"Hacker" as in "Hacker News" is from an even more distant past. The word just got appropriately decaffeinated, so as to be acceptable within our current iteration of group think.
In my city there's 'growth hacking' meetups. It's too nakedly marketingistic to even consider seriously. I fear in the English language the word 'hack' is often being used as a synonym for 'shortcut'. The Lifehacker 'hacks' being prime examples.
This one was advertised as for developers/coders/engineers/designers, but I'm in a second-tier (for developers) Canadian city.
Many talented tech folks move to first-tier Canadian cities, or to first tier U.S. cities, which are zeroth tier by Canadian standards, if they aren't tied down.
Even if it wasn't non-technical people, it seems the pop culture of "hacker" attracts all the worst stereotypes of geeks. The really sharp ones don't seem interested in self-identifying as "hacker".
No. The groupthink is what causes the usage of M$ to be anachronistic now, and also what made it fashionable at some point in the past. Treating subjective opinions as objective facts and laughing at members of the out-group are symptoms of being engaged in groupthink.
Nothing wrong (or right) with any of that. I'm just observing.
