Less gloomy, so I've altered the subject line.
Pete wrote:
This led me to reflect on another recent item I'd read of in the
community paper of my suburb, involving local retirees living in
downsized digs. These guys had formed a club, and rented a
warehouse space, where they assembled a richly appointed workshop,
perhaps furnished in part with equipment donated from former home
workshops, where they could freely putter in all the sorts of
things that they would have been doing in basement workshops in
the houses they had left - woodworking, metal working, machining,
and whatnot. The group had a large and enthusiastic membership,
and if I recall it correctly, they only made the news as their
warehouse space was being sold out from under them, and they were
seeking a new home. The point I'm making with this is that these
guys are happiest when they are doing something. It doesn't have
to be art, it can be a craft that wouldn't be regarded as at all
"artsy", say using their skills just to do renovations and repairs
for friends and relatives, but being free to do whatever they
want, they will collaborate to do this sort of stuff rather than
sit around and watch tv.
This is great stuff. Teenagers and 20-somethings (and some others)
are doing something like this with "makerspace" and "cowork".
http://queenstreetcommons.org/
http://www.assentworks.ca/
Or google "makerspace" to see variety of approaches to the idea.
There is this differnce, though, in the context. Retired guys tend to
have at least minimal support from pensions and may have substantial
savings or disposable income. They have experience in dealing with
such matters as renting a warehouse. Any particular congeries of them
is likely to have the experience and the basic skills of getting along
with coworkers.
Great! Lets do that.
Wait. We have to form a registered entity of some kind to rent the
warehouse. Then we have to have liability insurance lest someone gets
injured, goes ape and wants to sue everybody else, the moreso if one
guy rents the warehouse in his own name and wants to avoid liability
risk.
What about zoning? Is our club an "industry" in a "commercial" zone?
No? Well, that milling machine that Fred lucked onto for scrap price
needs 3-phase wiring. A 3-phase entry costs a pile and maybe we'll
suddenly become "industrial" if we have 3-phase. What about fire
insurance? Maybe the landlord insures the building but what about
Fred's mill, harvey's pile of rosewood planks and Alice's
irreplaceable violin maker's tools? Do we need to get a licensed
electrician to wire the lighting and the table saw lest the building
inspector shut us down? What if the health and safety guy come
around? Will we have to intall an approved fume hood for Marvin's gun
bluing rig? Will the fire department shut us down if we don't have
pricey dust collectors on the wood working gear? The propane guys
won't deliver fuel for the little propane forge unless it's officially
approved by standards authorities in *this* jurisdiction and the
plumbing installed by a licensed gas fitter. (And they might shop us to
the fire marshall if they catch on that we're using 20# or 40# tanks
from the barecue or Winebago stored indoors.)
It's pretty easy to collect up some computers and printers, some
tables and chairs, knock together a heavy workbench. So computer stuff
-- robotics, Arduino projects, programming, designing, media -- can be
done pretty easily. As soon as you get ambitious about *making stuff*,
all kinds of barriers pop up, the same kind that are barriers to entry
for small business.
So here we are, back at the Blade Runner (or cyberpunk) scenario.
There are so many barriers to doing practically anything constructive
(unless you have substantial resources -- time, money and skill in
coping with regulation) that the obvious way to implement this is to
live and work in a squat, in the black economy, in a slum where the
cops don't go for anything less that a homocide, totally ignoring
regulatory demands.
Jeez, here I am gloomy again. Well, nevertheless, I have hopes for
the makerspace movement. I'm just projecting onto it the kinds of
problems that blacksmiths and sculptors have when they collect up some
gear, get a ton of coal and then try go about their work as if it were
still 1910.
- Mike
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