Umair Haque is smart. His most recent post how to hack the industrial economy makes the point that hacking should be encouraged and applied to the world’s big problems.
Why is everything hackable today? Because in the edge-economy, the universe of the economically possible has exploded: resources are more and more accessible. And if you can get your hands on it, you can hack it. The point is simple: nothing is impossible when you’re hacking.
Hacking being encouraged, deserves our consideration:
1/ Hacking, a la Facebook’s infamous slogan “move fast and break things” should be encouraged in more contexts. Experimenting rapidly can only be net positive as long as it’s done ethically. Experiments lead to progress; as science has taught us.
2/ Hacking systems helps them become Antifragile. Think about the effect of exercise on the body; we intentionally stress our muscles so that the muscles can grow stronger. It makes total sense that we should want or most complex and important systems to undergo periodic stress tests. Of course it must be done ethically, but it should be done. Infosec teams have done this for years, offering bounties for vulnerabilities white hats report to the company. The intention is making the system stronger as a whole and of course the hackers are compensated for their work.