[Noisebridge-discuss] Use of Nitrous Oxide in the space on Sunday night

[Liz Henry]

I don't think you should have sat around being rowdy and doing whipits
in the space even if you had declared it to be a party. Really dumb. I
would ask people to stop it or leave if I had been there.  As I will do
if I come across people getting drunk or doing drugs recreationally in
the space, or acting like asses.

I've been having really positive interactions, meetings, hack days, and
a lot of fun at Noisebridge, learning and teaching, every time I show
up.  Sometimes there are people who seem a little sketchy, non
neurotypical, or otherwise odd but as long as they respect other
people's boundaries in their actual behavior, it doesn't matter and imho
should not matter.  But, when it comes to acting in ways that don't
respect other which, Rubin and Zeph and whoever else, it sounds like you
were doing, .... what is the point?  It is sophomoric to argue that
something Zach did 2 years ago might have bothered you. If it did, did
you say so, ever?   I was just on Caltrain during the weekend of the
Giants game and the train was full of drunk guys acting aggro and
harassing all the women, like a disgusting frat house, and it was scary
and horrible even in broad daylight. Why do you think you can hang out
at Noisebridge and act like that, when you'd probably throw some random
other person out for acting that way?

I don't think "confessing" that you behaved like an ass excuses the
behavior or is cute or cool.  Can't you please apologize, and not do it
again?

I am very annoyed. I work extremely hard to make a diverse range of
people feel comfortable being and working at Noisebridge.

Apologize, you guys, and quit it.


- Liz


On 10/11/12 4:43 PM, Zach wrote:
> 
> Firstly, these are not just questionable substances by the state of
> california-- what happened Sunday was illegal and people should at
> least be clear about that if nothing else.
> 
> There are some definite problems with analogies being made here...
> 
> 
> Whenever I perform a song at NB (and it has happened something like 5
> times in the past 2+ years) I make a very loud announcement to the
> entire space telling people I'm about to use amplified sound and I
> ask if this will bother anyone. Only after doing this have I
> practiced a song, usually with the support of people there wanting to
> hear what it is. In the past year I have specifically talked with
> Mike Kan as well, because I know he is sensitive to loud sounds. I
> respect this and I side with him on enjoying an overall quiet and
> relaxing workspace. I have never argued with anyone about some
> imaginary right that I have to create noise disturbance in the space.
> 
> 
> 
> The essential difference with this though, is that I am /sober/ when
> doing this, so if someone like Rubin or anyone else needed me to turn
> down the volume or do something to accommodate, I can do that in a
> regular state of mind.  People act very differently when they are
> strung out, and people did act differently on Sunday.  People
> responded to me in a very confrontational and aggressive/mocking way
> which I don't believe would have happened had those people been
> sober. I am actually baffled by the fact that members of NB adamantly
> support illegal drugs in the space. No wonder people were using meth
> in the space last winter. To write this off as accepting NB as an
> anarchist space gives a really bad name to anarchist politics, among
> other things. It also suggests a link between anarchism and illegal
> drug use without any questions what-so-ever, which is also
> disturbing. And this has nothing to do with anyone being better than
> anyone else, it has to do with what kind of a space we want
> Noisebridge to be. At the very least, as people have pointed out,
> this can lead to problems in keeping Noisebridge around. Part of that
> is alienating people that would otherwise enjoy learning about
> hacking and working on projects by having obvious, unavoidable,
> blatat, drug use in the space and making excuses for that to be okay.
>  I am learning that I was very naïve as to what I thought NB is. Many
> collectives and communities are very intentional with creating
> supportive, sober, and safe spaces. This includes anarchist
> communities. Yes, people bring in beer once in a while but when
> people were drinking handles of vodka this was discussed as not being
> excellent behavior. I naively thought the same would apply to doing
> boxes of whippets for hours.
> 
> I am not trying to attack anyone here or judge people's habits. I am
> saying only 1. people act differently when they are high 2. open,
> obvious, illegal activity at NB is not going to help it stay around 
> 3. I personally don't like being around people abusing drugs I wrote
> the first email and attended the meeting last week to find out if NB
> is a safe space for /me/ personally, not to police anyone. From the
> sound of things, I don't think it is and I plan on cleaning out my
> stuff over the next couple weeks. Part of the fault is mine for being
> under the wrong impression of things. Well anyway, thanks at least
> for everyone helping to share their thoughts. I prefer that to just
> ignoring the large elephant in the room. Zach
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________ From: Rubin Abdi
> <rubin at starset.net> To: Susan Werner <heinousbutch at gmail.com>; Zach
> <organic_unity at yahoo.com> Cc:
> noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net Sent: Thursday, October 11,
> 2012 12:48 PM Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] Use of Nitrous Oxide
> in the space on Sunday night
> 
> Susan Werner wrote, On 2012-10-10 14:01:
>> 3. The people using whippits were making noisebridge an actively
>> /hostile/ space for a handful of people.
> 
> Susan: People doing anything in the space will make it actively an 
> unpleasant place for a subsection of people. You framework of
> guidelines could be applied to anything, not just substances
> considered questionable in the state of California. Audio levels,
> cooking, choice of things to teach, the look and cleanliness of the
> space, simply who is in the space, the color of the calls, the
> occupancy level, sleepers, people playing video games, organizes
> commercial sports, anything could drive people away.
> 
> I could make the argument that Zach's choice in lyrical live 
> improvisational music is really disruptive to my ability to work
> there and has cause me to on multiple occasions relocate to other
> parts of the building where I can't hear him, use headphones if I
> have them, or simply leave, which for the most part kills any ability
> to collaborate with anyone else in the space.
> 
> Do I have a problem with Zach or him using a PA system in the space
> to bust flows out like no other? Absolutely not, it's Noisebridge and
> the space isn't mission critical for anyone. We share a very
> experimental and questionable space with a ton of people, and we're
> all into different things and that's ok, Noisebridge harbors all of
> the things. If Zach were to pipe fat rhythms and beats into my skull
> every second of me being present at Noisebridge, then I would talk
> with Zach and figure out a way to coexist where he can do his thing
> and I can do my thing, but that hasn't happened and I'm happy to
> share the space with him.
> 
> On the same round of thinking, Mike Kan hates it when there's loud
> music in the space (specifically I think he hates anything that
> sounds like rap, which some how to him is pretty much all music, but
> that's for an entirely different thread), and when I'm in the space
> and it sounds stagnant, I tend to play music on the speakers we've
> got setup. No matter how soft or loud the music is, if Mike can hear
> it he gets annoyed. I've been a total dick to Mike numerous times by
> either denying that I'm playing the music, or simply turning it back
> up after he requests that I turn it down (we've totally gotten into
> remote volume control wars over the network). And Mike has called me
> out on this shit before. That's great and Mike is totally right for
> doing so! And I've totally respected him in doing so. No frame work
> needed.
> 
> We don't need frameworks or rules, we simply need to remind people
> that calling people out for their shit is an acceptable and totally
> excellent thing to do, but to also remember the space isn't
> specifically tailored for any one person or one grouping of person,
> other than people who self identify as hackers.
> 
> Zach: I think it was great that you called out people on their
> actions making you uncomfortable and it sucks that they weren't as
> receptive to you and your concerns that they could have been.
> 
> As being someone in the space that night, and pretty much scheduling
> the party, I can say that there was a group of folks near the sewing 
> machines being louder than normal. However I personally didn't have
> a problem with their routyness as the space was actively throwing a
> party and there were other areas that people could use just as well
> that weren't as loud. I can also confirm that a brain scanning device
> was used for science and many folks sitting around the table earlier
> in the eve were for the most part working on projects while also
> socializing with the group. I didn't observe any negative behavior
> towards anyone coming from that part of the space (but that isn't to
> say it hadn't happened).
> 
> With all that being said, I think there's a major difference between 
> calling someone out for being loud and disruptive in the space,
> versus questioning the usage of substances in the space (with second
> hand usage aside).
> 
> It's great that some folks on this thread are being receptive to
> Zach's message and I applaud that and would like to see some
> resolution to what sounds like people brushing him off at the party,
> but I'm really not to keen on this discussion deteriorating into some
> new founded necessity to police users of the space with whatever
> projects or experiments they want to conduct on their own bodies.
> 
> Thank you and god bless.
> 
> 
> 
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> mailing list Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net 
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> 


-- 

------------------------
Liz Henry
liz at bookmaniac.org
http://bookmaniac.org

"Without models, it's hard to work; without a context, difficult to
evaluate; without peers, nearly impossible to speak." -- Joanna Russ