Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Permacomputing Principles

permacomputing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 228 posts

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#51

Post by altmanaltman »

zelon88 wrote: post #27

I think an important step is to acknowledge when and where to implement technology in the first place. Arguably the environmental benefit of an American farm replacing a 10 year old tractor with an electric model isn't nearly as good for the environment as a farm in India replacing a 70 year old tractor that leaks gallons of oil per month with a 50 year old tractor that doesn't. Capitalists don't understand how to ap…

70 year old tractors? India is the largest manufacturer of tractors but you think they all use 70 year old tractors like as the standard? I feel like you don't really know what you are talking about or just using examples on the fly to make your point which doesnt make much sense. China and the US are the two biggest polluters in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#52

Post by jl6 »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #46
jl6 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People are generally not "post-Marxist" or "decolonial," concepts/frameworks are. These are just theoretical markers, not something necessarily one identifies with in the way you suggest. And I would be curious to know why you are so certain that none of the "core ideas" of permacomputing have bearing to either of these things, if you believe they are so underdefined. Little bit of kettle logic there, no? This is suc…

When I don’t put salt in my coffee, it’s not because I’m uncurious about what salt is, and nor does it mean I don’t appreciate salt in other contexts. But if a coffee shop only sells salted coffee, the burden is definitely on them to understand why they have so few customers. (And for my part I’ve seen enough shops that claim to be coffee shops but are actually salt shops).

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#53

Post by thrance »

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…

> which in practice is now coded as a "right wing" value.

In practice? You mean, rhetorically, surely? The right wing is doing whatever it can to marginalize and disenfranchise anyone it doesn't like (and that's a lot of people). In the end, do you think marginalized people feel more included in the community in progressive cities or MAGA ones?

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#54

Post by abricq »

While I appreciate all the stuffs mentioned here, I believe they are missing something: people should *go vote at all the elections*, and advocate for a system-level change. Systemic resilience instead of personal habits.

Pretty much all their suggestions are to be applied on personal-level. And I agree with those. But they could be made 100x easier if there was some help provided by localities, municipalities & states. I'd love to know better my neighbors & exchange skills & objects, but i'd be much easier if there was a *free* repair-coffee in the neighborhood.

One example from the article: one of the suggestion for "hope for the best prepare for the worst" is "start a local repair cafe". But come on ! With what money ? With what time ? Where ? Opening a repair café is the kind of stuff is by nature non-profitable, therefore the business of the states.

All i'm trying to say is: let's just not forget that this is a political concern, and we can vote for these stuffs.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#55

Post by Jensson »

thrance wrote: post #53
zozbot234 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> which in practice is now coded as a "right wing" value. In practice? You mean, rhetorically, surely? The right wing is doing whatever it can to marginalize and disenfranchise anyone it doesn't like (and that's a lot of people). In the end, do you think marginalized people feel more included in the community in progressive cities or MAGA ones?

> The right wing is doing whatever it can to marginalize and disenfranchise anyone it doesn't like

No it doesn't, do you mean the American right? There are so many right wing parties in this world, the American right is just a small fraction of them. Maybe we mean the Switzerland right? There aren't many poor people in Switzerland.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#56

Post by thrance »

zozbot234 wrote: post #45
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 relatio…

> 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. The thing about corporations is that they internally run on politics and a fixed hierarchy of command and control. No different than a resolutely "anti-capitalist" government…

> Anyway, the thing about traditional communities, in this context - the ones that "have to be a certain way" because they've been that way for generations - is that they have immense inertia; they create real social ties that can bind people together and make them resilient even in the face of very real, structural, systemic oppression.

I really don't know where you're pulling that from. Jim Crow America wasn't a good time for black people. Women got lobotomy after showing the first signs of depression. Gay people were demonized at every occasion.

A return to this awful social hierarchy is MAGA and the right's ultimate goal, no matter how unrealistic. They're dismantling the Civil Rights act piece by piece, just last week they've been able to gerrymander the black vote away thanks to SCOTUS.

Like it or not, every social progress in this country has come from the left.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#57

Post by anthk »

Less talk about permacomputing and more programming :)

https://t3x.org

    - T3X0 and a lot more languages from there will compile to Unix, DOS and even CP/M. There's a Tetris clone, some shooter, a Ladder clone, some editor...

    - S9 Scheme has Ncurses and sockets support, it can do a lot, basically all the exercises from Computer Abstractions. If you are good enough at Scheme you might do SICP by reusing the graphics.scm code for (frame)

    - Klong it's an APL/K like language but without odd symbols. It comes with a greats book on statistics.

    - MLite it's a great ML/Haskell-like intro

    - NHM Basic it's more like a toy Basic but it can do a lot with a bit of effort
https://luxferre.top

    - The repos from this guy have nice games such as Scoundrel (portable to subc with a bit
of effort) and vm's like mu808, and Scoundrel can be adapted to S9, T3X0, MLite, NMH Basic on hours.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#58

Post by zozbot234 »

thrance wrote: post #53
zozbot234 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> which in practice is now coded as a "right wing" value. In practice? You mean, rhetorically, surely? The right wing is doing whatever it can to marginalize and disenfranchise anyone it doesn't like (and that's a lot of people). In the end, do you think marginalized people feel more included in the community in progressive cities or MAGA ones?

MAGA is structurally a lot closer to a radical political movement than to right wing politics in the traditional sense (which, to be fair, is mostly dead in the U.S. and that's a huge problem that the left also has a lot to answer for). I don't know how you can possibly read my comment as advocating for MAGA, especially the varieties of it that are most overtly and blatantly hateful towards marginalized groups.

Re: Permacomputing Principles

#60

Post by hyperjeff »

lynx97 wrote: post #10
jochem9 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One does not rule out the other. In the end it's nerds messing with hardware. Lots of computer culture is rooted in anarchism, anti-capitalism and a fight for fairness. E.g. early internet culture, the open source community. Imo it's very nice to see explicit anti-capitalist movements within tech, because the other side of tech is so completely over the top capitalist.

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.

clearly not a reader of Mondo 2000 back in the day. i do miss real hacker culture.
Post reply on HN