[Noisebridge-discuss] Date/location for fundraiser

Seth David Schoen schoen at loyalty.org
Sat Aug 8 00:54:01 UTC 2009


Christie Dudley writes:

> When talking to the cell space folks about the all ages vs. alcohol,
> we will need to choose.  We either don't serve alcohol or don't let
> people under 21 in.  If we don't serve alcohol, then that's a
> significant amount of revenue we pass up.  The bulk of the money made
> at every fund raiser I've been a part of that actually came ahead
> involved alcohol sales.  I'm going to continue to discuss this with
> them, but I'm not hopeful.

I brought this up at the meeting on Tuesday in connection with the
sponsorship of LoveTech, but most people on the mailing list weren't at
that meeting, so I should probably mention this concern here.  I think
it sends a bad message for Noisebridge to organize or sponsor events
that have age restrictions.  Almost everyone in our community got
interested in that community and started trying to participate in it
as a young person.  We might have gone to DEF CON or a hacker camp
as a teenager, or attended trade shows or technical conferences or
university lectures.  Almost all of us encountered one or another kind
of discrimination or resistance or exclusion because of our age.  Many
people, like Jon Johansen and Aaron Swartz, did significant things
before reaching college age (or legal majority).

As we passed magic legal thresholds, those concerns may have become
less concrete to us as individuals (although I think I remember that
we inducted one Noisebridge member who was then under 21 and couldn't
legally buy alcohol in California, and I imagine we will induct more).
But we can do the right thing by the next generation of hackers by
doing our best not to exclude them from our events because of their
age.

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Qué empresa fácil no pensar en
     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   | un tigre, reflexioné.
     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |            -- Borges, El Zahir



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