Makers

Much of the post-election analysis has focused on strategic fixes–what should have been done. But what can Trump’s win tell us about more fundamental theories of politics? In what way does the failure of an alliance based on labor, environmentalists and civil rights activists give us clues about our basic social power concepts?

Those three categories are fairly clear voting blocks (consider, for example, the very different constituencies that the AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, and Black Lives Matter represent), but they are also broad theory categories. Marxist theory predicts that working class voters will struggle to find a way to understand and represent their interests; environmentalists interrogate Western views of “dominion over nature”; and race theorists confront the structures of white supremacy. None of these theoretical projects occurred in a vacuum and there has been lots of good intersectional work across all three. But when it comes to praxis, history has lots of examples where these movements were pitted against each other or were incompatible from the start. Think of the 1930s labor strikes when black scabs were brought in to break all-white unions; the 1970s white activists who abandoned civil rights to start “Earth First”; and the 1980s loggers who found themselves pitted against the spotted owl. more...

Chris Anderson’s Makers: The New Industrial Revolution reveals its productivist bias in both its title and subtitle. Makers is, of course, a term that is synonymous with producers. The Industrial Revolutions- both the “first” (the factories of the 1850s), and the “second” (the assembly-line of the early 20^th century)- form the backdrop for, and inform, Anderson’s analysis. They represented the height of production and to this day are the source of our lingering bias toward seeing the world through the lens of production. As the title makes clear, Anderson foresees, and is a cheerleader for, a new Industrial Revolution, a revolution in (personal) production based on the computer, the Internet, and especially new technologies such as the desktop CAD, the laser cutter and the 3-D printer (which squirts liquids such as plastic rather than ink). These technologies will allow us (in collaboration with others in open-source online communities) to make more things from the bottom up by ourselves, or in shared maker-spaces, than relying on large-scale organizations to produce them for us. I think Anderson is on to something important here and we will see a dramatic shift away from enormous organizations devoted to production and toward small, even one-person, arrangements capable of producing a wide range of things on their own. more...

In case you’ve missed it, the latest internet phenomena (and weekend entertainment) in L.A. has been “Caine’s Arcade,” a delightful project created by 9 year old Caine Monroy and documented by filmmaker Nirvan Mullick. Caine built an arcade for himself out of the cardboard boxes in his dad’s auto parts shop. Unfortunately, he didn’t have many customers,

(Film “Caine’s Arcade” © 2012 Caine’s Arcade/Nivan Mullick)

but after Nirvan organized a smartmob using the Hidden LA Facebook page and Reddit, Caine now has lots of customers. The coverage for Caine’s Arcade has been phenomenal. News sites and websites have all lauded his arcade. Caine was invited to bring his arcade to MakerFaire™ at the Exploratorium (Makers are individuals who create) for their Make day for trash. Caine was invited to visit the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) to learn about rockets. Caine’s Arcade has gone on the road to participate in Art celebrations around L.A., and Caine recently received the Latino Spirit Award. These have all great opportunities for what seems to be a nice young man with a curious mind. It’s great that people have reached out to offer him opportunities to learn and grow. Many have donated to a scholarship fund for Caine and a foundation has been established to help other young makers. The Goldhirsch foundation will match dollar-for-dollar donations contributed to Caine up to $250K. more...