[Noisebridge-discuss] Cooking in the space, update

[Adrian Chadd]

On 3 April 2014 13:58, Praveen Sinha <dmhomee at gmail.com> wrote:
> <RANT>
> I got a couple of emails off-list questioning my judgment on this, so I
> thought I would follow up with some other thoughts I had...
>
> The other night, I was walking back from consensus in the cold downpouring
> rain.  I could see my breath and I was soaked.  I know for east coasters,
> this mild california weather is nothing, but the fact is, SF get's COLD.  It
> was COLD and WET.  I saw at least one person huddling in a corner trying to
> stay dry.  I looked at him and remembered the times when I was that cold and
> hungry and alone -- I was miserable, it was the worst lonliest feeling in
> the world, and the only thing I wanted was to be in a warm place.
>
> About a year and half ago I saw an email to nb-discuss from a young woman
> who had come to SF recently and had no place to go for the night, and she
> was escorted out in the middle of the night after being woken up from her
> sleep.  She related that she was terrified of being out in the streets alone
> at night in the mission.  I'll happily take the flak from many noisebridgers
> to help someone stay warm on a cold rainy night.  To me, being human is
> about finding ways to bend the rules and share resources for human benefit.
>
> You all are right, NB is not a homeless shelter.  I don't have all the
> answers.  Maybe all of you are totally in the right that we should be
> locking down.  We aren't equipped for it.  I'm not even necessarily arguing
> on these points.  What I am saying is that people at noisebridge are PEOPLE.
> Everyone has feelings, everyone has needs, everyone needs to be approach
> with, as James Sundquist just said - with dignity and conversation and
> benefit of the doubt, and not dehumanized and stereotyped.  WHAT WOULD MR
> ROGERS DO.
>
> Or more importantly, how do we give everyone SLACK,

Well, it's not necessarily about giving those who need some slack said
slack. It's more about how do you engage everyone else in the space to
actively participate at the level required to give people this kind of
slack.

>From what I saw last year and the year before, the problem was people
not feeling engaged. They'd just hack on their projects and turn a
blind eye to anything else going on that wasn't immediately affecting
them.

I think that is the problem that underpins a lot of the "problems"
that hackerspaces like Noisebridge sees. The "someone else will deal
with it", "it doesn't affect me so why should I get involved", etc
problem.

Note: this isn't limited to hackerspaces. This kind of problem appears
at all levels of society. There's lots of writings on how you get a
local community re-engaged with each other rather than just simply
siloing themselves into their houses and blaming the social problems
on everyone else.


-a