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Did we read the same article? I think Shirky is saying that "Maker culture" in the US (and Canada, etc) is dominated by people doing stuff mostly in their spar
by zamfi 12y ago
Did we read the same article?
I think Shirky is saying that "Maker culture" in the US (and Canada, etc) is dominated by people doing stuff mostly in their spare time, being self-congratulating, and looking up to the occasional person able to make a career from "Making". In contract, he says, to China, where this activity does exist but is dwarfed by the actual people who Make Stuff who are far more competent than the typical "Maker culture" hobbyist, and they generally do make a living off it.
> The Maker community in China is MASSIVE.
This is exactly what Shirky is saying -- in some sense he's lambasting "Maker culture" as being the bullshit self-congratulation, and he's saying that in China there are real people making real things, that they are actually making much more stuff by comparison to the "Makers" that make up "Maker culture" in the US, etc.
That's my read, anyway!
- ewzimm 12y agoYou're right, but you're not going far enough. He says Chinese makers have been doing it so long it no longer resembles what Americans would recognize as such. American Makers generally don't strip junkyards for raw materials to manufacture into screws. He's saying the American Maker movement is an infant version of what the Chinese are doing, and that the only way to really comprehend how different they are is to develop an appreciation of the craft traditions in America that have been passed down, mostly by women, for generations. He's saying the Craft spinoff of Maker failed because it was like a baby trying to lead a mother.
- icebraining 12y agoAmerican Makers generally don't strip junkyards for raw materials to manufacture into screws. My first thought was, "of course not, because Chinese companies sell screws for a lower price than it would cost to travel to the junkyard". At least, it makes sense to me that a glut of cheap stuff would eliminate any practical motivation for "making", leaving only the people who 'make' for pleasure. A second thought was, "what junkyards?" I'm not an American, I'm European, but as far as I know there's no such thing here, at least of electronics. Everything must be recycled or at least processed by licensed organizations, there are no accessible deposits of that stuff, as far as I know.
- MaulingMonkey 12y agoI haven't heard of an electronics junkyard either (I'm american), but I can think of a close equivalent which might count - RePC. They're a state approved electronics recycling center (I've taken CRTs I no longer wanted down there), but they also keep bins and asiles of old / used hard drives, cables, etc. in stock. Very retro - it wasn't that long ago I went down there to pick up a replacement 80x25 monochrome tty terminal for an aging point of sales system, not much younger than I am.
- ewzimm 12y agoI wasn't really talking about electronics junkyard. Screws are generally made out of metal. But the reason electronics junkyards don't exist in most places in America or Europe is because almost everything gets sent to China. There are some pretty big piles there. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1870485,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1870485...