[hackerspaces] Hackerspace and hackerspace

[Walter van Holst]

On 2018-03-20 17:06, Matt Joyce wrote:
> Seriously... you just called not being political a trope... and you
> expect me to take you seriously as a person?

Not necessarily, as in, I value the opinions of me as far as held by 
Matt Joyce not sufficiently high to have much in the way of 
expectations. But if you seriously think there's such a thing as not 
being political you are deeply wrong if not a full-blown idiot. 
Especially when it comes to the hacker scene. The mere act of sharing 
your source code in itself is already a massive middle finger to the 
copyright maximalist and neo-liberal notions that if you cannot monetise 
something it basically is worthless.

Also, there are countless tales of people in totalitarian societies 
trying to keep their heads low and then being surprised that doing so 
did brand them as potential dissidents since going to such great lengths 
to avoid the authorities' scrutiny turned out to be considered 
suspicious behaviour. Slightly closer to home: sit down with law 
enforcement people and tell them you are an active member of a 
hackerspace and gauge their response. You may feel you are fine, they in 
all likelihood feel you are probably a criminal at best and possibly 
even worse, a subversive.

So yes, claiming that you aren't political is pretty much in the same 
idiot league as "I have nothing to hide" and "If you don't have done 
anything wrong, you have nothing to fear". Best case scenario is that it 
translates into "the current socio-political arrangements suit me 
exceedingly well and I see zero need to change the status quo".

Zero regards,

  Walter