[sudoroom] separation of politics and hackerspace?

[Eddan Katz]

I'm certainly glad that Sudo Room is a space where meaningful debate about hacking and politics can take place. I'm enjoying reading everyone's thoughtful comments. Much of what I would describe as my perspective has already been well said.

I did want to add though that maybe the wide range of connotations people associate with politics may be more the source of disagreement than over what a hackerspace is or means or ought to be. When I think about the kinds of projects I'd be interested in collaborating on with Sudo people, it's not about politics as in Democrat or Republican, Occupy or the Tea Party, nor even monarchism or anarchism.   

We would all agree, I presume, that values are embedded in design choices and that they embody our social and economic politics. This awareness about the regulatory nature of technology itself is probably why Sudo people recognize the significance of choices like: proprietary vs. commons; competition vs. monopoly; circumvention vs. locks; trust vs. surveillance; disintermediation vs. centralization; neutrality vs. discrimination; anonymity vs. identification; and so on. We live at a time when hacking and hackers and hackerspaces can exist in only one of these future information societies as they are increasingly bifurcated.

I suggest that a kind of politics that would draw people in rather than alienate them could be captured by the notion of open infrastructures, as opposed to and/or along the spectrum with closed ones. I understand from what Sudo people have said so far that we're all motivated at least in part by creating tools and platforms that enable the fair and just distribution of knowledge and its opportunities in the information age. That seems like something worth rallying around.

My 2 Sudo cents.
-Eddan


On Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 6:50 PM, Anca Mosoiu wrote:

> This is a really great conversation and I love seeing everyone's perspectives.   The hackerspace / maker / creative / social club / coworking / business pie is as large as our imaginative community and there is room for all ideas.  
>  
> I'd like to speak here from my personal perspective as Anca, rather than Tech Liminal, the business.
>  
> I'm interested in participating in a hacker space as a member, and I find the motivation towards openness and social justice very compelling.  It fits my personal vision about what a just and fair society should be, and our personal efforts as citizens to create opportunity and cool stuff instead of dividing ourselves from each other.  I support the concept of following the hacker code of ethics and creating a space where all is welcome.  
>  
> I'm more interested in the actual making of stuff - experimenting, hacking, and creating.  There are plenty of other forums for endlessly debating politics.   
>  
> I'm also particularly biased towards a location that would be walking distance from Tech Liminal (e.g. in Downtown Oakland) and/or near a bus line that goes to my house.    
>  
> Cheers,
>  
> Anca.
>  
>  
> On Thursday, May 10, 2012, Jenny Ryan wrote:
> > As an addendum, I did not mean to imply that coworking spaces or coffeeshops are not relevant to community-oriented projects & activism - clearly there are exceptions (such as Tech Liminal!) - merely that I'm dedicated to creating a space where such work is a core principle from the start (rather than profit, which is necessarily a core component of traditional businesses).
> >  
> > Jenny
> > http://jennyryan.net (http://jennyryan.net/)
> > http://thepyre.org (http://thepyre.org/)
> > http://thevirtualcampfire.org (http://thevirtualcampfire.org/)
> > http://technomadic.tumblr.com (http://technomadic.tumblr.com/)
> >  
> > `~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
> > "Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories."
> > -Laurie Anderson
> >  
> > "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
> >  -Hannah Arendt
> >  
> > "To define is to kill. To suggest is to create."
> > -Stéphane Mallarmé
> > ~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`  
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