[hackerspaces] status of this list

[Tilman Frosch]

Hey Jens, hey list,

Am Freitag, den 15.05.2009, 00:00 +0200 schrieb Jens Ohlig:
> On the other hand,  there are counter-examples to this, two people from
>  das Labor in  Germany also voiced their opinion that they didn't care
>  for political  discussions. So I may be wrong here.

I feel the need to correct this impression and add some explanation.
While I personally tend to involve myself in political discussions quite
often, I think it is important to have the 'right' to leave a
hackerspace out of this and still think of it as a 'real' hackerspace
even without a clear political position.
Das Labor started in a environment, which was dominated by far left
ideas. We shared a space with a far left-wing culture center.
Nevertheless only a small minority of our founding members could
identify with that (i.e. (far) left-wing) ideas. This also accounts for
our members, who joined later and also accounts for our visitors, guests
etc. 

In our short ~4years history we made the experience that it is vital for
the survival and the thriving of our hackerspace and the community that
supports it to make the space stay neutral. 
There have been some efforts by several individuals to pocket das Labor
for the one or the other political agenda, which resulted in making the
hackerspace incompatible with people or groups of people, who share a
lot of other ideas but strongly oppose this (or that) political
position. As a (relatively) small community (50-80 regulars) we do not
enjoy the idea of people leaving, who were a strong support of our space
and community up until that time. We found the consensus that the
remainder of ideas concerning our project (like the sharing of
knowledge, discussion between peers, actually making things, that are
new and fancy, our social community and the lack of hierarchical
structures etc.) are way more important to all of us than our
potentially different political ideas.

We did not build a hackerspace to make a statement, we built a
hackerspace to share its potential and to do and try things you cannot
do or try elsewhere. This is why I consider it very important not to let
politics interfere with the great amount of possibilities and chances
and cool ideas we develop and share at our hackerspace.


Til