Start or Join a Hacker Group

  While Hollywood, goaded and financed by the occupation state, willfully misinterpreted "hacking" to mean digital breaking and entering, its modern origins are very much not computer related, originating apparently with a 1955 memo in the Massachussets Institute of Technology Model Railroad Club's declaration that "anyone hacking the electrical system turn the power off to avoid the fuse blowing."

  It is likely that a toy train in 1955 was not, in fact, controlled by a password-protected computer system, and in fact by the 1930s, it was already used to mean "to accomplish regardless of method," as in, "I don't know if I can hack it." The later culture of the Massachussets Institute of Technology reworked this into "to accomplish by technical skill, however improvised," likely via cross-influence between the rennaissance "hack," a horse ("hackney") of dubious character influencing early 20th century slang.



  In any case, the hackers are the ones who like poking around at things and creating their own ways, and you should very much consider starting or joining a hackers' group in your area. User-driven learning can outperform most colleges.

  While biohacking or robotics are what one usually thinks of (and they are awesome), any technically-skilled, or even distantly interested, group is a hacker group. A knitting circle, for instance, is a hacker group for fibercraft arts. One could get a rather nice dictionary, one with the etymologies, try to find new words more interesting than the usual "acinate" and "obstrophicate," and start a language hacker's group. Any book club is a "contemporary literature study group." Somewhere, a group of carpenters have started a board hacker's group... but robotics club is always an option.

  Finding space for a hacker's group is a challenge. The library is one option. Finding a single-location restaraunt, asking what their off hours are, and bumming a free table in their slow time in exchange for any food or drink the group buys being from there is another. Gathering a group is also harder, now that physical bulletin boards are no longer a feature in small, local stores.

  Regardless, these are our institutions of learning, and it is a known fact that a handful of prepubescent and peripubescent children and one or two old geezers can, in fact, outperform most colleges, corporations, and research facilities... because people are interesting, and at times interested. They already built the internet on an amateur basis (Fidonet), before the old work was torn down and replaced with very bad clickbait non-journalism and a censorship campaign - and yes, prepubescent and peripubescent children have turned the internet off before. It was an awesome rave.

  By starting hacker groups (and abolishing school), you are keeping the institutions of learning and civilization alive. Give it a go for anything you're mildly interested in. The television was invented because some teenager built a particle accelerator at home. You can do anything you set your mind to, and a group of you can do more.

  Start or join a hacker group today. These are the institutions of knowledge and learning that can.

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