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Permacomputing Principles

permacomputing.net

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Re: Permacomputing Principles

#31

Post by tolerance »

stackghost wrote: post #23
jl6 wrote: post #21

There’s a lot to love about more mindful and resilient and ecological use of computing, but I wish they would build a consensus around that instead of bolting on extra politics. It’s a symptom of polarization… you can’t have independent causes, they have to align to a bunch of other causes too, each one taking a slice off your support base until you’re left with the tiny, powerless intersection that already agrees wi…

Consider that the venn diagram of "people likely to be negatively impacted by climate change" and "people who belong to historically marginized or discriminated groups" has a lot of overlap. It's little wonder to me why permacomputing, having its roots in environmentalism, attracts people who spend a lot of time and energy on social justice causes. But still: It's okay to enjoy the mindful and resilient and ecologica…

I think the issue being highlighted here is how polarizing causes are advanced and detract from a reasonable one that is supposed to be the pith of an organization.

> It's okay to enjoy the mindful and resilient and ecological aspects and not enjoy some other aspect.

I don't object to this in the most general sense. But I also think that a little tact can go a long way from the organization's side to anticipate where the public can't exercise it on their own.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#32

Post by zozbot234 »

stackghost wrote: post #23
jl6 wrote: post #21

There’s a lot to love about more mindful and resilient and ecological use of computing, but I wish they would build a consensus around that instead of bolting on extra politics. It’s a symptom of polarization… you can’t have independent causes, they have to align to a bunch of other causes too, each one taking a slice off your support base until you’re left with the tiny, powerless intersection that already agrees wi…

Consider that the venn diagram of "people likely to be negatively impacted by climate change" and "people who belong to historically marginized or discriminated groups" has a lot of overlap. It's little wonder to me why permacomputing, having its roots in environmentalism, attracts people who spend a lot of time and energy on social justice causes. But still: It's okay to enjoy the mindful and resilient and ecologica…

There's strong first-principles reasons to think that left-wing radical politics does a significant disservice to historically marginalized or discriminated groups. Historically the proper and most effective response to maginalization and discrimination was developing strong, enduring social ties (arguably, these social ties are what defines a "group" to begin with, especially on very long-run, even generational timescales), which in practice is now coded as a "right wing" value.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#33

Post by colechristensen »

tolerance wrote: post #19
lynx97 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anti-capitalism, while a bit strange a lable, is something I can sympathize with. But once we are talking anarchism and (intersectional) feminism in a computing context, I am definitely out. I miss the time when computing was a lot less political. It was nice hacking on projects without having to identify with something totally unrelated, or being forced to support idiologies just to be a part of it.

> I miss the time when computing was a lot less political. Whether such a time ever existed is debatable. Here's a test. Define the period that you're imagining. Then investigate this period as a point in the history of computing with its broader sociopolitical contexts. Somewhere in the midst of that milieu I reckon or the politics you're likely to be fond to mix with your tech projects.

Most "conservative" opinions are basically "I miss when I was young and wasn't aware of all of the stuff happening around me and want modern reality to be like my incorrect perception of how things were in my youth"

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#34

Post by boudin »

colechristensen wrote: post #30
boudin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web originally was way closer to anarchism and I really miss that. It was a cluster of self-organising communities, little to no intervention from the state, a lot was not profit driven. Same with IRC.

The web was invented at CERN and spread through universities and got taken up by nerds. It could not possibly have been more state sponsored.

And the Internet was state sponsored too, at the time though it was not even legal to create communication networks in a lot of countries. But that's the premises

But what it gave birth to was a form of anarchy. One doesn't go against the other, the same way a political regime can change within a country.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#35

Post by jl6 »

stackghost wrote: post #23
jl6 wrote: post #21

There’s a lot to love about more mindful and resilient and ecological use of computing, but I wish they would build a consensus around that instead of bolting on extra politics. It’s a symptom of polarization… you can’t have independent causes, they have to align to a bunch of other causes too, each one taking a slice off your support base until you’re left with the tiny, powerless intersection that already agrees wi…

Consider that the venn diagram of "people likely to be negatively impacted by climate change" and "people who belong to historically marginized or discriminated groups" has a lot of overlap. It's little wonder to me why permacomputing, having its roots in environmentalism, attracts people who spend a lot of time and energy on social justice causes. But still: It's okay to enjoy the mindful and resilient and ecologica…

Taking some parts and leaving others is exactly how intersectionalism should work: at an individual level. You throw your lot in with the orgs and movements you like, and leave or oppose the ones you don’t. The intersection is within you.

Unfortunately the fashion is now for orgs and movements to declare their own intersections, which does nothing to further the core issues, while actively repelling those outside the intersection (which, by the time you’ve intersected a bunch of different things, is nearly everyone).

There is nothing inherently “post-Marxist” or “decolonial” about the core ideas here (scare quotes because these are extra-unhelpfully underdefined terms). Framing the project this way just signals that non-post-Marxists (etc.) will not be welcome, which makes it quite hard to enjoy the good bits for people who have been pre-declared to be the enemy.

Successful orgs are laser-focused on their core purpose.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#36

Post by tolerance »

colechristensen wrote: post #33
tolerance wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I miss the time when computing was a lot less political. Whether such a time ever existed is debatable. Here's a test. Define the period that you're imagining. Then investigate this period as a point in the history of computing with its broader sociopolitical contexts. Somewhere in the midst of that milieu I reckon or the politics you're likely to be fond to mix with your tech projects.

Most "conservative" opinions are basically "I miss when I was young and wasn't aware of all of the stuff happening around me and want modern reality to be like my incorrect perception of how things were in my youth"

That was the direction I was going to head in first before I was less confident in my assumption of the parent commenter's age based on their username.

It's a good direction to take and adds in the possibility, for example, that one may investigate the past and find themselves unintentionally and retroactively complicit in everything between the atomic bomb to US intervention in Libya.

And now I'm curious about the likelihood of a youth who will know no age better than our present, in the future.

You might like this thread from earlier this year:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46505934

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#38

Post by rapnie »

colechristensen wrote: post #33
tolerance wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I miss the time when computing was a lot less political. Whether such a time ever existed is debatable. Here's a test. Define the period that you're imagining. Then investigate this period as a point in the history of computing with its broader sociopolitical contexts. Somewhere in the midst of that milieu I reckon or the politics you're likely to be fond to mix with your tech projects.

Most "conservative" opinions are basically "I miss when I was young and wasn't aware of all of the stuff happening around me and want modern reality to be like my incorrect perception of how things were in my youth"

Yes, that is a more honest assessment than longing for the time "when computing was much less political". It simply wasn't, and not recognizing that leads directly to the mess we have today and onwards towards bleak future.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#39

Post by wizzwizz4 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #32
stackghost wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that the venn diagram of "people likely to be negatively impacted by climate change" and "people who belong to historically marginized or discriminated groups" has a lot of overlap. It's little wonder to me why permacomputing, having its roots in environmentalism, attracts people who spend a lot of time and energy on social justice causes. But still: It's okay to enjoy the mindful and resilient and ecologica…

There's strong first-principles reasons to think that left-wing radical politics does a significant disservice to historically marginalized or discriminated groups. Historically the proper and most effective response to maginalization and discrimination was developing strong, enduring social ties (arguably, these social ties are what defines a "group" to begin with, especially on very long-run, even generational time…

It is? The left-wing radicals I'm aware of are all very big on community. My understanding of the corresponding "right-wing" value is that community should be a certain way (with the radical right-wing value being that it must be a certain way, for various incompatible versions of "right way"). The radical left-wing response would be an insistence on the validity of other forms of community (notably including relationship anarchy: polycules, queer-platonic relationships, etc), the promotion of community organising (such as unions, food distribution networks, mutual aid networks, communes), and so on – which I can understand might appear to be an opposition to "community", if your understanding of "community" is narrowly-defined (e.g. as referring to the traditional practices of your cultural group), but the radical left-wingers certainly don't think they're opposing community.

If you're thinking of corporate activisty types, the sort of people who promote hamfisted "everyone with light skin has internalised racism" mandatory training, then I'd wager the "corporate" part has something to do with what you've observed. I would certainly call such people "aspiring-radical", and I might even call them tepidly left-wing (especially with respect to the US's Overton window), but I think "left-wing radical" might be a misnomer, since the radicality is unrelated to the left-wing nature. There are strong first-principles reasons to expect that this politics does a significant disservice to members of the groups it's nominally attempting to help (and that's before you factor in the backlash we're currently seeing).

But I've never found the "left-wing" / "right-wing" dichotomy to be helpful for anything other than identifying The Enemy™ (which I consider a generally counterproductive activity), so take what I say here with a pinch of salt.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#40

Post by ktallett »

This is where EU policy is helping. Permacomputing only works when we have a significant number of devices that are easily usable beyond a usual lifespan. Whether the whole device is repair able or at least the key aspects such as battery to keep a working phone working, is essential. Although it's really only the first step of many. The next obvious one is to remove lockdown of bootloaders and firmware on devices and allow any software to be installed. Google are going the wrong way.

We are so far beyond needing regular purchasing of new devices. Functionality wise, in any significant form, devices haven't improved in many years. This yearly release cycle has become ludicrous and goes against everything we should be doing.

Fairphone, Framework, MNT, Shift, are all on the right track even if not perfect.

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