Compost Party

Source: https://compost.party/learn-more/

What is this?

The page you are looking at is served by a Xiaomi Poco F1, logged in to a wifi network that was already there, getting more than enough energy because it found a nice and sunny spot.

The brand and model of the phone are not important, it's just to say: It's a regular and once very common phone, mid- to high range when it came out in 2018. It was widely hailed for its price and performance, and sold more than half a million times in the first few of months after its release. Most likely many of these phones are discarded by now — millions of CPU cores and petabytes of RAM.

compost.party is the result of a decision to not discard it though, to run a full Linux distribution on it instead. And so while the atoms stay the same, if you look attentively you can see this as a site of ongoing reconstruction.

postmarketOS brings organisms doing the busy work prodding at the individual parts, probing them, documenting them, writing drivers, telling others about it, munching away. Producing a soil that is rich enough for phone-like tasks: sending messages, making appointments, and getting your life together.

compost.party takes some bits of that and feeds them to the critters and bacteria around it, its inhabitants and users. Not the dialer user interfaces and calendar apps, but a server to show static websites (including the one you're reading right now), crontabs to starts tasks at regular intervals, code to recycle old posts from the fediverse… a truly universal machine metabolizing and reconfiguring bytes, to be reshaped just as we please.

Call for participation

If you have an idea for something that you'd like to run on compost.party, please write us at yeah@compost.party. No matter your previous experience, we'd love to hear from you and gladly help you set things up.

En savoir plus sur Compost Party

Perma Computing

Permacomputing principles

These design principles have been modeled after those of permaculture.

These are primarily design/practice principles and not philosophical ones, so feel free to disagree with them, refactor them, and (re-)interpret them freely. Permacomputing is not prescriptive, but favours instead situatedness and awareness of the diversity of context. Said differently, its design principles can be as much helpful as a way to guide practice in a specific situation, as it can be used as a device to help surface systemic issues in the relationship between computer technology and ecology.

Also, this is a big work-in-progress :)

Care for life

This is the ethical basis that permacomputing builds on. It refers to the permacultural principles of "care for the earth" and "care for people", but can be thought of as the basic axiom for all choices.

Create low-power systems that strengthens the biosphere and use the wide-area network sparingly. Minimize the use of artificial energy, fossil fuels and mineral resources. Don't create systems that obfuscate waste.

Care for the chips

Production of new computing hardware consumes a lot of energy and resources. Therefore, we need to maximize the lifespans of hardware components – especially microchips, because of their low material ?recyclability.

• Respect the quirks and peculiarities of what already exists and ?repair what can be repaired.
• Create new devices from salvaged components.
• Support local time-sharing within your community in order to avoid buying redundant stuff.
• Push the industry towards Planned longevity.
• Design for disassembly.

Keep it small

Small systems are more likely to have small hardware and energy requirements, as well as high understandability. They are easier to understand, manage, ?refactor and ?repurpose.

• Dependencies (including hardware requirements and whatever external software/libraries the program requires) should also be kept low.
• Avoid pseudosimplicity such as user interfaces that hide their operation from the user.
• Accumulate wisdom and experience rather than codebase.
• Low complexity is beautiful. This is also relevant to e.g. visual media where "high quality" is often thought to stem from high resolutions and large bitrates.
• Human-scale: a reasonable level of complexity for a computing system is that it can be entirely understood by a single person (from the low-level hardware details to the application-level quirks).
• Scalability (upwards) is essential only if there is an actual and justifiable need to scale up; down-scalability may often be more relevant.
• Abundance thinking. If the computing capacity feels too limited for anything, you can rethink it from the point of view of abundance (e.g. by taking yourself fifty years back in time): tens of kilobytes of memory, thousands of operations per second – think about all the possibilities!

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

It is a good practice to keep everything as resilient and collapse-tolerant as possible even if you don't believe in these scenarios.

• While being resilient and building on a solid ground, be open to positive and utopian possibilities. Experiment with new ideas and have grand visions.
• Design for descent.

Keep it flexible

Flexibility means that a system can be used in a vast array of purposes, including ones it was not primarily designed for. Flexibility complements smallness and simplicity. In an ideal and elegant system, the three factors (smallness, simplicity and flexibility) support each other.

If it is possible to imagine all the possible use cases when designing a system, the design may very well be too simple and/or too inflexible. Smallness, simplicity and flexibility are also part of the "small, sharp tools" ideal of the Unix command line. Here the key to flexibility is the ability to creatively combine small tools that do small, individual things.

• Computing technology in general is very flexible because of its programmability. Programming and programmability should be supported and encouraged everywhere, and artificial lock-ins that prevent (re)programming should be broken.
• Design systems you can gradually modify and improve while running them.

Build on a solid ground

It is good to experiment with new ideas, concepts and languages, but depending on them is usually a bad idea. Appreciate mature technologies, clear ideas and well-understood theories when building something that is intended to last.

• Avoid unreliable dependencies, especially as hard (non-optional) dependencies. If you can't avoid them (in case of software), put them available in the same place where you have your program available.
• It is possible to support several target platforms. In case of lasting programs, one of these should be a bedrock platform that does not change and therefore does not cause software rot.
• Don't take anything for granted. Especially don't expect the infrastructure such as the power grid and global networking to continue working indefinitely.
• You may also read this as "grow roots to a solid ground". Learn things that last, enrich your local tradition, know the history of everything.

Amplify awareness

Computers were invented to assist people in their cognitive processes. "Intelligence amplification" was a good goal, but intelligence may also be used narrowly and blindly. It may therefore be a better idea to amplify awareness.

• Awareness means awareness of whatever is concretely going on in the world/environment but also awareness of how things work and how they situate in their contexts (cultural, historical, biological etc).
• You don't need to twiddle with everything in order to understand it. Yin hacking emphasizes observation.
• It may also often be a good idea to amplify the computer's awareness of its physical surroundings with things like sensors.

Expose everything

As an extension of "amplify awareness": Don't hide information!

• Keep everything open, modifiable and flexible.
• Share your source code and design philosophies.
• State visualization: Make the computer visualize/auralize its internal state as well as whatever it knows about the state of its physical environment. Regard this visualization/auralization as a background landscape: facilitate observation but don't steal the attention. Also, don't use too much computing resources for this (updating a full-screen background landscape tens of times per second is a total overkill).

Respond to changes

Computing systems should adapt to the changes in their operating environments (especially in relation to energy and heat). 24/7 availability of all parts of the system should not be required, and neither should a constant operating performance (e.g. networking speed).

• In a long term, software and hardware systems should not get obsoleted by changing needs and conditions. New software can be written even for old computers, old software can be modifed to respond to new needs, and new devices can be built from old components. Avoid both software rot and retrocomputing.

Everything has a place

Be part of your local energy/matter circulations, ecosystems and cultures. Cherish locality, avoid centralization. Strengthen the local roots of the technology you use and create.

While operating locally and at present, be aware of the entire world-wide context your work takes place in. This includes the historical context several decades to the past and the future. Understanding the past(s) is the key for envisioning the possible futures.

• Nothing is "universal". Even computers, "universal calculators" that can be readapted to any task, are full of quirks that stem from the cultures that created them. Don't take them as the only way things can be, or as the most "rational" or "advanced" way.
• Every system, no matter how ubiquitous or "universal" it is, is only a tiny speckle in a huge ocean of possibilities. Try to understand the entire possibility space in addition to the individual speckles you have concrete experience about.
• Appreciate diversity, avoid monoculture. But remember that ?standards also have an important place.
• Strict utilitarianism impoverishes. Uselessness also has an important place, so appreciate it.
• You may also read this principle as: There is a place of everything. Nothing is obsolete or irrelevant. Even if they lose their original meaning, programmable systems may be readapted to new purposes they were not originally designed for. Think about technology as a rhizome rather than a "highway of progress and constant obsolescence".
• There is a place for both slow and fast, both gradual and one-shot processes. Don't look at all things through the same glasses.

Outils numérique

source: https://wildproject.org/livres/plurivers?noimages

tags: ordinateurs, Foxconn, exploitation, dégâts environnementaux

George Caffentzis

Alors que le développement pousse à l’adoption d’outils numériques dans presque toutes les sphères de la vie quotidienne, l’expression « ordinateurs de sang » a été proposée. Celle-ci fait l’analogie avec les « diamants de sang », en raison du nombre croissant de preuves attestant du caractère sanglant de la production d’ordinateurs. Plus spécifiquement, un lien existe entre certaines entreprises du numérique et des milices responsables du déplacement et du meurtre de millions de personnes en République démocratique du Congo. L’expression « ordinateurs de sang » date d’un rapport publié en 2009 par l’ong anglaise Global Witness, intitulé « Faced with a Gun, What Can You Do? » (« Que peux-tu faire sous la menace d’une arme à feu ? »). Ce rapport accusait de grandes entreprises minières, métallurgiques et électroniques de se faire les complices silencieuses des violences infligées par des groupes armés qui opèrent principalement dans les provinces riches en minerais du Nord et du Sud-Kivu, et qui « forcent fréquemment des civils à extraire des minerais, en leur extorquant des taxes et en refusant de les payer » (Dias, 2009). Le coltan est particulièrement préoccupant, étant un minéral indispensable dans la production des smartphones et des ordinateurs portables. L’objectif du rapport de Global Witness, et des autres rapports qui l’ont suivi, était d’alerter les consommateurs et consommatrices et les autorités quant au besoin de contrôles plus stricts sur le processus permettant à de tels minerais d’atteindre le marché international et les acheteurs. À la suite de campagnes organisées en 2010 sous le slogan « No Blood for my Mobile » (« Pas de sang pour mon portable »), le Congrès américain a voté une loi, dite loi Dodd-Frank, qui exige des entreprises plus de transparence sur l’origine de leurs minerais. Il est admis qu’il n’existe pas de téléphone ou d’ordinateur dont la production n’implique pas de zone de conflit, étant donné que les « canaux par lesquels circule le coltan sont […] labyrinthiques et souvent clandestins » (Brophy et de Peuter, 2014 : 63).

Pourtant, les grandes problématiques concernant la place des outils numériques dans la production sociale et les luttes citoyennes restent insuffisamment traitées par les mouvements pour la justice sociale. Bien trop souvent, les technologies numériques font l’objet de louanges sans discernement, en tant qu’outils d’organisation clés permettant de relier des militantes et des militants dispersés aux quatre coins du monde, et en tant que moyens de discussion et de mobilisation rapides et efficaces. Mais leurs coûts écologiques et sociaux ne sont pas ou peu mentionnés. Comme le remarque le théoricien Saral Sarkar dans Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism?, la production d’outils numériques représente un désastre environnemental : « Le fait que les ordinateurs et la majorité des biens électroniques deviennent toujours plus petits constitue aussi un inconvénient pour l’environnement. De tels produits sont hautement complexes et composés d’un mélange de nombreux matériaux. La miniaturisation fait qu’il est de plus en plus difficile et parfois même impossible de séparer ces matériaux, ce qui entrave le recyclage » (Sarkar, 1999 : 128). Il ajoute que l’Allemagne, à elle seule, génère 120 000 tonnes de déchets d’ordinateurs chaque année, qui contiennent tous des substances hautement toxiques.

Un élément central de l’aura idéologique d’autocongratulation émanant de l’industrie numérique est sa supposée « propreté ». Les porte-parole du secteur mettent constamment en avant le contraste entre, d’un côté, leur révolution industrielle de l’information et la dématérialisation, et de l’autre, l’époque sale des moteurs à vapeur et à combustion interne alimentés au charbon et au pétrole. Cette idéologie hérite – malgré lui – du théoricien originel de l’ordinateur, Alan Turing, qui, dans les années 1930, décrivait cette machine en termes purement abstraits. Depuis cette perspective, il a réussi à montrer l’existence de limites internes au pouvoir computationnel, tenant au fait qu’il existe des chiffres qu’aucun ordinateur ne peut calculer. Mais Turing ne se préoccupait aucunement de l’origine des matériaux composant un ordinateur ; du type d’énergie dont il dépend ; ou de la façon de gérer la chaleur résiduelle générée par son fonctionnement. Comme l’a écrit Charles Henry Bennett, « les ordinateurs peuvent être conçus comme des moteurs transformant l’énergie libre en chaleur résiduelle et en travail mathématique » (Gleick, 2011 : 360). Le besoin en énergie libre et son corollaire, la chaleur résiduelle, s’intensifient inévitablement étant donné que l’utilisation des technologies de communication et des technologies informatiques occupe plus que jamais une place centrale dans le cycle de production et de reproduction du système capitaliste.

Le fait que les produits électroniques et numériques soient marqués du sceau de la destruction est également confirmé par les conditions d’exploitations notoires dans lesquelles ils sont 139produits. En Chine continentale, les ouvriers et ouvrières des usines Foxconn – le plus grand producteur mondial d’ordinateurs – ont souvent menacé de se suicider en protestation contre les longues heures de travail et les salaires de famine. Bien sûr, les outils numériques ont aussi été utilisés pour renforcer les luttes politiques à travers le monde (Brophy et de Peuter, 2014 : 66). Néanmoins, les militants et les universitaires devraient éviter de célébrer la numérisation en laissant dans l’ombre les conditions dans lesquelles ces technologies sont produites. Par exemple, il est problématique d’affirmer, comme certains milieux radicaux le font, qu’Internet représente un nouveau type de commun, alors que sa production matérielle repose sur la destruction de nombreux communs naturels, l’expropriation et la contamination toxique de vastes étendues de terres, et le déplacement ou le meurtre de celles et ceux qui y vivaient auparavant.

Ces préoccupations sont d’autant plus importantes que la question de la technologie s’avère fondamentale pour tous les projets de transformation du 21e siècle. Il est crucial de développer une vision globale sur la question des ordinateurs, en interrogeant à la fois leurs conditions de production et les effets associés à leurs usages. Une ligne directrice dans cet effort devrait être la reconnaissance du fait que la technologie capitaliste a été historiquement produite pour contrôler les luttes de la classe ouvrière et détruire les formes d’organisation sur lesquelles se fondent ces résistances. La numérisation ne peut pas être simplement réappropriée et réorientée vers des buts différents.

Pour aller plus loin

• Brophy, Enda et Greig de Peuter (2014), « Labors of Mobility: Communicative Capitalism and the Smartphone Cybertariat », dans Andrew Herman, Jan Hadlaw et Thom Swiss (dir.), Theories of the Mobile Internet: Materialities and Imaginaries, New York : Routledge.
• Dias, Elizabeth (2009), « First Blood Diamonds, Now Blood Computers? », Time, 24 juillet, www.time.com
• Gleick, James (2011), The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, New York : Pantheon Books.
• Sarkar, Saral (1999), Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? A Critical Analysis of Humanity’s Fundamental Choices, Londres : Zed Books.

George Caffentzis est professeur émérite au département de philosophie de l’université du Southern Maine à Portland. Il est l’auteur de In Letters of Blood and Fire:Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism (pm Press, 2013) et de No Blood for Oil! Essays on Energy, Class Struggle, and War 1998-2016 (Autonomedia, 2017).