[Noisebridge-discuss] Sleeping at NB

[meredith scheff]

I upvote this a million times.
M

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 1:39 PM, Moxie Marlinspike
<moxie at thoughtcrime.org>wrote:

>
> On 12/23/2010 01:09 AM, Jacob Appelbaum wrote:
> >> And unfortunately there are things about noisebridge which make hacking
> >> the motherfucking planet something you'd rather do somewhere else.
> >
> > I think it would be awesome if you would list some of those here. I have
> > a really hard time getting upset about someone sleeping on a sofa. what
> > is the impact to me programming or reading? Perhaps that I can't sit on
> > the sofa?
>
> There's a certain "geography" of a place that defines what is likely or
> possible to occur within it.  When you walk into Noisebridge, the
> chances are high that you'll walk into a room of people watching TV on
> the projector, playing video games, sleeping on the couches, or
> comparing fart noise apps on their iphones.  With a few exceptions,
> people don't go to Noisbridge because they've got a great idea, they go
> to Noisebridge because they're bored.  And this defines the geography.
>
> The world around noisebridge has its own geography: sidewalks are for
> walking, stores are for buying things, the BART is for commuting to
> work.  The geography of the sidewalk makes it difficult for me to ride a
> bike on it, and the geography of a store makes it difficult for me
> compose a symphony in it.  Both are totally possible, but there's
> something about the way they're set up that provides a cultural
> resistance to those activities.  And so in many ways the possibilities
> of our lives are defined, and the only way to change that is to change
> the geography.
>
> When I see people doing things at Noisebridge that I consider inspiring,
> they always appear to be sort of sneaking past the culture of what's
> going on around them.  I'm not talking about a place that's buzzing with
> happening projects along with a single person taking a nap in the
> corner, but the inverse.  Ideally I think you'd want the geography of a
> hackerspace to encourage inspiring projects, not set up a culture that
> offers resistance to them.  If that's not the case, what's the
> difference between Noisbridge and any other place?
>
> > I'd love to hear about other issues because some of them are really
> > probably something that does impact us all. It would be good to fix
> > pressing issues that push you away because you're part of the reason
> > that Noisebridge is such a fucking anarchist mess. You personally. :-)
>
> I think Noisebridge is a really interesting experiment in public space,
> but I'm sorry if I ever somehow gave you the impression that anarchy is
> "no rules."  Anarchy is "no rulers," which is very different.
> Anarchists actually *love* rules.  The "circle a" was Proudhon's
> shorthand for "anarchy is order," and even the very first anarchist
> writings were all about ideas for... rules!
>
> I mean really, if Noisebridge is an "anarchist space" because it imposes
> no rules in addition to the state framework it is surrounded by, does
> that mean that Dolores park is an anarchist space too?
>
> - moxie
>
> --
> http://www.thoughtcrime.org
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>



-- 
doing stuff and making things
---
"The function of all art ... is an extension of the function of the visual
brain, to acquire knowledge; ...artists are, in a sense, neurologists who
study the capacities of the visual brain with techniques that are unique to
them. ." -Semir Zeki
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