Permacomputing Principles

you really can't. I mean I get the point that maybe anarchism or feminism are more contingent when it comes to their idea of perma-computing, but you cannot advocate for radical ecology and long-lived computing under the logic of capital.

The entire point of capitalism is to constantly shove new things into your face, that's how you get fast fashion, new phones, more energy consumption, capital reproducing itself. You won't get a computer that runs a thousand years on a solar panel so to speak under the logic of the market economy.

I think intersectionality goes a bit too far sometimes but the degrowth aspect is central to what they're advocating, and there's no degrowth capitalism. See also Kohei Saito's book on the topic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Anthropocene)

There are two parts.

1. Counter-forces overwhelming your efforts meaning you just lose because they overwhelm you (e.g. climate change acceleration)

2. Permanently (nothing in life is permanent but ya know) getting rid of the problem

I think weed trimming is insufficient for both.

What is this a counter to? All of computing, on an industrial scale. You don’t counter that by hobbyist dilly-dallying.

> And that if you get more and more people to help you trim the edges then over time you may establish a new 'edge' so to speak? (read: status quo).

You can establish a new edge. It has happened before. And then counter-forces build back the old bad thing eventually.

Look, what is the point of trimming weeds if you can get rid of them at the root? What is it? So that you can unlock the achievement of maximum participation? The goal is to clean the garden. Not to get every passerby to clumsily help.

> But by telling people that they aren't really welcome to help you trim unless they agree that they must attack the root of the weeds, even tho that's really hard! I think that's the wrong way to think about the idea of environmentalism! We should encourage everyone to do whatever they find intersting and helpful.

Environmentalists (and humanity) are up against possibly civilization-ending climate change. The goal for them at this point is not to start an inclusive social club.

> If the oil exec wants to do river clean-ups every weekend then why even balk at that? It's not black & white, it's great that in this theoretically scenario they want to even do that.

If the food conglomerate executive that issues orders to throw away tons of perfectly good food in order to not devalue their own produce wants to volunteer at the soup kitchen, why even balk at that?

The point is not to balk at that..

> Maybe over time they realize that the river keeps getting dirty because of their business actions, who knows?

Then what happens next?

They order the company to forfeit profit maximization in order to be nice to the river?

Then the executive gets fired and they are truly one of the people again.

Imagine this permaculture computing thing in an alternative reality. Very environmentally friendly—but very narrowly about computers. It has nothing to say about the usual individualistic moralisms, like recycling—and reuse/repurpose/recycle!—, anti-consumerism, not littering. In fact some of the local members are “pigs” and litter the street next to their headquarters. The broad membership are not vegetarian or vegan, not to any larger degree than the general public. They are just very concerned about sustainable computing.

Would this make sense to outsiders? No, I think we are very used to environmentalists caring about all things related to the environment. Sure, some people who care about veganism/vegetarianism (for animal or env. concerns) might say that it’s better if people drop meat some days of the week rather than none of them. That’s a thing. But on the whole I think people don’t balk at environmentalists “aligning” with all environmental causes instead of being inclusive, like: oh sure, you care about sustainable computing but not about sustainable food production, that’s fine. Welcome.

I think this is specifically about having a focused political message. Because having one-hundred litmus tests for individualistic behavior is totally fine... within the political mainstream thought.

We’ll probably find out soon, because even ignoring the environmental concerns there is a limit to how small transistors can get.