Why do we need a label to describe someone who builds a self-balancing unicycle?
Labels like 'hacker' do nothing to further anything, and generally aren't impressive to anyone who doesn't assign the label to themselves. Build cool shit and that's impressive.
I used to want to be a hacker. What I want to be hasn't changed much, but now there's no word for it. It's demotivating. I don't know how demotivating. Maybe I would never have become a hacker₁₉₉₀ even if the word hadn't changed, maybe I still will.
It's not just me: I want other people to strive for a thing that no longer has a name.
I don't feel like I'm adequately articulating myself here. Perhaps it shouldn't matter that we're missing a word. But I feel like it does anyway.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want sort of a universal standard for technical excellence. Similar to (topical!) Olympic athletes; participating in the Olympics is pretty much an affirmation that you're one of the best athletes alive, no matter the sport.
Well, not just technical excellence. I want to celebrate and encourage "the hacker spirit", which embodies playfulness as well. It takes a certain mind to look at Brainfuck and ask "do we really need all those instructions?" [1], even if it's not particularly hard, once you've asked the question, to see that you don't. (Mind you, I never looked for ways to minimise them myself, so it might be a harder problem than I'm giving credit for.)
I don't feel like the Olympics demonstrate the hacker spirit, although it's likely that some of the athletes have it.
Labels like 'hacker' do nothing to further anything, and generally aren't impressive to anyone who doesn't assign the label to themselves. Build cool shit and that's impressive.