[Noisebridge-discuss] Consensus and the "old ways".

[Al Billings]

On Oct 2, 2009, at 8:15 AM, quinn wrote:

> honest to god, no trolling, pure quinn-confusion: why did you join
> noisebridge? why did you join a consensus anarchist social  
> experiment if
> you didn't want to do that? i feel like that's like me joining the
> republicans and saying 'Ok, this group is great and all, but let's  
> drop the
> conservative nonsense, ok? That's just a game, right? Guys? Guys?'

Because some of us were involved *before* there was a Noisebridge  
(more than the last year) and when we formed Noisebridge, it wasn't  
clear that the consensus process was going to be the painful albatross  
that it has turned out to be. Jake and a number of others argued so  
strongly for it, it was like "Why not? It should work." Having never  
spent a lot of time in a large, consensus based organization, I didn't  
know it would translate into four+ hour long meetings when important  
decisions need to get made and deadlock on decisions due to arguing  
and blocking.

The kinds of large organizations that I have been part of (lodges and  
non-profit groups) followed the ol' American standard of member  
voting. At the end of the day, a majority vote settled an issue and we  
moved on. In retrospect, that was LESS divisive and LESS time consuming.

  People want to be a member of a cool hackerspace. They don't  
necessarily want to be a member of an anarchist decision making social  
experiment. Those two aren't linked except in the minds of certain  
members.

Now comes the part where my point of view is dismissed because I don't  
hang out in the space all the time even though I've been involved for  
more than 1 1/2 years in proto-Noisebridge and Noisebridge.

  Al