Dear Hackers:
I lift a glass to you. You are the single largest make-work engine since the Hoover Dam. Hundreds of thousands of workers around the world owe their employment to you. Every government, every corporation, all cater to your nihilistic, destructive urges. Highly specialized companies have developed specifically to deal with your desire to waste time and create havoc. Most such workers are rather well paid too. (You must appreciate the irony that your pranks have helped so many people make so much money, while you crack back doors and sell credit card numbers to support yourself.)
And of course you exposed another great irony that extends back before the computer age: If you set your WABAC machine to around 1992 you would hear all sorts of wild eyed preditions that most folks snickered at… TV on your cell phone! Internet everywhere all the time! Constant connectivity! I can’t remember a single thing the romantics got wrong.
However they missed a rather important change that was inevitable. The vandals, the nihilists, and other assorted psychopaths would gallop into this Brave New Future right behind the bright eyed romantics. The vandal goal was rape and pillage. That this most obvious aspect of human society – the professional criminal class – is always overlooked by people predicting the future is one of the wonders of the modern world.
So here’s to you hackers! Enjoy your life in the basement trawling the porn sites. Maybe someday somebody besides me will appreciate your contribution to modern culture.