Scan barcode
esmguerr's review against another edition
3.0
3,5
not rly a topic i am extremely interested but overall enjoyed. never thought the hacker manifesto would reference the communist manifesto but I enjoyed the overall doctorine
anyways id like to give a big shout out to these quick required readings for school getting me though my 2023 reading challenge
not rly a topic i am extremely interested but overall enjoyed. never thought the hacker manifesto would reference the communist manifesto but I enjoyed the overall doctorine
anyways id like to give a big shout out to these quick required readings for school getting me though my 2023 reading challenge
drbjjcarpenter's review against another edition
1.0
Would that Goodreads let me give a text 0-stars.
This is the third text by Wark I have encountered. It is the third of her texts that I have found disappointing and a waste of time. I shall not read a fourth.
The notion of the hack is far too overgeneralised. It seems to do an incredible amount of work as it is her fitting inheritor to Marx's proletariat. And yet - who that hacker is, what their activity consists in, is presented not in a formulaic way but instead over 170ish pages of empty platitudes that go nowhere. As a manifesto, this text is a resounding failure of its genre. It encourages no action, no praxis, it delights in obfuscating the world rather than explaining it.
The text is replete with contradictions - but these are never productive contradictions, they seem more like oversights that Wark has failed to properly theorise.
This text makes no contribution. Better to read the original Marx rather than waste your time with this aggravating mistranslation.
Self-indulgent pseudo-mysticism of the highest order. Wark shall not be forgiven for wasting so much time.
Pure wank.
This is the third text by Wark I have encountered. It is the third of her texts that I have found disappointing and a waste of time. I shall not read a fourth.
The notion of the hack is far too overgeneralised. It seems to do an incredible amount of work as it is her fitting inheritor to Marx's proletariat. And yet - who that hacker is, what their activity consists in, is presented not in a formulaic way but instead over 170ish pages of empty platitudes that go nowhere. As a manifesto, this text is a resounding failure of its genre. It encourages no action, no praxis, it delights in obfuscating the world rather than explaining it.
The text is replete with contradictions - but these are never productive contradictions, they seem more like oversights that Wark has failed to properly theorise.
This text makes no contribution. Better to read the original Marx rather than waste your time with this aggravating mistranslation.
Self-indulgent pseudo-mysticism of the highest order. Wark shall not be forgiven for wasting so much time.
Pure wank.
levi_masuli's review against another edition
2.0
Needs to rereads this if time permits, but will rate anyway: Hacker Manifesto suggests an update of the Marxist theory of class by adding two classes, the vectoralist class and the hacker class. While Wark displays a deep understanding of the philosophical foundations of Marxist ideas, there are problems with his use of the concepts of Marxist economics. For instance, the act of 'hacking', although one of the most important concepts in the manifesto, was simply defined as “to produce or apply the abstract to information and express the possibility of new worlds.” In fact, majority of the arguments tend towards abstraction, perhaps as a way to put together its theme of the increasing abstraction of history and historical processes. Wark has always made it a point to analogize the struggle between the vectoralist class and the hacker class to the 'çlassic' class contradictions between landlord vs peasant, capitalist vs worker, etc., framed within the abstract realm of information and ‘vectors of information.
My biggest problem with the book perhaps lies uncritical prioritization of the contradiction between the vectoralists and the hackers. Is the struggle for the vectors really the primary contradiction today? Where does the material basis of these vectors lie within this ‘abstract’ framework? How can the hacker possibly transform society through “an explosion of abstract innovations”, which Wark claims, would create “a society finally set free from necessity?” What is the material basis, the precise historical crisis which pits the vectoralists against the hackers? Is it proper to treat both of them as classes, given that the so-called vectoralists are often the multinational corporations and even state agencies who have exploited that potential of information to be commoditized, while the hackers and hacking are just historical implications of the creation of a digital dimensions, by no means independent from actual material property which actualizes it.
I sense in The Hacker Manifesto the same hype in virtuality made by Baudrillard’s work, along with the same theoretical blind spots. Nonetheless, it is necessary to address its significance in formulating the conflict for the autonomy of information from the increasingly tightening constraints of commodifying forces, using information for profit, surveillance, and pacification of any utopian vision of information.
My biggest problem with the book perhaps lies uncritical prioritization of the contradiction between the vectoralists and the hackers. Is the struggle for the vectors really the primary contradiction today? Where does the material basis of these vectors lie within this ‘abstract’ framework? How can the hacker possibly transform society through “an explosion of abstract innovations”, which Wark claims, would create “a society finally set free from necessity?” What is the material basis, the precise historical crisis which pits the vectoralists against the hackers? Is it proper to treat both of them as classes, given that the so-called vectoralists are often the multinational corporations and even state agencies who have exploited that potential of information to be commoditized, while the hackers and hacking are just historical implications of the creation of a digital dimensions, by no means independent from actual material property which actualizes it.
I sense in The Hacker Manifesto the same hype in virtuality made by Baudrillard’s work, along with the same theoretical blind spots. Nonetheless, it is necessary to address its significance in formulating the conflict for the autonomy of information from the increasingly tightening constraints of commodifying forces, using information for profit, surveillance, and pacification of any utopian vision of information.
ahmetasabanci's review
5.0
One of the very important books about hacker culture and movement. If you really want to go deeper about "hacking" you should read this first.
More...