Life lessons & guidelines: A hacker’s perspective

This March I participated in a seminar around the question “Whose Change is it Anyway?” at The Hague organized by Hivos and my friend Nishant Shah. The methodology was very experimental. I joined the experiments by doing a “One question interview” to each of the participants asking them for guidelines they use in their life – with a focus on what they did learn from the hackers ethics (as most of us were hackers), but not only. Here is the list of life lessons I collected. Hope you enjoy it! Mayo

Life lessons – Shared by Whose change group. The Hague March 2013.

* Break the non-sense locks
Break the rules/walls if they are stopping your from doing a good thing for many without harnessing none. An advise from a hacker.

* If you know how to, just fix it!
Those fixing things must not be punished, even if doing it in a not conventional manner or a manner that question authority. An advise from a hacker.

* Do not propose, but do!

* Fail cheap

* Be brave to be different

* There is not try, do or not do.
Do things hard.

* With great powers, come great responsibility.
Do not use your capacities and qualities only to yourself, but act with collective responsibility.

* Here & now

* To taste an idea, say it load.
Even if you say it to your self, vocalizing things will help you to see the idea with certain perspective.

* Forgot about the box and get thinking
This is a critique to the idea of “thinking outside the box”, the point is that there is not box.

* Get close to the place where you want to be and create the opportunity to get in.

* Act with serendipity. Do things without clear porpuse, they might end up on great connexions.

* Learns from the lessons of what previous people did in the same situation.

* Share to keep learning.

* Many eyes make all bugs shallow

* Keep progress

* Anger makes you engage, love makes you go further.

* Live each day as if it would be be your last.

* Be open and smille

* Find new language to represent reality all the time.
Do not try to keep to existing forms just becouse they worked at some point, they might not be the ones adapted to the new context.

* Never read people as things.

* Thinks twice.

* Think before you speak.

* Eat your dog food.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
(Hackers principle).

* Use free software, even for more reasons if you engage on digital politics issues.