[hackerspaces] Now I am totally depressed...

[Adam D Bachman]

> Look at the stuff that we built in our home shops.

In the last two months I've built something in my

> What the hell happened to us?

Most of us are less than 100 years old, I think the people who wrote these
magazines and those for whom they were written have moved on. There is no
"us", here. This was never stuff for general consumption, you better believe
"the general public" was mostly composed of condo dwelling morons 80 years
ago, just like it is today. Although I'd prefer not to think of my neighbors
as morons.

> Where did we, as a nation of inventors, dreamers, builders and makers, go
astray?

You sound sad, you have reached maximum pessimismosity (peh-sih-miz-mosity).
"Everything is amazing and nobody's happy."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

I can see how you think that, but I disagree that anyone's gone astray.
Perhaps the population of inventors relative to the general public shrunk on
a percentage basis, but I would bet it has grown on a numbers basis. i.e.,
there are more inventive, creative makers alive today than at any point in
history.

Many of us feel like we grew up surrounded by tools, by fixing, by making.
But that's because *we* did, not because everyone did. A big reason I'm here
is because I had access to interesting hardware and parents who didn't mind
me screwing around with it. I know that wasn't true for even my next door
neighbors and I'm certain it wasn't true for the whole world.

> Why was this knowledge, these tips and tricks, ever allowed to be lost?

You just shared a link to almost a hundred years of Popular Mechanics. What
was lost again? The information exists and is accessible. We hold in our
heads what we need to do our work today. "How to use a brace and bit" was
useful 80 years ago, but it isn't necessary for a kid to know that today. If
they need it, they can look it up, otherwise, let Google worry about it.
Given that 90% of everything is crap (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law), it would be safe assume that
even the old knowledge, unless it has proven itself by remaining current, is
better left in the dustbin of history.

> Today our schools teach the kids garbage

You've got no argument from me there. My kids will never step through the
door of a public (or private) school as long as I have the means to provide
for their needs. I would add that I don't believe the schools of mass
education were ever a wonderful thing for modern society. At best, they
taught shop skills 80 years ago so that the factories would have a steady
stream of workers. They're in the same business today they were then, churn
out employees.

> your average condo dwelling urban moron has no freaking what they are
looking at when they go to a hardware store...I see it every time I'm at Ace
or Home Depot.

It's difficult to compare Home Depot to anything that existed in the 1930's.
If you took a random member of the general public and threw them into a tool
and die supply shop then, I guarantee you're likely to end up with confused
looks and mortal wounds.

- - - - -

I'm happy to defend the contemporary age and say we've got more opportunity
to do interesting work with our hands and our minds than at any time in
history. More importantly, I didn't get into the hackerspace thing because
everyone was already doing this stuff, I did it because I want to see
everyone doing this stuff. Ignorance where it is forced (North Korea, public
schools, etc.) is ugly, but where it is accidental, it's neutral. We've got
to show them why this knowledge is valuable, why microcontrollers are
interesting. Whining people into action doesn't work. It's impossible to get
people inspired for action by focusing on a negative ("Look how lousy we
are!" or "Here's a list of things we shouldn't do...").

I hope I didn't use so much sarcasm it broke my arguments. I've been trying
to track down why I disagree with this general sentiment for a bit (another
example, which I think was linked on this list before:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft) and am
trying to peel away some of the layers here. I know from experience that if
I spend too much time on the interwebs (especially Reddit, Digg, etc.), I
come away with pessimism and cynicism, but those are feelings that only tear
down. Let's build something awesome out of what we have available to us.
Spending time tearing it all down is boring. The new things we come up with
will either replace the existing or not, the same as it's always been,
forever and ever, amen.


- Adam
http://baltimorenode.org






On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:55 AM, Hank The Curmudgeon <hkrishman at gmail.com>wrote:

> Go and find the "Popular Mechanics" issues from around 1930 (Google
> "page" 31 at the bottom of the main search page, linked below) and
> move forward. Grab a random issue and check the index. I am
> specifically referring to the project pages. Though the ads and
> feature articles are fun toothey are not the subject of my mini rant.
> Look at the stuff that we built in our home shops. What the hell
> happened to us? Where did we, as a nation of inventors, dreamers,
> builders and makers, go astray??? Why was this knowledge, these tips
> and tricks, ever allowed to be lost? Today our schools teach the kids
> garbage and your average condo dwelling urban moron has no freaking
> what they are looking at when they go to a hardware store...I see it
> every time I'm at Ace or Home Depot. Sad...
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books/serial/ISSN:00324558?rview=1&lr=&output=html&sa=N&start=900
> _______________________________________________
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> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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