I liked reading Levy's book and I imagine most people did. I think it would be hard not to like the book, seeing as how it does a great job of inflating the status of what might otherwise be defined as nerdy, anti-social dorks who happen to be good on a computer. The book treats hackers like sports stars are treated in popular press--they are doing something that mere mortal men are incapable of even dreaming (note how all the hackers are men, much like sports stars). Programming is written in such a way that it becomes something divine. The book gets you "pumped up" about hacking, computers, and programming.

However, taking a step back from this and registering it as a bit of an ode, I think our discussion might be best served if we explore more critically the Hacker Ethic and whether the hackers at MIT were really engaging a revolution. How much of the program was about global politics and social change, and how much might be reflective of an attempt at binding their own clique? Does the hacker ethic serve as a call to arms for others, or as an in-game that these guys wrote at 4am waiting for their turn on the computer?