[sudoroom] separation of politics and hackerspace?

[mark burdett]

On Wed, 09 May 2012 18:21:39 -0700, Phil wrote:
> But on Sudo Room, there is a lot about social justice and etc etc etc. This
> is great! But not what I guess I think about when I think about "hacker
> space", and if I were to be honest not really what I'd be interested in
> going to a "hacker space" for.

The early hackerspaces - like FreakNet in sicily 
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreakNet and Kernel Panic in barcelona 
http://kernelpanic.hacklabs.org/ - were established in squatted social 
centers and had a pretty strong ideology.. protesting private 
appropriation of communication tools, actively resisting local 
repressive institutions like the government or the mafia, promoting 
civil rights, free expression, open access to technology.

One could blandly describe a hackerspace as just a space for making, 
learning and experimenting, but it does not happen in a political 
vacuum.

If you try to cut the social mission and provocative "politics" from the 
heart of a hackerspace - frankly I would say some of the more recent 
spaces in the US have tried to do so - then i would question what does a 
hackerspace stand for, what principles are left to guide it? at some 
point it's less hacklab and more coworking space, tech entrepreneur 
incubator, private club - which are great and all, I've used or setup 
some of those but didn't call it a hackerspace :)

My ideal hackerspace would have some backbone, some guiding 
philosophical principles that explain why and how we do what we do. And 
I don't think some vision for "social justice" is very far left field in 
a place like Oakland - although note, I didn't look at what SudoRoom has 
to say about "social justice" so far.

Theoretically noisebridge just has that one "be excellent" principle, 
but arguably NB has more principles in play which just haven't been made 
explicit, see e.g. the non-hierarchical consensus-based structure, lack 
of commercial/corporate sponsors, free and open access to anyone, etc.

</ramble>

--mark B.
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