[hackerspaces] In defense of Noisebridge (even if I was never there!)

[Naomi Most]

That's a great argument for having a diversity of hackerspaces.

--Naomi


On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 10:32 AM, Al Billings <albill at openbuddha.com> wrote:
> Is your space welcoming to people, regardless of personal politics or do you
> have to be a specific kind of lefty/socialist/anarchist/hippy/whatever in
> order to be welcome?
>
> I say this as a socialist but I don’t want there to be a political litmus
> test on whether people are welcome in a space. My space has members who,
> quietly on occasion, bitch about Obama and his “agenda” with an eye roll
> from some other members. We have a communist or two and probably more than a
> few anarchists. Generally, I know someone for a year or more before I even
> realize their personal politics. Why? Because we’re there to hack, not to
> form a political party.
>
> There are definitely spaces where this isn’t the case. If you aren’t on
> board with the specific local politics (which are usually a certain specific
> form of left leaning anarchism), you are shunned pretty heavily and “don’t
> fit in.” I’d rather have a Republican that wants to build a project from
> salvaged computers than an anarchist that just wants to hang out in the
> kitchen “food hacking.”
>
> Al
>
> On Jul 3, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Randall G. Arnold <randall.arnold at texrat.net>
> wrote:
>
> I disagree when you frame that as an absolute.  Sure, there CAN be negative
> outcomes when a maker/hacker space or organization has fixing societal
> problems as a goal, but it ain't necessarily so.  It all comes down to
> defining the goal(s), having people to support them and for members with
> different goals to be respectful of each other and not get in each other's
> way.
>
> If as a makerspace member I put together a special interest group that
> builds remote wildlife monitoring stations for helping horned lizard
> conservation, and I don't disrupt anyone else in the process, then I'm
> positively hacking the planet and no one gets hurt.  Win-win.
>
>
> Al Billings
> albill at openbuddha.com
> http://makehacklearn.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>



-- 
Naomi Theora Most
naomi at nthmost.com
+1-415-728-7490

skype: nthmost

http://twitter.com/nthmost