[ [home] ](/) # Breaking The Spell 打破魔咒 Translated from [Phrack Issue 71](https://phrack.org/issues/71/1). --- It can feel like the world is in a dreamlike state; a hype-driven delirium, fueled by venture capital and the promises of untold riches and influence. Everyone seems to be rushing to implement the latest thing, hoping to find a magic bullet to solve problems they may not have, or even understand. While hype has always been a thing, in the past few years (2020-2024), we have witnessed several large pushes to integrate untested, underdeveloped, and unsustainable technology into systems that were already Going Through It. Once the charm wears off, and all the problems did not just magically disappear, they drop these ideas and move on to the next, at the cost of everyone else. Many of these New & Exciting ideas involve introducing increasingly opaque abstraction layers. They promise to push us towards The Future, yet only bring us further from understanding our own abilities and needs. It's easy to sell ideas like these. What isn't easy, is creating something both practical and sustainable. If we want to make the world more sustainable, we need to understand the inputs, outputs, dependencies, constraints, and implementation details of the systems we rely on. Whenever we make it more difficult to know something, we inch closer to an information dark age. After the past several decades of humanity putting all of its collective knowledge online, we are seeing more ways to prevent us from accessing it. Not only is good information harder to find, bad information is drowning it out. There are increasing incentives to gatekeep and collect rent on important resources, and to disseminate junk that is useless at best, and harmful at worst. In all of this chaos, the real threat is the loss of useful, verified, and trusted information, for the sake of monetizing the opposite. Fortunately, there are still hackers. For every smokescreen that clouds our vision, hackers help to clear the air. For every new garden wall erected, hackers forge a path around it. For every lock placed on our own ideas and cultural artifacts, hackers craft durable picks to unshackle them. Hackers try to understand what lies beyond their perspective. Hackers focus on what is real, and what is here. We can move forward through this bullshit. We can work together to maintain good information, and amplify the voices of those who are creating and curating it. We can learn how things actually work, share the details, and use these mechanisms to do some good. We can devise new methods of communication and collaboration, and work both within and between our communities to jam the trash compactor currently trying to crush us to death. Hacking is both a coping mechanism and a survival skill. It represents the pinnacle of our abilities as humans to figure out how to use whatever tools we may have, in whatever way we can, to do what we need to do. Hacking is a great equalizer, a common dialect, a spirit that exists within all of us. It has the power to shape the world into one we want to live in. The hacker spirit breaks any spell. --- 這個世界彷彿處於一種夢幻般的狀態；被創投資金和無限財富與影響力的承諾所推動的瘋狂狂熱。 所有人似乎都在匆忙導入最新的技術，希望能找到神奇的靈丹妙藥來解決他們可能並不存在，甚至不懂的問題。 雖然炒作行銷一直都存在，但在過去幾年（2020-2024），我們目睹了幾波大規模的推動，試圖將未經測試、尚未成熟且不可持續的技術整合到本就已經一團混亂的系統中。一旦魔力消退，問題並沒有神奇地消失，他們就拋下這些想法，轉向下一個，而由其他所有人承擔後果。 許多這些「新奇且令人興奮」的想法涉及引入越來越不透明的抽象層。它們承諾將我們推向「未來」，卻只是讓我們越來越遠離理解自己的能力和需求。行銷這類想法很容易。真正困難的是創造既實用又可持續的東西。如果我們想讓世界更永續，我們需要了解我們所依賴系統的輸入、輸出、依賴關係、限制和實作細節。每當我們使某些事情變得更難以理解，我們就離資訊黑暗時代更近一步。 在過去幾十年，人類將所有集體知識放到網上之後，我們看到了資訊流通的障礙：好的資訊更難找到，糟糕的資訊淹沒整個網路。我們集體封閉重要資訊並收取租金，或是散播無用甚至有害的垃圾資訊。在這片混亂中，經過驗證的、值得信任的有用資訊被犧牲，相反的垃圾被轉為財富。 幸運的是，駭客仍然存在。 - 對於每一道遮蔽我們視線的煙幕，駭客消除隔閡。 - 對於每一堵新建的圍牆，駭客開闢繞過它的路徑。 - 對於每一把鎖住我們自己想法和文化產物的鎖，駭客製作耐用的撬鎖工具來解開它們。 駭客嘗試理解超出他們視角的事物。駭客專注於真實的、當下的事物。 我們能夠穿越這堆廢話前進。我們能夠共同努力，維護有意義的資訊，並放大背後創作者和策劃者的聲音。我們能夠學習事物實際如何運作，分享其中奧妙，並利用這些機制為善。我們能夠設計新的溝通和協作方法，讓社群內部和社群間協作，阻擋那個試圖將我們壓死的垃圾車。 駭客精神既是一種應對機制，也是一種生存技能。它代表了人類能力的巔峰：學習使用我們可能擁有的任何工具，以任何方式做要做的事。駭客消滅不平等，創造共同的方言，是一種存在於我們所有人內心的精神。它有能力將世界塑造成我們想要生活的樣子。 駭客精神能打破任何魔咒。