Appropriate Technology, Permacomputing, Post Growth, and Ecomodernism.

To adapt to the changing climate, we need to radically rethink how and why we do the things we do. From technology, to social movements, to economics. The world is at stake. And we can change it.

I often post about projects that use high-tech gadgets, equipment, and methods but I at the same time remain fiercely critical of them. Their methods of production are unsustainable, destructive, and require massive amounts of exploitation. This is all for a reason: profit.

What if we looked at technology from a different view, and fundamentally changed our relations to tech and computers at large? What if instead of doing what is cheaper to maximize profit, we focused on making and remaking things that had the smallest amount of ecological impact with the largest positive social benefit?

I use high-tech things because I have them, and find them, I recycle and upcycle them, revive them, and remix them. While also not seeking out high-tech solutions where they don’t belong, or going out to buy something to solve a nonexistent issue.

The world is full of one-sized-fits-all “solutions” pushed down on people who know what the problem is and how to address it and don’t need tyrants to force them to do things in a certain way. That’s the way of colonization - “I think I know better than you savages, so just follow what I have to say”. Nah, fuck that.

Just like the people who do the work know the most about how the work gets done, the people who are in specific circumstances know the solutions that will work for them.

Technology alone will not save us

There’s a pervasive idea that comes in tech spaces that the issues of our time are purely technological without ever understanding that our social and political systems directly impact how and why technology is made. The foundations of technology are determined by the social conditions that surround it. If the technology for global communication is surrounded by socioeconomic systems that value profit over everything else, continuous economic growth (when I say this I mean abstract economics like GDP which don’t measure anything really of value to humans and the ecology), and values closed source/intellectual gatekeeping - you get tech sectors that look like the one we live in now. On the flip side to that, that same technology can exist in a radically equitable world that values more than profit, values the open sharing of free information using that same global communications network - you start to see the difference. The world around us shapes our systems, and the mechanisms of those systems (the technologies we use to make daily life happen) are impacted by these systems.

The ecomodernist take is that we can tech our way out of climate collapse. That we can innovate our way out of social and economic destruction. That all we need is a magical new climate capture system (possibly funded by the corporations direct responsible for the climate crisis) to save the day and reverse it all. All we need is a new digital currency to fund monocropped tree farms that plant invasive non-native trees in disaster-prone environments while wasting energy and computing power that just off sets the carbon emissions. It’s the idea that we can have infinite and exponential economic growth forever, keeping the capitalist machine running along - just as long as it’s powered by solar panels and off shore wind (Not that I’m against it). It’s green in the sense of using renewable energy to keep doing unsustainable shit. It’s “green” but there isn’t a second thought put into why we use specific materials in renewable energy production. It’s the idea that we wait for some genius to invent our way out of the end.

Appropriate technology, permacomputing, and a post-growth future

The key thing is that we have to radically rethink how we design, manufacture, use, maintain, repair, and reuse technology - and where and why we use it to be determined by local cultural and ecological needs. We need to look at the reality of a petrochemical centered manufacturing world, and ask “What are some other ways that we can produce things, with as little impact to the environment as possible?”. Instead of mining new aluminum for solar panels, can we find ways to extract the metals from other sources, reuse or recycle the already existing materials in the world? Right now it isn’t done because it isn’t profitable. But in a world where profits don’t mean shit, impact to us and the ecosystem does, we can actually do things that are worthwhile. What if we can take plastic trash, and rework it to replace metals that require extractive processes?

Bioplastics made from algae

Or create the things we need out of biological materials, bioplastics that actually breakdown in the environment and don’t stick around for hundreds of years, make clothes from plants and die them with other plants.

An array of corn husks as a beautiful crown. Courtesy of @thelastfarm on twitter.

Appropriate technology harnesses technology from across the spectrum, from passive to low tech, to DIY steps to high tech worlds, it’s an idea that things don’t have to be cut and dry - silicon valley designed - petrochemical dependent, and can incorporate both ancient and modern techniques. It might come in the form of reviving ancient farming techniques such as the waru waru, an ancient planting technique that takes advantage of flooding rains by trapping water and creating natural rainwater harvesting channels. Some places might upcycle old computers destined for the landfill and put them to use running climate models and taking weather data to share to an open collective of DIY climate scientists. That is a core essence of permacomputing.

Permacomputing is a more sustainable approach to computer and network technology inspired by permaculture. Permacomputing is both a concept and a community of practice oriented around issues of resilience and regenerativity in digital technology.

In a time where computing epitomizes industrial waste, permacomputing encourages a more sustainable approach, maximizing hardware lifespans, minimizing energy use and focussing on the use of already available computational resources. We do this because humans are part of nature and technology is an extension of humans, and we acknowledge that technology has been used to harm nature. We want to find out how we can practice good relations with the Earth by learning from ecological systems to leverage and re-center existing technologies and practices. We are also interested in investigating what a permacomputing way of life could be, and what sort of transformative computational culture and aesthetics it could bring forward.

https://permacomputing.net/

The waru waru system of planting

Instead of creating waste, we learn from one of the best teachers, mother earth - that everything is reused endlessly. Our systems can change to match the natural flow of creation and decay that doesn’t destroy our planet or ourselves. It’s a way of interacting with how we live our lives at a fundamental level.

Let me be clear, this can’t be done just by consuming differently on an individual level. What we are talking about is a revolution of the masses, to overthrow the systems of domination and exploitation, to give power back to the people and to the planet. To fundamentally change our economics, our manufacturing, our technology our waste cycles, our social systems to adapt to a wildly changing world.

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If you liked this article, this is just the spark of a larger work that I want to do, that focuses on the practical aspects of how to make this stuff happen. I want to create a series of zines, a podcast, and possibly long-form videos to talk about these topics, and how they intersect together at length. Stay tuned!