[Noisebridge-discuss] [lol-hackers] medium article on tech and barriers to entry

Tue Jan 27 14:46:25 UTC 2015

Well, the question for those who provide the technical foundations for
communication infrastructure that, so far,
is used to build organizations that are highly exclusionary (i.e.,
have a lot of toll booths to make access to means of production)
is how to make dual use of the technology produced (not only to enable
everybody, but to put fences and toll booths around the enabling
technology)
systematically impossible, and to prevent a "lucky few" from selling
out collaborative efforts to toll booth owners.

Once that is solved, the technology isn't that hard ... but as long as
enough bright folks are lured by the improbable prospect of hittihg it
big by selling their startup, solutions to  artificial entry barriers
aren't going to happen.

Working on it ...

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 3:14 AM, Praveen Sinha <dmhomee at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://open-oakland.cartodb.com/viz/1d8f9768-d7b9-11e3-b620-0e73339ffa50/public_map?title=true&description=true&search=false&shareable=true&cartodb_logo=true&layer_selector=false&legends=true&scrollwheel=true&fullscreen=true&sublayer_options=1&sql=&sw_lat=37.655014078010716&sw_lon=-122.55455017089844&ne_lat=37.91224232115994&ne_lon=-121.67564392089844
>
> Look at this map that same person just sent me of broadband penetration in
> the east bay!  It's shameful!
>
> You know what's in the those areas?  xfinity wifi.  Fuck those people.  You
> want to talk about white supremacy and wholesale wealth transfer start there
> - they got clearance to run detroit and sf and oakland.    Their data rates
> is literally like what it is to make a phone call to jail/prison.  I'm not
> even kidding.  This reminds me of where I came from in New Mexico where the
> corporations would cut corrupt contracts and vendor lock the whole goddamn
> population into eternal poverty.
>
> Listen, I've been in around all the hackerspaces for the past 5 years and
> interviewed folks at noisebridge, at sudo, lol, and I've worked with kiddos
> from the schools.  Forget about some kids in bushwick -- this story is *our*
> story.  It's the elderly grandma hackers living on fixed income and
> marginalized and has to spend 2 hours on the bus to get to noisebridge, it's
> the transitional hacker who is learning tech skills but is bouncing from
> place to place but is hustling and is making it through the omni and
> learning to code off of stolen laptops, it's the young brother and sister
> who has undocumented parents and no internet at home but is a brilliant at
> 3d crafting and has to sneak play time at libraries.   I'm not making this
> shit up, you all know these folks up close and personally, I just removed
> their names.  The saviorism comes in when the article portrays that kid
> trying to learn how to code as an exceptional person -- I know from
> experience that the kid not an exception, he is the rule.
>
> Shit is not going to change on the federal level or state level.  We need a
> uprising in oakland.  And we have to bring it.  I watched these muni wifi
> deals collapse and eventually devolve into cronyism.  Libby Schaff is going
> to take our money and spend it on surveillance and busted ass savior
> programs and condos for folks who run companies like xfinity.  We can have
> municipal wifi that works for everyone -- wouldn't it be nice to have data
> that our old folks could access???
>
> I don't have all the answers, but collective we do, and we have to find ways
> to warehouse and make memes and lift awareness and boycott do this for the
> public interest in a radical way.   We have to make sure the CIO and CTO
> under Ed Lee and Libby are either doing the people's work or driven the fuck
> out of office.
>
> The same shit goes for vendor lock with libraries -- I've been talking to
> all of you all. We have a lot of work to do!!!
>
> Fuck incarceral poverty.  All of us are colonized, even those of us with
> shiny startup jobs.    Let's make 2015 the year of go big or go home.
>
> .......
>
> I know this is a bit of a rant, but I need to get it out there and the
> coffee is going through my veins today.
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:22 PM, Adria Richards
> <adria.richards at butyoureagirl.com> wrote:
>>
>> Agree that the "White Savior Complex" and paternalistic allyism can be
>> harmful in not building skills, a sense of empowerment and to trust your
>> gut.
>>
>>
>> On Monday, January 26, 2015, Praveen Sinha <dmhomee at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Also, I just wanted to say specifically that I do find saviorism
>>> problematic.  That said, I've noticed that network access is critical for
>>> all sorts of folks that come in to our hackerspaces for a lot of reasons.  I
>>> sincerely believe that connectivity is a human right as fundamental as
>>> water, and we have companies like xfinity that have captured what should be
>>> a public good D-:  I'd really like a broader conversation in our grassroots
>>> communities to shape bay area policy.
>>>
>>> Additionally, someone sent me this link to groups like this in Detroit
>>> http://detroitdjc.org/?page_id=9  We are deluged with tech here in the bay
>>> area, but our visions for access have yet to be defined often times...
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 8:19 PM, Praveen Sinha <dmhomee at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://medium.com/@GRardB/techs-high-barrier-to-entry-for-the-underprivileged-da254356547d
>>>>
>>>> There's some problematic stuff with the article, but I think it does a
>>>> good job in highlighting broadband/wireless disparities and the critical
>>>> role that open wifi and projects like mesh could do to pick up the slack
>>>> where the municipal governments are totally failing...
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Thanks,
>> Adria
>
>
>
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