This is a talk I gave at LayerOne 2009 (www.layerone.info).

Hackers are people, not machines. Unlike machines, hackers are susceptible to the insecurity and fear that regular people experience as well. The social manifestations of these problems are familiar cliches: groupthink, fanboyism, hatred for anything popular, and a desire to be seen as unique and offbeat — and it is these very things which are stunting the growth of the hacker community, making us no better than a bunch of cliquey high school students. This talk will humorously explore the problem, analyzing why we love some tech toys and hate others, pointing out where we go wrong, and offering some simple solutions to this epidemic.