Hacking Life

Joseph Reagle

Hacking Life: The Quest for an Optimized Life

Joseph Reagle, Northeastern University

https://reagle.org/talk

Life hacking

“I am a life hacker”

To an ordinary person, this might seem like a confession of lifelong criminality.

Yes, hackers often have a technical affinity.

And they do like to understand and explore systems.

But for most, a hack means a clever improvement or fix.

Defined

Life hacking is the application of geeky, hackish ways of thinking: enthusiastic and systematic

a sort of clever shortcut, or way to get something done, or systematic way to get something done in your life, whether that’s on your computer (it’s often on your computer) or just doing your laundry or folding your socks (TrapaniDaoud (2010)).

Colonization

life hacking is a colonizing discourse. (Thomas (2015), p. 22)

mind hacks
bio hacks
food hacks
productivity hacks
learning hacks
- ProfHacker
- GradHacker
- HackCollege

I’m geeky/hackerish

I like to explore and learn
I think systematically
I believe things can be improved

Two Questions about Lifehacking

Q1. Is it cognitive?

Cognitive style

cognitive style: a stable personal attribute seen in patterns of thinking (e.g., mental models) and behavior (e.g. making decisions)

Styles

systematic: tend to look for patterns and apply rule-based thinking
intuitive: tend towards a larger, holistic view and rely upon the integration of intuition, feelings, and context

Sudoku

Systematic thinkers improved at playing the game Sudoku because they “used past experience to discover rules, which they then applied to enhance their performance in subsequent tasks” (SagivEtal (2013), p. 414).

(Experience had no effect on intuitive performance, nor was style alone significant.)

Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI-10, short)

I prefer to do something that challenges my thinking abilities rather than something that requires little thought.
I prefer complex to simple problems.
Thinking hard and for a long time about something gives me little satisfaction.
I believe in trusting my hunches.
My initial impressions of people are almost always right.
I can usually feel when a person is right or wrong even if I can’t explain how I know. (EpsteinEtal (1996))

Cogn. Reflection Test

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?
In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

1.05 + .05 = 1.10
5 minutes
47th day

Correlations

A sample of new computer-systems students showed “higher than average tendencies towards analytical cognitive styles”: 43.34 (CS) > 41.64 (other) (MooreOMaidinMcelligott2002csc, p. 54).

A sample of ShmooCon 2008 hackers preferred rational thinking styles over intuitive approaches, complex problems over simple ones, and demonstrated “high confidence in their ability to reach optimal decisions through a rational deliberation process” (Bachmann (2010), p. 652).

In a 1993 Wired article, Steve Silberman characterized autism as the “geek syndrome” (Silberman (1993)).

Is it simply a systemic approach to life?

Q2. How far is too far?

Mealsquares

Things

PUA Lingo

Field reports will often read, “got to HB8 blond school girl to go back to my place” as an indication of the level of her physical beauty. (Lin (2010))