[Noisebridge-discuss] Anarchist? Libertarian?

[Johny Radio]

Hi Danny

In respect, gratitude, and good faith:

On 7/31/2013 9:50 AM, Danny O'Brien wrote:
> "There are lots of fascinating challenges to running a hackerspace 
> using the purest anarchist collective principles...."
>
> I wrote that. It's a joke. The idea that we use "purest anarchist 
> collective principles" is obviously a joke, because we don't.

then the word "purest" must be the joke, because, as your quoted essay 
points out, NB is, in some ways, allied with anarchist movements, and 
does contain some anarchistic elements (eg., consenso and 
leaderlessness). Unless your whole entire essay was also a joke. 
Regardless, Noisebridge still contains those anarchistic elements.

> The other piece you pointed to is titled "Is Noisebridge an Anarchist 
> Hackerspace"[1] and unless the entire article (which Tony asked me, 
> under that title, to write) is just "yes", your assertion that I think 
> that Noisebridge is an anarchist organization is unlikely to be the case.

I did not say that you "think that Noisebridge is an anarchist 
organization". In that essay, you do describe NB as leaning toward some 
anarchist principles, and the essay did not appear to be one big joke 
(tho' strewn with your always lovable humour).

> The piece I wrote debates the point at length,  (and isn't even a 
> position that I share any more, clearly, because these days I'm a 
> Stalinist. No, wait, I'm still a Carsonite Mutualist. Or a Macleodian 
> Fourth Internationalist)

Yes, your piece debates it at length, and concludes, by my reading, 
somewhere on the left side of the dial.

> people who are hung up on terminology aren't really that interesting 
> to spend time with.

To be clear, I am not hung up on terminology, I'm simply observing what 
appears to be an undercurrent in NB history and operations.

(ot: However, there is one label which is extremely important to me 
regarding Noisebridge, which is "hackerspace". I gather that some 
members are not concerned with that label. Sometimes I explain, 
outraged, that NB should conform to a collectively articulated idea of a 
"hackerspace".)

> One of the reasons why I stress that Noisebridge isn't an anarchist 
> space now...

(you mean noisebridge now? or you mean you're explaining now?)

> ...is because people are explaining, outraged, that it should conform 
> to their idea of an anarchist space, and that is the dumbest argument 
> ever.

i was not aware anyone was doing that. Can you point to an example? Why 
is it dumb? I'm certainly not arguing that Noisebridge should be 
Anarchist, but i'm interested to hear why you feel it's dumb.

Personally, i think reevaluating NB's anarchistic tendencies might not 
be the dumbest argument ever.

> Noisebridge is just noisebridge.

I agree. If one needs a single label to paste onto Noisebridge, 
"Noisebridge" is probably best. Personally, i would like to be able to 
say "Noisebridge is a hackerspace", and have that actually mean 
something other than a space oftentimes dominated by people who are 
neither learning, nor teaching, nor making anything.

> As I've argued endlessly before, Consensus is as much plundered from 
> the processes of the IETF than it is from Foods not Bombs. Maybe I 
> should have spelled that out more in that article, but I only had four 
> pages.

I missed the occasions when you argued that point. The zipzine pages 
seem a bit out of order, or missing some sections, and also i'm 
semi-literate, but i did not see any mention of IETF. In any case, IETF 
says they operate on:

    "rough consensus", meaning that a very large majority of those who
    care must agree. The exact method of determining rough consensus
    varies from Working Group to Working Group.
    http://www.ietf.org/tao.html


I may be wrong, but i think Noisebridge consensus is more similar to 
pure consensus-- NB does not practice "rough" consensus.

> PS please fix your mail client so you don't break threading

Apologies. For my convenience, I do my list reading on the archive page. 
When i reply, it's by way of copy-and-paste, hoping my subject line will 
suffice for people to understand the related thread (some people use 
email clients which do not display threading anyway). Is there a way I 
can adhere to threading while not subscribing to all emails?

If necessary, for your convenience, I will switch to full email mode, 
which will just give me some additional housecleaning chores of 
periodically deleting the accumulated discuss emails. Thank goodness for 
gmail's giant storage.

> [1] And if you're going to selectively quote it, you can just quote 
> the whole damn thing, so that people don't have to back-derive what I 
> thought I was saying.

i quoted selectively, because i did not consider it polite to post a 
4-page essay to Discuss. I expect motivated parties can make the effort 
to click the link i provided. And because i had to type out each word-- 
the copy of zipzine i had access to does not have copyable text-- it's a 
jpg.

Best Regards,

Johny Radio


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