Let's stop with this this 'real hacker' bullshit. There's nothing wrong with being motivated by wealth; gates was and now he's the largest charity on the planet.
To me, there is little difference between the terms "real hacker" and "real American." Both exist for one purpose: to make the elitist feel good about themselves while giving them a chance to look down on plebes.
Oh, but "real American" serves the opposite purpose: the whip the ignorant plebes into a frenzy of tribal pride in order to justify policies that serve the elite.
Of course, the question, and the issue of where "real American" comes from is: which elite? "Real American" talk is when the capitalist class talks to the blue-collar working class and demonizes the white-collar working class, the intelligentsia, the professional working class, academia, the culture industry, and any petite bourgeoisie associated with the aforementioned.
There's no need to be confrontational. I agree with the suggestion that wealth is generally not the aim that drives the more knowledgeable minds to long-term effect in our industry.
My theory is that that's because once you have enough to get by, the problem of money goes away and is replaced with competing concerns (ie. curiosity to create, learn or experience new things).
If there are some people who make art for various reasons, and a subset of those people are so driven by the desire to make art that it's almost a compulsion that is more important to them than other things - perhaps even things necessary for survival like eating - and I want to distinguish this subset, how should I do so?
Lots of people would choose to say 'artist' and 'true artist' for those sets of people, and while that might be slightly unfortunate terminology (since those who are not 'true artists' may still be exceptional 'artists'), there is a definite subset of 'artist' that it is useful to identify.
So it's a mental illness now? (Obviously I kid.) but seriously, that excludes hackers from being (for example) parents, because if they aren't eating they aren't paying attention to their kid. I suspect it also means they don't have a social life. If you want to continue the stereotype where hackers are people who care more about their computer work than they do about most other parts of your life (think RMS), then go ahead. I never stopped to think that even though I frequent IRC channels, know words like 'grok' and 'ratfor', and can recite the pdp11 instruction set, I am not a true hacker because even though it's a love of mine, it's still less important to me than things like eating, sleeping, socializing, exercise, friends & family, dating, paying bills, and relaxing. In short, though I call myself a hacker, I am too healthy to be one because I'm not obsessed. However, if someone were to behave as you said, I would refer them to therapy and medication.
I'm not trying to diminish the work of the mentally unsound: some of the greatest hackers and artists, I'm sure, fit your description. But "real" is a horrible word for it in that stinks of elitism and an extremely unhealthy outlook on life. Please don't use it, for the same reason we don't use "real patriot" or "real rock music" or "real literature". It's either subjective or wrong.
