. It is also possible to have
a situation in which a person simultaneously is the beneficiary of privilege
while also being the recipient of discrimination in an area which they do not
benefit from privilege.

Male privilege is a set of privileges that are given to men as a class due to
their institutional power in relation to women as a class. While every man
experiences privilege differently due to his own individual position in the
social hierarchy, every man, by virtue of being read as male by society,
benefits from male privilege."_

That's just male privilege, you get others from class, sexuality, religion,
health etc.

------
potatofish
Class is a false concept created by those who want to keep people stuck in one
station in life. Especially those who bemoan those who had some privilege. I
wouldn't waste my time arguing with the people who buy into the premise of
this article, because they are ideologues who will stop at nothing in their
quest to make everyone equally miserable. Pass.

------
mathgladiator
What in the sam hell is the point of this article?

In a nut shell: Life isn't fair, you need to learn to deal with it and stop
bitching. The sooner you stop bitching, the sooner you can make strides to
provide a better life for your children so they can be well off so some future
naive little girl can call them privileged.

------
blahblahblah
Extending this ridiculous logic to its absurd extreme, clearly we must
conclude that Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Hendrix came from socioeconomically
privileged families because they managed to get access to expensive musical
instruments when they were kids.

------
acgourley
It depends how old you are now.

------
viggity
Screw you lady. I'm tired of you and your "social justice" cabal that try to
make me feel guilty about EVERYTHING. I started programming in high school and
I've worked my fucking ass off getting to where I am.

Your article does nobody any fucking good. All it does is try to make certain
people feel guilty about their success and gives everyone else an excuse to
not work hard because "well, the cards are just stacked against you". Fuck
you. You rob people of motivation.

~~~
dgabriel
I think you've misread the article. You have worked hard, which is great.
Other people have also worked hard, but they started later and had fewer
opportunities in this field. Does this mean you should feel guilty? No. It
means that you should try to treat everyone with respect, not just the lucky
ones who had the right kind of access to the right kind of tools as children.
It means sneering at that person in class who doesn't know what a for-loop is
is unhelpful and jerky. If you don't behave that way, you have nothing to be
ashamed of.

------
adamgravitis
Wholeheartedly disagree.

As evidence, the author mentions the late average age that the underprivileged
"received" their first computer. As I recall, one Bill Gates began hacking at
an early age, not because his privileged family showered him with cutting-edge
technology, but because he bent a few rules to gain better access to a
terminal through school.

Let's not confuse resourcefulness with privilege.

~~~
pgbovine
_but because he bent a few rules to gain better access to a terminal through
school._

iirc, gates went to a pretty well-off private school that actually HAD
computers. i doubt that most people attending public schools in the 60's could
even find a computer anywhere nearby. this is documented in Gladwell's
_Outliers_ (ducks!)

~~~
mcgraw
Yeah, that definitely helps. I wasn't rocking a computer at home until 15 and
I'm incredibly thankful I was able to get that when I did. My public schools
in the middle of KS wasn't doing anything with computers when I was 8 and I
didn't know anyone who talked about them.

------
theprodigy
my parents were middle class, but when I first got a computer my parents were
lower middle class and my dad just got his first engineering job.

I think it is either social class or your parents worked in tech and wanted
you to learn about it.

------
tkahn6
Computer penetration in the US in 2001 was 61% and for the most part, those
who didn't have a computer felt that they didn't need one[1].

Most incoming undergrads were 8 in 2000 so I would assert that this argument
has no basis going forward.

[1
[http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/03/18/da...](http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/03/18/daily2.html)
]

~~~
knowtheory
how do you figure?

I presume that they weren't interviewing school children for the survey. You
can hardly say that, because 39% adults thought that a computer was
unnecessary, deciding (rightly or wrongly) to not get a PC wouldn't
disadvantage their potential hacker children, when compared to hacker children
who did have parents who jobs required them to have computers.

~~~
tkahn6
The article argues that most hackers are hackers because their parents were
wealthy. At some point you must accept that this argument is no longer applies
for some generation of hackers and those that follow it. I submit that 10
years ago, economics no longer played a role in whether some one could afford
a computer.

Your point could apply to any generation of hackers because it's analogous to
"what if some parents didn't let their children use a computer until they were
12?" or "what if some parents didn't allow their children to install a python
interpreter?"

Also, you should consider that in 2000 nearly all school children had access
to school computers.

~~~
kd0amg
_At some point you must accept that this argument is no longer applies for
some generation of hackers and those that follow it._

Of course, but it looks to me like most of those working in the industry are
still a fair bit older than I am (and it's been a few years since I was an
incoming undergrad).

