[Noisebridge-discuss] [Build] 2169 shrine

[Sai Emrys]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 12:53 AM, Jason Dusek<jason.dusek at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Mind, we don't (currently) decorate the space with stuff
>> that's only relevant to us-as-individuals (be we sinologists,
>> Christians, Buddhists, conlangers, psychonauts, pornographers,
>> or whatever that's tangential to we-as-hackers). We should be
>> consistent in that.
>
>  Actually, we do have pornographic material that is relevant to
>  "us as individuals". Opposition to its removal was fierce.

I suspect you misunderstood me, so I'll clarify just in case.

Yes, there's lots of stuff - porn included - that is relevant to us as
individuals for various reasons. I in no way intended to demean those
personal relevances.

What I said, however, was about stuff that is *only* relevant to
us-as-individuals, rather than us-as-hacker-collective.

The former is a way broader category than the latter, and including
things in it means (if we are not to somehow judge each others'
personal interests, which I think we'd all like to avoid) that we'd
need to allow damn near anything that some member or affiliate deems
interesting and personally significant. As I said, this might on the
one hand be interesting and diverse and a nice way to show off all the
cool shit we're into; on the other, it would be a whole lot of stuff,
some of which is bound to be offensive, or treated offensively.

E.g. our Christians probably feel quite strongly about crucifixes; to
me, they're just another art motif, and I pay it no more respect than
I do any other art (which is still a fair amount, just not of a
deferential sort). If someone wanted to have a crucifix at NB, someone
else would probably make jokes about it and/or decorate it at some
point. Even if this was done in a way that wasn't harmful to the
object itself (I think we're respectful enough of each others' stuff
not to do that?), the very fact of treating it in something other than
a religious manner might be offensive to the Christians. Or its
presence might be offensive to Muslims and Satanists and who the fuck
knows what else y'all practice.

(Other example: Jeffrey's nazi FSM would probably offend Christians. :-P)

So... I think that it might be wise to at least adopt what another
mailing list I'm on calls the "no cross, no crown" rule: let's not
bring in anything that's socially sensitive (religion and politics,
mostly) in a way that's unrelated to our identity as hackers.

Although hackers tend towards being leftist-libertarian atheists,
that's certainly not all of us, and I don't think we ought to make our
fellow hackers who have different views on religion/politics feel
unwelcome.

- Sai