[Noisebridge-discuss] Sleeping at NB

[Moxie Marlinspike]

On 12/22/2010 07:50 PM, Jacob Appelbaum wrote:
> Try to understand the reason each person in our community sleeps on the
> sofa. I'm not talking about people wandering in off of the street but
> rather people in our community who are on the sofa. I'm pretty sure
> sleeping on the sofa isn't the same as community membership unless
> they're sleep hackers. :-)
> 
> In many cases, it's totally reasonable - the annoying part is that
> everyone has reasonable reasons. So in that case, I'd ask you to find
> the change within yourself and accept that there is no perfect system
> that also perfectly accommodates for any deviation.

The classic anarchist joke, which I believe appeared in an early issue
of Harbinger, is:

"You people are crazy if you don't believe in property, what would you
do if you came home and found a stranger watching TV in your livingroom?"

"I'd ask them where the TV came from."

The serious response they followed up with, of course, is that there's a
difference between property and possession.  And that having a critique
of the former has nothing to do with boundaries that you define around
voluntary association for the latter.

I don't believe that Noisebridge can, in even the most remote sense, be
considered a "community."  Most of the people at Noisebridge (sleeping
or otherwise) hardly know each-other's names, which is seriously
light-years away from what really being part of a community together
implies.

Almost everyone there at any given time is, essentially, only a
fractional distance away from "a stranger who wandered in off the
street."  If I'm not in any way invested in the lives of people sleeping
on the couches, why would I care to make any effort to connect with
their underlying nap troubles?  Or why would they care about my
discomfort around their naptime?

In its current incarnation, Noisebridge is a public space, and I don't
think I would find engaging with problems as if it's an actual community
to be very fulfilling.

- moxie

-- 
http://www.thoughtcrime.org