[hackerspaces] Hacking the Spaces: A critical acclaim of what was, is and could be a hackerspace (or hacklab, for that matter)

[das ende der nahrungskette]

i got lots of private electromail concerning the "hacking the spaces" 
pamphlet...
here are two messages that are directly related to the ongoing 
discussion on this list. the authors are not subscribed or don't want 
to subscribe but they gave me permission to forward the statements.

the first one is by nat (member of the chicago hackerspace):

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I think you've hit upon one of the the classic problems with geeks.
They tend to be very very smart and technically apt but have little 
or no respect for formal criticism. [...] Nerd/geeks/etc tend to 
think of themselves as super smart and just doing this non-political 
thing and when one tries to tell them that they really should think 
more about the meta concept of the space, the history of similar 
spaces and their impact on culture they get aggresive because
a)they've never thought about it that way
b)they don't have the language to discuss it
c)you're obviously an anarchist pinko
[...] It actually really made me think about our space here in 
Chicago that since we're so new and young as a space we should put 
together a manifesto that includes a call for thought/action/intent 
in that grain.
==cut==

and here is the second one (anonymized):

==cut==
You're asking people who are very rich in privilege to actually think 
about it, and to do things that might
actually cause them to lose some control over their precious walled 
gardens.  All the usual complaints, of course -- well, sure, I'd like 
there to be more African-Americans in our hackerspace, and some day,
hackerspaces will be started in Africa.  (I'm still kind of stunned 
he had the balls to say that on a publicly archived list.  Oh, and of 
course, non-white-male people just aren't interested.
I think I'm mostly feeling a bit bitter and burnt out by that set of 
responses, but I do hope that over time, things can change.
==cut==

and here is an interesting blog entry... it's out there for 2 days already.
---> http://thezeroofform.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/hack-the-nerds

cheers