Our Dangerous Obsession with (Life)Hacking

It’s rare that a word with a very negative connotation gets a second chance, but the term “hack” is a prime example of that rare occurrence. The word “hack” used to describe a person — ostensibly some sort of professional — who was terrible at what they did. In fact, a very telling definition, courtesy of Random House, reads as follows:

hack

(hæk)

n.

A person, esp. a professional, who surrenders individual independence, integrity, belief, etc., in return for money or other reward.

Other definitions include an old, ill-bred horse, the activity of driving a taxi for money, or a writer who writes low-level drivel for money. None of them are positive.

Even the the verb definitions sound negative:

v.i.

1. to make rough cuts or notches.

2. to cough harshly, usually in short and repeated spasms.

Rough cuts? Harsh coughs? Spasms? Not sounding desirable. And yet, the term “hack” is now enshrined in positive associations. And yet now, “hacks” are much sought-after tricks, shortcuts, tiny little solutions to myriad problems in life, love, and business, offered up to get you what you want more quickly and easily.

If you are so inclined, you could spend years combing through the search results for webpages where the word “hack” is a prime constituent. It seems that everyone is looking for a hack, and many more are writing about them, and their supposed glory.

But I am skeptical.

I used to be a wholehearted supporter of hacks, especially “lifehacks” — those little tricks that promise huge returns for even less work. I longed for more and more neat little shortcuts to do more, get more, be more. Alas, I am coming to find that these tricks are just that — tricks, as in they trick you into thinking something that is not true. They trick you into thinking that you somehow exploited a loophole in the universe, and jumped ahead to the front of the line, without having to wait like everyone else. Unfortunately, this is not true.

In essence, these little hacks trick you (and others) into thinking that you have somehow altered the nature of life, when in reality, you’ve only hacked your perception of it. You have only hacked yourself.

What Hacks Really Are

To be more specific, in using a “hack”, you’ve only really done one of two things. You either:

1. Renegotiated or eliminated the commitment to — or desire for — a result, putting in its place some other — usually more quickly/easily achieved result.
2. Acting as if effort or cost has been cut out, when it has actually been deferred or shifted elsewhere.

In either case, you have not figured out a shorter distance than a straight line between A and B ; you have NOT changed the terrain. Rather, you have changed your perception of the terrain—you have either found the straight line between A and B where others were previously taking a zig-zagging path — or you have realized that though you and most others thought that B was the desired destination point, it’s actually some less distant point,C, which is easier to reach.

Why Hacking is Dangerous

So, given all of this, hacking can be dangerous, and I think that our obsession with it may in fact already be putting us in danger.

You see, the more we continue to measure the success of people, products, and businesses by how much they hack, innovate, and disrupt, the more we may just be working toward the wrong goals. In addition — and perhaps more dangerously — I think we run the very real risk of eliminating our capacity for patiently and slowly doing good work. That being the case, I am scared that we may also be running the risk of coming to value very few of the things we create.

It’s a simple thing, really: you expend 1/2 the amount of time and energy on something, you’re bound to care about 1/2 as much about it. It’s not necessarily a law, but I challenge you to look at examples of it in your life — they’re there, if you pay attention. Sure, how much you value something is heavily a function of how useful it is, but just think of this: the constant innovation and hacking we do makes the usefulness of products and services go obsolete at a much faster rate. I valued my Samsung Blackjack at one time; I wouldn’t even use it as a doorstop now.

Value concerns aside, hacks and workarounds are dangerous because — quite simply — you can’t fool the universe. You will expend the necessary effort, one way or another — at one time or another. Maybe not even you, but the effort will be expended by someone, somewhere down the line.

Case in point:

1. The Sweet Tooth Hack: You can’t fool your body with artificial sweeteners — you will crave sweets after your Diet Coke, and expend that much more energy restraining yourself form tearing into that chocolate cake once you’ve guzzled your diet beverage.
2. The Cheapskate Hack: You can’t fool the IRS with elaborate loopholes and tax shelters — without making way more work for yourself, and an immense psychological burden.
3. The Fidelity Hack: You can’t fool someone close to you by trying to hide the truth and sneak around behind their back — without spending just as much effort as would have been spent if you were to be upfront and tell the truth.

These are just 3 cases, but ones like them abound. There is some amount of work that must be done for each objective one has. There are inefficient ways to do things, for sure. There are also efficient ways to do things, up to a point. Past that, there are ways to complete an objective which do get one the desired objective with what seems like less work. That work, however, goes somewhere else — either to some_one_ else or to some_time_ other than now.

I fear that now, perhaps we are taking on that extra effort that we thought we were circumventing as we hacked and innovated away, and that it will someday become too much for us to bear. Take for example the financial crisis that came to a head in 2007 and 2008. Draw up whatever narrative you like of the whole thing — who were the heroes, the villains, the victims, etc. One thing will have to be present in any account of the crisis: it would not have happened as it did without the financial “innovations” and “hacks” known as credit default swaps and derivatives. These instances of financial wizardry barely passed the sniff test of shrewd investors like Warren Buffett who, 5 years before the meltdown, described them as no less than “financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.”

I see a similar “hack” gone awry in the new “gig economy” that has cropped up in Uber, Zirtual, Air BnB, and the like. We’re trying to take shortcuts in building a market, and it’s going to bite us in the behind. As it tends to happen, a few people laugh all the way to the bank, and many others cry into their pillows, wake up, and get a job as a Wal-Mart greeter, rather than retire. I’m no futurist, so you can take this grave prediction with a grain of salt. Suffice it to say, I see a familiar pattern emerging. It may be merely coincidental, and not of the same form; time will tell.

If you managed to read this whole thing, congratulations and thank you.

For those who prefer to skim for heading type, below is the takeaway:

Hacking is dangerous because we believe we are changing or bending the rules of reality, but we are not. Rather, in many cases, we are merely shifting around the effort we think we’re saving or settling for a lower quality outcome.

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