Hacking Capitalism: Modeling, Humans, Computers, and Money.

by Kris Nóva

The term exploitation often has a dark and malicious connotation. Despite this connotation, I’ll at times attempt to brighten and romanticize the term. I put forward that exploitation is fundamental for the tech industry to function. I’ll use the term in its most literal sense, and at times exploitation will be one of my deliberate goals.

“This is business” seems to be their way of rationalizing their immoral behavior.

In the same way that aiki a form of Japanese martial arts is the practice of redirecting an opponent’s power against themselves, this book will enable you to lead and influence the power of the tech industry back on itself.[

Behavioral Components

Competition Collaboration

Psychological Components

Building Breaking

Technical Components

Simplicity Complexity

Relationships

Direct relationships

one component of a system increases in response to another component increasing

Inverse Relationships

one component increases, the other decreases.

Opposite and Opposed

the same inverse relationship mentioned above, but it’s now cast differently.

Direct Relationship More of This More of That Inverse Relationship More of This Less of That Opposite Relationship Less of This More of That Opposed Relationship More of This More of non-that

Linking Systems

Resources

Resources can be anything including human being or build pipelines. The tech industry will typically interact with resources related to people or money.

In the same way that many engines consumes gas as a resource, the machine of the tech industry consumes workers as a resource.

Antisystems

We first understand a system, then we understand it’s opposing and necessary partner to be it’s antisystem. These two systems exist in a mutual dichotomy, yet are necessary for either to exist.

Without chaos, there would be no order. Without a system, there would be no antisystem.

Hacking

Hackers don’t wait for doors to open. They find them and open them. Hackers ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Hackers are creative and resourceful.

Attention to Detail

The tech industry exists as a subsystem inside a broader capitalistic economy. Because the tech industry exists within capitalism, the tech industry is anchored to the nature of capitalism. Thus, profit will always serve as the one and only goal of the system.

As a worker you will need to be weary of being over exploited. Each day that you’re working in tech you’re susceptible to being either directly exploited or exploited by proxy.

Capitalism and Free Enterprise

All corporations in the United States, other than corporations that are structured as worker cooperatives[4] and the like, are controlled by private owners. These private owners control the means of production.

hackingcapitalism.io

In situations where kindness, empathy, patience, and support can be weaponized I often remind people that the tech industry is not their family. Having a reasonable boundary, and a sense of self-respect can be important in preventing weaponized collaboration from damaging your morale.

The tendency of the system is to veer toward total efficiency by exchanging human resources and technology for profit. Ethics prevent perfect profit-making efficiency in the eye of capitalism. Ethics is the primary combative force to total profit-motivated extortion.

There’s no guarantee that ethical subsystems will be present to protect you under capitalism. Trusting that these subsystems will be there is risky.

You need to be prepared for unethical behavior because capitalism’s tendency is to conflict with ethics.

There’s no incentive under capitalism for corporations to work ethically, other than the constraints of law, one’s own moral code, and the consequences of one’s actions. Offering the emotional labor and fighting for the ideal code ethics to match the real code of ethics can be emotionally rewarding, but I think you’re better off prioritizing your self-interest. Emotional labor of this sort pays no dividends in cash.

there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud.[20] ~ Capitalism and Freedom Milton Friedman

In many cases, company loyalty is a blatant scam, and it can

What this means to you in the tech industry is that in any situation where ethics and profit are in contention, the safe bet is to assume that profit will win.

Despite what any large tech corporation might say, their employees' code probably isn’t intended for anything more than generating profit. So as a technologist, your ability to write code and build products that can help generate revenue will affect your compensation.

In capitalism, there’s little opportunity for work to be anything more than extortion. You’re worth more than your compensation.

So it’s in your best interest to assume that all debt under capitalism that knowingly enriches its lenders is immoral.

The product team will deprioritize the security team’s concerns in the name of turning a profit. Their negligence will cause expensive security breaches in the future. These breaches are fostered by rushing new products to market, and the madness cycle begins again.

Where there’s crisis, there’s deviation. Where there’s deviation, there’s opportunity. The engineer has now discovered a repeatable way to gain access to production.

Malice is often associated with hacking and hackers. This is because hacking typically involves deliberate breaking, and breaking can often be malicious. And if you were to immediately associate breaking with malice, you might lose sight of many of breaking’s positive attributes.

Amid the debris there’s likely to be plenty of scared, hurt, or angry engineers who feel deceived by the company. By collaborating with them, you may be able to gain influence within the organization. With this influence comes authority and—ultimately—valuable career experience. Which creates the potential for a promotion or a raise.

In my opinion, building and breaking are a zero-sum relationship in organizations. Understanding how breaking happens can improve your relationship with it.

Unfortunately, some capitalist theories put forward the idea that profit-driven companies have no obligations to society. Which means that companies don’t think that they have any ethical obligations to cooperative software models. So it’s completely legal and relatively common for companies to exploit the hard work of open-source efforts. Many believe, including me, that exploiting open-source projects without returning an equal amount of work toward the greater good of the project is morally unacceptable.

Funding open-source projects will inevitably be a problem as long as capitalism continues subscribing to the belief that companies have no obligations to society.