That is the only reason I would want to get involved into hacking knowledge, to learn more the process and how they might charge at you.
They are to be feared, but most of them won't mess with you without a strong reason. They have better things to do, like putting themselves challenges to learn even more, they like learning and in coding challenges are the way to tire your brain to come up with ways around.
There are many posers now in the hack world, people that having a cheap software that do things for them brag about hacking. I agree with others when they say real hackers don't brag they are stealthy and won't waste their skills out of a tantrum. And many others that doesn't really want to learn the core of it, the why of every step, they just want to learn the how because their goal is to prank, annoy and cause pain to others.
Also there are some hackers out there that now use their knowledge helping others to get more secure with their place, some even live of that.