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Democratizing the Maker Movement
aarondubrow writes: To its advocates and participants, the Maker Movement resonates with those characteristics that we believe makes America great: independence and ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness. But as impressive as today's tools are, they're not accessible to many Americans simply because of their cost and high technological barrier to entry. An article in the Huffington Post describes efforts supported by the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies to create new tools, technologies and approaches to make the Maker movement more inclusive and democratic.
Just because we've renamed DIY to maker we have to re-engineer its socioeconomic parameters? I am so wanting to yell get off my lawn right now. millennials need a good swift kick in the face.
All technologies are specialized at first and then spread out - whether it's printing or optical lenses or steam engines or whatever. It's good to speed up the process but the DIY maker movement has decentralized and come down in price remarkably fast. The technological barrier is one of knowledge - something that _mainly_ (not only) requires desire to learn.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The first thing you can do is stop using the cringe inducing term "maker" and trying to make it into a way of life instead of something you just do.
All it has done is make a new line of trendy hipsters calling themselves "makers" who buy kits to make an LED blink for $10.99.
Not to mention "Maker Faire" is trademarked and if you want to hold one you need to apply for a license and pay royalties to Maker Media, Inc.
It's less about learning and more about an untapped cash cow.
That happened a few years ago. Of course, this begs the question "why?".
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
>> What does that mean?
Somebody at the federal level is about to take your money (paid as taxes) and spend it on a program that will probably dole out grants to organizations that say they're working on maker spaces and need tools.
>> Making X affordable and accessible to Y is not a bad idea. ...and that's how we got the national debt.
It would be well to realize that most tools and accessories are merely commercial versions of devices that were originally made by hand with limited equipment.
-- Gingery, David J (2012-05-14). The Metal Shaper (Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap) (Kindle Locations 146-147). David J. Gingery Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.
I haven't built anything yet, but have read the books and they are very interesting. Completely agree with DIY being renamed. I used to build things with my dad all the time growing up and particularly remember building a shopvac out of a 5gallon paint can.
The Maker movement is awesome. and is a lot like shop class from back in the day, but with a lot more access to tools and retention of fingers. It needs some sort of small grant or funding initiative to get these things off the ground.
I just joined one still getting off the ground in the Everett-Lynnwood area (North of Seattle). Lots of potential, suffering from lack of funding. We get funds, we get tools. We get tools, we get more members.We get more members, we get more funds.
But just starting out... that lack of funds is a killer. We have multiple 3d printers, a laser cutter, and an electronics parts bin the size of a walk in closet, but its hard to find a big enough place to PUT it all, who won't mind us using a laser cutter on pleather or 3d printing vinyl, or using some louder equipment to cut and drill some t- slots
Its happening... but slower than any of us really want. and none of the places we have looked at for a permanent home are really big enough yet.
The maker movement desperately needs federal government support.
That's the only way women and minorities will get access to makerspaces and creative tools.
Why, women make up half of all people, and the fact that they're under-represented in hackerspace memberships is clear evidence of pervasive prejudice and the "rape culture".
Just as there are few women coders, there are also few women hackers.
We only need to consider scientific research to see how this would work: before federal involvement, scientific inquiry was haphazard, capricious, and discretionary. Nowadays we have an organized inquiry into the frontiers of science at every direction of inquiry - eliminating duplication of effort, guiding lines of inquiry for best results, and generally eliminating risk.
This same model could bring the maker movement into the 21st century, bestowing the benefits of government bureaucracy on hackers across the country!
Sixty dollar do it yourself printer
http://www.instructables.com/i...
Free open source software to make it work
http://3dprintingforbeginners....
How much more democratic does it have to be ?
A guy who lived me built a working race car engine out of scrap metal with a lathe and a bridgeport mill. They're on ebay too and is one of the last machines I need to complete my own personal machine shop for under $10k. With a machine shop, you can build literally anything (provided you know how. And that's a software problem)
https://www.youtube.com/result...
- It's the white person's fault
- Men in tech hate women and keep them out in a variety of ways
- Men in general are evil unless they are gay or black and get shot by a white cop
- Anything a white person has ever succeeded at is largely due to their privilege
- Black people are held back by every force conceived by University Professors who study these things
- Christian's are horrible yet Muslims are just mischaracterized
- If you don't want unlimited immigration then you must be xenophobic and racist
I probably missed a few but that's the gist of it.
That's the two main problems right there. A lot of people can't afford "a few thousand dollars" to buy tools. And a lot of people living in towns and cities live in apartments: they don't have the space and they can't run most tools because of the noise and dust generated by them.
The Maker Movement is really just another Hater Movement practicing The Politics of Exclusion. Maker Privilege must be Checked and Confronted wherever it may try to hide -- even in the deep subconscious of Haters -- as yet another Badge of Slavery.
How can we remedy this attempt to revive the antebellum South in a new and insidious guise?
Are we to wait decades upon decades for True Equality to triumph as it hasn't yet in the area of Racial Equality?
NO!
Slavery must be met with slavery!
Haters should be forced to Make whatever people who aren't want.
Only then can we achieve Social Justice In Our Time.
Seastead this.