[hackerspaces] hacklabs.org

[Kris Gesling]

Hey I definitely think you're right and it got me thinking about what the
differences between hacklabs and hackerspaces are. I haven't had a lot to do
with either for a long time or at all in a physical sense, only over the
interwebs but as you've said they're both about challenging ideas and norms.
Challenging and hacking to make things better or use things in ways they
weren't necessarily meant to be. The thing that I've seen some potentially
missing is that same mentality when it comes to society and politics. In my
limited experience, the hacklabs that I've had involvement with have taken
that critical hacker mentality to the way society and the political systems
operate through activism and social engineering.

Have I made a gross assumption about the distinction between the two? I
assume there are in fact hackerspaces that do a lot of political work and on
the other side probably a lot of hacklabs that don't?

I know I'm one of those 'political types' that everyone always whinges about
but all of the hackerspaces starting up in Australia at the moment seem to
be based around the very mechanical and physical aspects of hacking, which
don't get me wrong is fantastic as well and I'm hoping we can get them all
off the ground because I think that critical eye whilst you start using it
only on machines and networks, eventually people will start to see the
political systems through that same hacker perspective and begin to question
and formulate new ways of doing things, new ways of circumventing things.

cheers
Gez
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