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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; ">So a couple things become obvious the more I come across shit like this article.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; ">First and foremost, some bitches need to get over the fact that hackerspaces attract mostly male/white/IT careered/capitalist types. Why? Because those of us in that category who lacked social skills growing up were geeks and outcasts long before it was cool to be a geek or outcast. I'll accept my hipster cred now. Anyway, we spent our youths avoiding being picked on and beat up as much as possible. We are geeks and outcasts by virtue of the fact that society rejected us at a young age. So the list of activities one can become grossly engaged in by oneself in your parents basement isn't that long, and computers/hacking/electronics/science have limitless potential in this area including social interaction with people who can't judge you by your looks or your stutter. Females generally have social interaction pushed upon them from an early age by all the cooler boys which means women generally have better social skills than men. There, I said it. This is a generalization of course, but it's probably 90% true. This leads women to many interests and careers away from hacking/making/science/etc. So, once us male/white/IT careered/capitalist types grow up and gain some social skills we naturally want to socialize with people of similar interests. Guess what? A decade ago there weren't many places on this planet where one could share a beer with a random group of people during a weekday and discuss the latest encryption breakthrough, that awesome sat tracking system that Goodspeed blogged about, etc. So hackerspaces have taken off like wildfire over the past decade probably tracking equally well with IT careers being more available.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; ">This leads me to my second point. It's hilarious to see outsiders attaching themselves to the hackerspace scene. "Oh jeeze, he's going to start splitting hairs on what is and isn't a hackerspace". Bare with me. What we have with this article is someone who sees the movement and energy the scene has right now and wants to use it for their own ends. They are jealous. First, by kicking the legs out of the movement by saying "well you know, we've been doing this long before you guys got here, there's nothing special about what you are doing". Next, by saying the current movement is dead. Sure, your typical makerspace is quite different from the L0pht, but we all can't be infosec rock stars ahead of our time. But seriously, fuck off. Each space has it's own identity and it's own culture and community. Some spaces swerve hard to the knitting/crafting edge, others only care about teaching infosec skills. Most fall somewhere in between. The main thing is that a community is built. And it's being built in a sustainable way. This counter revolution/political nonsense spouted about is bullshit. The point is that some outsiders see everything we have accomplished and are really sad that they cant subvert our energy. So they write passive-agressive articles like this one hoping to start a hackerspace-spring from which they can elect their muslim brotherhood leader to the top.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; ">Anyway, to answer your question Phil, everyone has an opinion and some should be taken with more grains of salt than others. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; ">-boi</div> </div></body>
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