@Lee humans are indeed dependent on each other for a certain standard of living, but this does not justify enforced collectivisation. Trade and consenting mutually supporting customs are enough. Remember you can earn protection from your friends by demonstrating virtue and investing in that relationship without trading goods or cash, but you cannot earn protection from strangers in the same way. An individualist society would therefore be warmer and friendlier than the mechanical bureaucracy we have in so many areas of our lives today.

That is demonstrably false! What’s more it’s a poorly worded, pseudo-intellectual falsehood. There IS a direct correlation between socio-economic inequality and crime, an in particular violent crime. If states do nothing to tackle the pay inequality (nominally through taxation) it is inevitable that crime will rise!

Now if you have any ideas how to rectify the extra-ordinary levels of pay inequality in this country (UK) without progressive taxation I’d be more than willing to listen. Note that relying on the free-market is NOT an option, as capitalism does NOT reward intellect and genuine talent as efficiently as it does greed and indifference.

“Examples in support: welfare dependency, gang violence, a majority of inventions coming from other countries, self imposed tax exile, the royal mail.”

Welfare dependency is a result of a flawed system and NOT a flawed ideology. There are a multitude of possible responses to it that fall far short of dismantling the welfare state entirely (for example job guarantee programmes). Also, gang violence is (to some extent) innate to humans and other primates, it’s observed in tribal communities the world over as well as in chimpanzees and gorillas (in the form of gangs of highly aggressive rouge males). In any case, violent crime is demonstrably reduced in communities with reduced inequality, some of the most violent cultures on Earth suffer immense pay inequality and institutionalised polygyny (example: Saudi Arabia). As for your allusion that British innovation is on the floor, I really would like to see your sourced for this; the British research base is widely regarded as one of the best in the world (in-spite of the year-on-year attacks on it’s taxpayer funded budget). Self-imposed tax exile is not mearly a consequence of individuality (there are no doubt plenty of high-rate tax payers who do not avoid their tax obligations), it is also the result of a weak and feeble government unwilling to close tax loopholes and tax havens. And finally, the Royal Mail is failing for the simple reason that its rates are extra-ordinarily low and much of its profitable business has been sold off, leaving an extensive loss leader in letter delivery. Even the lucrative junk mail arm of Royal Mail has been privatised (private companies pocket the profit, yet Royal Mail still delivery the junk mail!).

“I fail to see how collectivists and altruists can fail to recognise this, even at the level of the subconscious, or as some form of cognitive dissonance. They must be evil, or very stupid, I think mostly the latter.”

The issue lies with fundamentalism, and not collectivism. The collective is nothing without the individual, since the individual is the basic unit of the collective. The individual is, likewise, nothing without the collective, as we as human beings are social creatures who rely on collectivization to maintain the apparatus of civilisation. In fact broadly speaking the very basis of civilisation is collectivism; you try living a worthwhile life in a cave 20 miles from civilisation and you’ll quickly discover just how dependent you are on other human beings.

The only intelligent position is a more nuanced combination of the two, it is both libertarian and social, it is libertarian-socialism. You’re more than welcome to denigrate and even abandon the collectivism if that’s what you want, but along with the theorised benefits you’ll have to be burdened with the downsides, and I think you’ll find that the latter greatly outweigh the prior.

I can’t understand how fundamentalist individualists (i.e. advocates of feudalism) and fundamentalist collectivists (totalitarians) don’t understand this. They must, at least at some innate level recognise that they are dependent on a lot of anonymous individuals (farmers, scientists, engineers, doctors, dentists, candle-stick makers, etc…), and that by extension they owe those anonymous individuals a lot in return. They must also understand at an intellectual level that people don’t like being micro-managed, and that the best way to organise society is to enfranchise everybody (and not just the rich and powerful).

The possible appreciation of neighbours is a value to me as are safe paths, but this just tells “them” that “someone” will do “something” and prop up their stupid system. If I’m to play Hank Rearden I’d rather be the one in part three so I ended the little conversation with the council by pointing out that all of Clapham was dangerous and they better get to it!

Interestingly MP’s and Ministers are not subject to surcharge, otherwise Brown would be a bankrupt and potentially serving 999 year in jail.

The fact that insurance companies have cowed, schools, local authorities and scout groups is a national scandal. They have lobbied hard to ensure ‘insurance’ is in place for every conceivable risk including acts of nature by Law, then offer advice that ensures that renders the insurance invalid if you carry out an act that places the insurance company in peril of paying out. This is final nail of lunatic Health & Safety legislation.

Life is a risk, the Community already own the Roads and Pavements, leaving the ‘job’ upto the State means that it will not happen, as the State is nigh on bankrupt. As you say as simple indemnity for clearing any natural hazard, snow, ice, fallen trees, blocked drains and overflowing rivers is what is required.

We have been reduced to children because we constantly wait in fear for permission. I cleared and salted the pavement outside of our property. I have not been arrested, nobody has died, suffered loss or broken limbs. Quite the converse, as soon as I started doing it, the rest of my neighbours did the same, and we were thanked for it.

Taking personal responsibility rather than leaving it to ‘them’, is all that is required. Plus its a damn sight cheaper too.

Freedom is a state of mind.

Its odd that one member was upset that the space was going to be politically neutral – as if that meant she wasn’t welcome to come and do political things – I think that would be crazy and would happily call Russ and Jonty crazy if they went down that road. Paula is right that technology and politics are intertwined and a lot of geeks are very political. I am very political and I have enjoyed immensely talking to people at the hack evenings about political matters.

I do have to insist that my money goes to the creation of an easel, not a canvas. I’ve no problem with the easel being used to support canvases whose content I would not approve of, but a political agenda for the hackspace as a whole is an obstacle for me. I would not be walking away – I’d be running.

Fortunately, my experience hanging out with lefties is that I agree with them 50% of the time and enjoy arguing with them 45% of the time so I foresee having a generally good time with a clear conscience.

As for what is being communicated, I don’t think that there is any doubt as to what monochrom advocated. Take a look at this excerpt:

what is lacking amongst all the practising going on in hackerspaces is a concise theory of what bourgeois society is like and what should be attacked by us building and running open spaces within that society.

The lovely alternative approach we share should be grounded in such a theory, which is to be read: a political agenda that lends some revolutionary glam to what we are doing on a daily basis making technical gadgets

That is what I’d call the hackspace-as-canvas model, where the group as a whole operates politically rather than members of the group being political (hackspace-as-easel).

If you meant to be advocating something different from hackspace-as-canvas, then you need to be a lot clearer about what you mean. Perhaps you could start by describing what it is you think we should be informed and reflective about and who exactly you think needs to do that reflecting?

I’ve been saying this over and over again: if you read the essay, yes, there’s a very obvious leftist style in writing (monochrom are in general quite known for their stance in the political spectrum), but the only thing it tries to convey is the importance of critical and informed reflection, not a political agenda. If it was doing that I wouldn’t be supporting it as I don’t believe in homogeneous groups either.

Your opinion and wishes are all valid and important to the topic, and it would be a pity if you drop out the whole thing without sharing it. By now the controversy over “can we actually talk about this?” has stopped on the hackerspaces.org discuss list, so I’m probably gonna start answering some of the on-topic replies – I don’t think I’ll post about it on the London one again, partially because people need to see how the dynamics of such a space develop in real life. As far as I know, no-one directly involved has been part of a similar undertaking before. And it’s like programming, the imagining of how it’s gonna work is all nice, but the implementation teaches you a lot.

M

As for the bit about the ken of major parties, you may well be right

Secondly, the idea of people being allowed to act in a socially beneficial, rather than in a ‘free market’ fashion, is just outside the ken of the two major parties.