[liberationtech] Call for Participants @ Noisy Square - Putting the Resistance back in OHM

[Douwe Schmidt]

Hey All,

Thank you for your valuable and insightful input into this ongoing discussion. As part of the organization of the Noisy Square (N2) I follow it with great interest. With the N2 we will try to facilitate part of it at OHM2013. 

I thought it to be a good idea to explain a little bit on where the N2 comes from.
When we where confronted with these arguments (and many more) some months ago we found we have three options regarding the OHM festival:

1) Don't go.
2) Build a shadow festival at the same time where these issues don't play (or at least try to mitigate them) (and probably have only the incrowd there)
3) Go to OHM and bring our best arguments, knowledge and values to the table.

It is clear what we chose.
Next to that we thought that we can go as individuals and wait for OHM to make room for this discussion on the official program. Or we dedicate a Village to it facilitating these and other discussions 24/7. That is the main reason d'être for the N2.

We started of with a tiny tent but good so much great feedback from the community that we had to expand. Now we'll have a giant 200 person tent hosting more then 15 different NGO's, companies and an yet unknown amount of volunteers. These groups and individuals come from a wide background and I can by no means talk for all of them or their motivations. But that OHM will be a place where many people will meet and that it is a good place to discuss the Politics of our Society in general and Politics of the Net in particular seems a common denominator. It is by no means the only, maybe not even the best, place to do this. But it is the biggest gathering of hackers in The Netherlands with over 3.000 people attending, happens only once every four years and has a great legacy to build upon. And maybe even to defend.

I don't believe my arguments will win anyone over to either side to the debate, but I do believe we need everyones arguments to make this a good and diverse debate. And in the end there is much more to talk about than the decisions and explanations made by a handful of OHM organizers. There are even much more people to talk to then OHM organizers, Officers, Foxes or ourselves. Let's say there will be around 2.500 that might want to learn about these and many other discussions. Do we let them learn the ropes from the Foxes? Or are we gonna but some weight in the balance as well?

Please help us to put the Resistance Back in OHM

Douwe Schmidt
Organizer at the Noisy Square and employee at Greenhost
https://ohm2013.org/wiki/Village:Noisy_Square

ps. we are still working on a multi-quadrocopter-powered air bridge to bring people into the village without touching OHM-ground. You will then be in a radically democratic and borderless territory free from oppression and surveillance. It must be said that this might be a one-way-ticket, aka the Ecuadorian-lock-in.