[hackerspaces] Sigh -- I'm not helping with Maker Faires this year.

[Matt Joyce]

Ultimately the discussion hinges on the introduction of a new bias
into what Make is attempting to do with Maker Faire, and how that
impacts us as participants in that community.

Yes Make as an entity has some given pre-existing biases.  They are
for profit.  They are targetting a demographic.  They want to achieve
certain goals.  Etc etc.

But the bias of good vs evil can't be described as some absolute moral
imperative.  That's dangerous.  Before we pick a name for the bias,
let's maybe define some criteria.  I think many people are taking
issue with Mitch's broadish generalization of the entirety of DARPA as
an entity.

Certainly that is a concern of mine.  But I feel the concern I have is
more focused on the bias that we're trying to introduce here.  Is it
about DARPA?  Is it about the military?  Or is it about opening a
dialogue on ethics, and consequences in engineering / science / math.

What is the criteria for this bias?  Is a bias in a public forum a net positive?

-matt

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 5:03 PM, Matthew Dumas
<matthew.dumas at ripplecomputing.com> wrote:
> Maybe it's me, but I don't see very much to discuss. Mitch doesn't want to
> deal with people that deal with the military, and that's fine. Other people
> do, and that's also fine.
>
> The only problem I see is that people are offended and upset by Make doing
> what businesses do. Make has never said that they are not out to make money,
> they are not a non-profit (not that it matters), and they are, in the
> process of taking money, educating children. If you are really against the
> education of children because it is sponsored by the government, then you
> should be against all public schools. Don't hold a double standard, the
> government is pumping billions into the school system in efforts to churn
> out the kind of adults they think will be productive, the DARPA funds are
> just a small part of that.
>
> My point is that Make never promised you anything, so don't act like they
> betrayed you.
>
>
>
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