I have always cared about hacking

Monika Bielskyte spoke about it at Oredev 20243. Utopia and Dystopia are not opposites. They are sides of the same coin. This was my experience of San Francisco. The business-friendly area I spent the most time in was mostly polished and futuristic, papering over the quirky, aged foundations of the city. Self-driving cars cruising around while people hustle. Two blocks down the number of homeless double. Everyone is concerned about the Tenderloin and the fentanyl zombies that apparently inhabit it.

A city I know for hippies, hackers and humanity is now mostly about noun.ai the new startup to AI your .. something and despairing misery. At least that dichotomy dominated the place I spent the most time. Then I wanted to see Noisebridge.

Visiting the Mission was a bit jarring after having settled into the sense of what little I'd seen of the city. It was exactly what I wanted to see. A place full of character. People. Activity. Someone stuck a protest flyer in my hand the moment I stepped up the stairs from the BART. Certainly a lot of homeless, a lot more of the misery and suffering. But also a lot of life.

I never idolized a Bill Gates, a Steve Jobs. I didn't care about industry. I still don't really. By hackers I don't mean the business grind of Indie Hacking or the startup hustle. I know idols are a poor investment but if I idolized anyone it was hackers. Bold explorers steeped in counter-culture, resistance and intense curiosity. Whether open source software developers, aka. hackers, or people who poked and prodded at the edge of any IT system, also hackers. The vision of SF is not about the startups and the moonshot ventures for me. The startups that matter are a vehicle for people building cool shit. Most are not.

Noisebridge is a hacker space. It popped up on my radar via Cory Doctorow who I believe references it in a few different books, one in the Little Brother series particularly. This is why I know about a hacker space a 12 hour flight away. It is not the birthplace of silicon or anything. But it is a hacker space that has operated for about 17 years now and most spaces like this that are founded don't continue. I wanted to see it. I wanted to run into random-ass unknown hackers that gave a shit.

And I did. I was welcomed, got a lovely introduction by an ex-AI-startup employee who really knew his way around electronics. A wild guy with laser cutter know-how was making a weed-inspired stencil merging Elon Musk and a bee. I shoulder-surfed some folks planning out a custom electronics board and ended up hearing about limitations in the Meshtastic network. I saw protest-fliers against AI and big tech while others discussed projects using AI.

Shelves of resources and useful junk everywhere. A generative mess full of potential. 3D printing, machine shop, laser cutter, textiles room, electronics room. Wheelchair accessible, anything that needs to be intact bearing a note saying DO NOT HACK. Anything else basically up for grabs.

None of the people I spoke to are famous. I met a wild variety of peers. And I left vibrating with the potential. I wish I had a space like that. I hope I can contribute to one existing one day. I fear people coming up in tech today don't know what hacking or a hacker can truly be.

The weird and wonderful San Francisco remains under the disappointing one, bearing the weight of the failures of the modern world. I'm glad I got to see more of it than just burgeoning dystopia. I wish I could explore it more but I doubt I'll be going to the US for a while.

I'd love to hear you reflections. You can get to me on the Fediverse where I'm @lawik@fosstodon.org or by responding to this email to lars@underjord.io.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.

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