Episode 1 (2024) Charles Berret: Metis and the hacker

In this episode we hear Charles Berret from Linköping University
characterize the cunning and craftiness via a concept from
ancient Greek.

The concept of 'metis' offers an especially effective means of
characterizing the intelligence and technical practice of
hackers. Metis, for the ancient Greeks, denoted the
improvisational craftiness of a figure like Odysseus, whose
intuitive understanding of the regularities in a particular
system or situation facilitates acts of subversive cleverness.
After all, it was Odysseus who devised the Trojan Horse, perhaps
the first hack recorded in Western literature, and later the
namesake of an actual variety of malware. This is a revealing
affinity, and the connections between metis and hacking run deep.
Metis is an especially useful concept for understanding hackers
because it is a form of practical knowledge distinct from
episteme and techne. Whereas episteme denotes the pursuit of
factual regularities in the natural world, and techne implies the
application of episteme for engineering, craft, and material
production, both episteme and techne are inherently systematic.
In contrast, the essential characteristic of metis is its
subversion of systems and regularities, finding surprising
sources of flexibility where others see only patterns and
rigidity. To view hackers through the lens of metis also helps
explain why hacking thrives in settings characterized by what
James C. Scott calls "seeing like a state," that is, where an
excessively schematic reduction of a system's natural complexity
leads to the concealment of idiosyncrasies that become ideal
sites for a hacker's exploitation. Developing an account of metis
offers a new framework to explain why hackers thrive in
infrapolitical practices that are inherently opposed to seeing
like a state.

This episode is a live recording from Hacker Cultures! The
Podcast Panel Season 3 panel organized at the European
Association for the study of Science and Technology and Society
for Social Studies of Science EASST/4S 2024
conference in Amsterdam on 2024-07-16. The hosts are Paula
Bialski, Andreas Bischof and Mace Ojala. Audio production by
Heights Beats at Hotmilk Records, who also produced the theme
track. We are grateful for Chemnitz University of Technology for
funding.