Why read A Hacker's Mind?

Book cover of A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend them Back

Book description

A hack is any means of subverting a system's rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn't computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them "loopholes." We call exploits "tax avoidance strategies." And there is an entire industry of "black hat" hackers intent on…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Hacker's Mind as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Nicholas Agar

Author

Schneier’s book taught me that hacking isn’t just something that occasionally happens to your laptop. The powerful hack the laws that govern our society too.

I wondered how the hacking mindset could apply to enhancement techs. Which enhancement techs will the elite reserve for themselves and which might they impose on the gig workers of the future? Suppose Neuralink does manage to get its tech into our heads. Imagine Musk finds himself just short of the funds needed to found his planned Martian city. Might beneficiaries of his brain-computer interfaces find themselves abruptly subject to overpowering urges to immediately own…

From Nicholas' list on The best books to encourage big thinking about how technology could change humanity.