Notes of DARPA panel

gistfile1.txt

Hope 9 panel: DARPA Funding for Hackers: A Good Thing? (July 15, 2012, 14:00)

Tweet me at @mcantelon if anything in these notes is wrong. These notes are paraphrased, not verbatim.
Don't flame people based on these notes. ;)

Pics from panel: http://imgur.com/a/DOK3S

-Mitch Altman moderating: not participating in Maker Faire this year because MAKE received a DARPA award
 for education (https://plus.google.com/102168405388745526392/posts/8Kg6dMUrX6x)
-Panel includes Mitch Altman, Psytek, Willow Brugh, Matt Joyce, Flacre O'Duinn
-DARPA has $3.2B budget
-Make getting $10M grant for putting hacker spaces in 1000 high schools
-Willow: military is everywhere, I'm on the fence about this
-Psytek: on the fence about DARPA funding, Alpha Labs taking DARPA money... the environment influences,
 the question is how will DARPA money influence?
-Willow: someone from DoD said to me sometimes one of the worst thing that happens is getting funded
-Matt: On the negative, if you take money from DARPA you are a secondary supporter of the military... on
 the positive side, education really needs maker influence
-Flacre: 1000 hackerspaces means big PR, but military recruitment is a problem even though DARPA doesn't
 directly recruit... Army recruiters are being encouraged to use stem programs like the MAKE initiative as
 a way to access students
-Willow: Recruiters are already everywhere.
-Flacre: DARPA-funded hackspaces make a mental connection in people's minds with the military. This is
 great PR for the military. I was told by a recruiter that stem programs are a great way to recruit.
 Recruiting materials say to get them as young as possible: 17 years old is too late.
-Matt: Corporate sponsorship is common. Hackerspaces are small communities and will naturally reflect the
 greater society.
-Willow: It's a necessity to have hackerspaces for education. I'd prefer it if it wasn't the military. 
-Flacre: There are less and less neutral spaces in North America. Mil-funded hackerspaces will likely lead
 to mil-run hackerspaces. DARPA design challenges are related to military proglems: drones, etc. and the
 DARPA-funded hackerspaces are open ended but may become more targeted if mil influence is leveraged.
-Psytek: Every contract is different. One part of our contract is we won't collect any names of participants
 because of recruiting concern.
-Matt: Laws around recruiting in schools will protect participants of DARPA-funded hackerspaces.
-Willow: We should learn military-related technologies to know the technology. Introducing kids to robot building won't help the military. Military gets shit done: we need more rigor, documentation. We could
 learn from that.
-Matt: From a military standpoint, you have to obey chain of command. There's a suspension of morality.
 This may be difficult to disassociaton with any mil-funded programs.
-Willow: Chains of commands are being eroded, getting more horizontal. 
-Mitch: One thing great about maker culture is it's not about the money. Money could change our culture. 
-Matt: DARPA grant has big benefit outside of the $10M. The real benefits are in future relations with funding institutions.
-Willow: Funding a hackerspace is really stressful. Our space had noone with deep pockets who could help
 if we ran into shortfalls. If we all put more money into hackerspaces things like the DARPA grants would
 be less alluring.
-Flacre: $10M isn't much money and O'Reilly didn't need to go to DARPA for it.
-Matt: MAKE is in the business of helping the community at large and they, beyond the money, think a relationship with DARPA will increase legitimacy of hackerspace movement.
-Mitch: I'm worried that funding will lead to people doing things specifically with the aim of attracting funding.
-Psytek: This DARPA money will likely influence work done in funded spaces.
-Willow: I've been poor for most of my life because noone could pay me enough to not do what I love. Other
 people won't/can't do that.
-Flacre: Funding means you have to answer to different people and putting funding considerations before the
 interests of patrons.
-Willow: It's best for your community space to be self-funded so you get to serve patrons.
-Flacre: Hackerspaces should look to libraries for how to handle issues such as funding neutrality.
-Psytek: Want to see hackerspaces focused on innovation, not defense.

(Question time... .big lineup forms quickly... laughter at the swarm.)

Responses to a questioner:
Matt: You have to have a fundamental faith in humanity to be an engineer or you're going to end up like the
 Unabomber.
Willow: Technology extends human capability. Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right, including language.
Flacre: The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

Questioner says an funding source can be a problem.
Psytek: Crowdsourcing is an alternative.

Questioner thinks that hackers should get involve with MAKE/DARPA program so we can make sure recruiters don't show up.
-Matt: Silence is consent. 
-Willow: One reason we're having this debate is that so much other sources of money from government have
 been stripped away. Hacker movement needs to pay more attention to general politics.

Questioner says this is better way for mil to use money than weapons, etc.
-Matt: I'd love to see a soldier building a house than killing.
-Willow: I agree, but also agree that funding from mil helps legitimize mil.

Questions says that hackerspaces teach tech but not critical thinking.
-Willow: Even putting shop classes back in schools won't solve our education problem. The education system
 is as broken as the military system.
-Psytek: We should teach critical thinking.
-Willow: Can't bring up critical thinking in Texas education because it might challenge parents' belief
 systems.