[hackerspaces] I'm not helping when DARPA Selects Hackerspace ...

[Matt Joyce]

I want to be clear.  Make has done MORE for STEM initiatives on this
planet than the entirety of hackerspaces combined ( with possible
exception to mitch altman ).  Some spaces do 0 community out reach.
Some don't even let kids into their spaces.  What make does is
SPECIFICALLY in line with what Mentor is about.  And what STEM is
about.

I don't see this as a hackerspace issue.  I see this as a STEM
initiative issue.  These are not the same thing.

-Matt



On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 6:18 PM, William Macfarlane <wmacfarl at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I looked at the MakeZine blog this morning and was a bit repulsed by a
>> commercial that jumped out at me.  So, maybe Make Magazine has worse
>> problems than just DARPA?
>
> Word.
>
> I want to second what was said previously in either this or the other
> DARPA thread(s) -- if there's a problem here (which I think there is),
> it is more the fact that we give Make and O'Reilly some weird special
> place in our subculture.  The more we insist that they don't get to
> define "maker" or "hackerspace", the better off everyone (including,
> ultimately, Make and O'Reilly, I think) is.
>
> My stance on DARPA and make and maker faire and how it can all relate
> to my own personal anti-authoritarianism/strong bias against large
> centralized funding sources in general, is that I will still do stuff
> at our local Cambridge Mini-Maker Faire, but will also redouble my
> efforts to organize something else that feels more along the lines of
> what I think such an event should be -- I've been thinking about this
> for a while, since our little cambridge mini-maker faire is attached
> to the cambridge science festival which is funded by some of the big
> tech companies that I hate the most (Draper, Genzyme).
>
> I think the fact that small groups of people, working on their own,
> creating their own resources can do amazing things is a huge part of
> hacker/maker culture, and so I am somewhat down on the idea that we
> need funding from big sketchy organizations with deep pockets.  I'm
> not saying that anyone who takes DARPA money is a tool of the man, but
> I am saying that, for me, personally, one of the most important things
> about hacking/making[TM] is showing people that they don't need some
> official sanction or support or funding to do/make amazing things, and
> so the idea of taking money from DARPA somewhat undermines one of my
> own major personal goals.
>
> That said, the space that I help run takes money from MIT every year,
> which I tell myself is fine because there are no strings attached, but
> I'd be incredibly naive if I told myself that MIT wasn't approximately
> as much part of the military-industrial-complex as anything else.
>
> -will
> www.partsandcrafts.org
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>
>
> --
> -Will
> www.partsandcrafts.org
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