But still: It's okay to enjoy the mindful and resilient and ecological aspects and not enjoy some other aspect.
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.
This is such a genre of comment on here when you can Ctrl-F 'Marx' on the content, and it just really comes off uncurious and reflexive every time. Like, why is the burden on the authors and not you to sort through the things you care about and don't? Why is it not an opportunity to learn? Do you even care to know where they could possibly be coming from? If there is ever some kind of overlap between something you can get behind and something for whatever reason you feel is bad or "underdefined," doesn't that stir even a bit of curiosity, a chance to learn? Even if it's just sharpening what you already know?
You don't have to end up agreeing with it, but to frame all this as advice on how to "be a successful org" is just not great here imo.
> Whether you are a tech specialist, someone who uses a computer for daily tasks, or deals with technology only occasion, there are steps that you or the group you are involved in can take to reduce the environmental and socio-economic impact of your digital activities.
Sounds great to me, but then they have these:
> To mitigate this situation, this principle calls us to step outside the capitalist model of perpetual consumption and growth.
> The history of computing is deeply intertwined with capitalism and militarism. From playing a role in warfare and geopolitical power struggles to driving the automation of labor, computing has significantly contributed to the increased use of resources and fossil energy. The latest example of this trend is the construction of hyperscale data centers for running generative AI. Despite the promise of increased efficiency, the Jevons Paradox applies: higher efficiency tends to lead to greater resource use. Efficiency is often presented as a technical solution to a political decisions about how and why we use computing —without questioning the extractive business model.
The authors here (fairly or not) signal their in/out group preference. And the implication is that "those not willing or unable to step outside the capitalist model are not able to sufficiently apply the principle to affect change in the way we are wanting."
They're smuggling in an omission of technologists who recognize the benefits of a capitalist system compared to a collectivist one. It reads like they are trying to be careful, but still end up significantly limiting their potential audience.
People with strong capitalist beliefs may be willing to volunteer their time at a repair cafe or in taking other action to incrementally move their communities in the direction they're advocating for. But it seems to me like they would not even want those people to be a part of their movement. If I recognize the historical injustices that marginalized groups have faced but I still believe that a capitalist system is generally preferable to a collectivist one, would I be supported by this movement? I think that I doubt it.
EDIT: I missed on this on their homepage:
> With that said, permacomputing is an anti-capitalist political project. It is driven by several strands of anarchism, decoloniality, intersectional feminism, post-marxism, degrowth, ecologism.
> Permacomputing is also a utopian ideal...
Utopian? No thanks. I expected this to be a technological movement first with politics snuck in, but it sounds like it is the opposite.
Then you are naive. Everything that is concerned with how people organize themselves, where and how they allocate resources, how they are supposed to make decisions, what values they should uphold etc. is politics.
The goal of my comments on this site is to learn more by engaging with others who may know more than me. Here I tried to point out ways in which the movement may be alienating itself it by excluding capitalists. If it makes me naive to not realize that was its core purpose, so be it
If you just want "MacBook with socketed RAM" there's already other people doing that. You don't need this to be that.
In fact, leaded gas and CFC elimination in communist regimes happened exactly the same way (via regulation/treaties).
Regulations are universally needed to account for negative externalities-- just look at soviet superfund site equivalents (like lake Karachay) and tell me with a straight face that communist administration solves those problems by itself "without dragging anyone kicking and screaming".
It seems like this site had a “neoliberal” wiki entry but it got removed, or I at least I can’t access it, I would be interested to see it
The “Just Stop Oil” people are a great example of this. There’s a lot of headwind behind green energy and moving away from oil, but the activists suck all that air out of the room with destructive stunts and focus the story on themselves.
Like them or not, Just Stop Oil is very good at making headlines and stirring up controversy, which is their goal. If you go into a party with a megaphone and shout about beavers, everyone will eventually be talking and thinking about beavers. Conservatives use this strategy to manufacture controversies like "critical race theory" all the time. As a radical group, simply being in the headlines benefits them.
Note that I said blocking traffic at random. Targeted roadblocks are actually effective (such as in the ICE protests/interventions) and were also used to great effect by Canadian truckers. (Speaking of the Canadian truckers, maybe you noticed how the useless and constant honking was the thing that turned the public against them.)
This idea that attention alone, even negative attention, is enough is one of the worst mistakes of modern activists, particularly on the left, and it’s completely derailed their effectiveness in many cases.
And I gotta say, its just so telling that we jump here so naturally to a metaphor of an enterprising business and its customers. Like could there be anything that exists in the world where you are not a patron whose tastes must be catered to? Not everything you have a strong opinion on needs to be socketed into the genre of Google review.
It isn't a one-way street. The authors have already, in fact, sorted through what they think a reader/participant does and does not care about.
> Why is it not an opportunity to learn? Do you even care to know where they could possibly be coming from? If there is ever some kind of overlap between something you can get behind and something for whatever reason you feel is bad or "underdefined," doesn't that stir even a bit of curiosity, a chance to learn? Even if it's just sharpening what you already know?
This doesn't read like a fair assessment of the negative responses that this page is receiving, at least it doesn't in this case. Or you're missing the entire point.
Not everyone disagrees with things out of ignorance. They may have done their due diligence to investigate what the concepts and frameworks at play are about. Assuming otherwise is a good way to ensure that what you agree with is impervious to debate save for what can be held among "fellow travelers".
The author's of this page are being very direct with their orientation and intentions here. I think even to the extent that their language is "underdefined" there is enough space for someone to reliably speculate about what the substance behind it entails and then come to an educated conclusion about whether they find those things objectionable—in spite of the existence of some principles that they agree with. The degree to which they find the objectionable to affect the unobjectionable can also lead a person to make a conclusion about the organization's viability.
You don't have to concede to these objections, but to frame all this as advice on how not to disagree obviates justifiable dissent.
Please, dissent away! I have only seen dismissal so far.
permacomputing.net doesn't achieve this. Again, communication isn't a one-way street.
The polarity that the upfront inclusion of their politics is obvious in the discussion here. People are either keying in on that or talking about permacomputing in general and indifferent to the group's stated politics. Are the people engaging in the former wrong for that? Tangentially, are the latter critically engaging with the subject in every aspect presented?
Is there anything provided by the website that explicitly piques their curiosity in the way that you encourage? Did the author(s) even care enough to externally link to pages that they are confident would explain what those frameworks mean in such a way that a skeptical visitor may be persuaded to figure out their relevance to permacomputing in general? If not to be entirely persuaded, but at least exit with a more cogent grasp of their own perspective on the practice?
I do like the point that you're making, I just think there's a shared responsibility in this dynamic that should be addressed. Not everyone went to a liberal arts school with a rigorous critical theory curriculum.
If your [their] politics are so important to permacomputing—something that any kind of "nerd" ought to be able to participate in—then you [they] should be able to explain why that is the case. Explain why as effortlessly as said politics are introduced and as fluently as they disappear from the foreground in deference to a rhetoric that positions them as a reliable source about the subject.
Feigning confusion in opposition to a thing that may be valid isn't any less vain than feigning shock that valid opposition exists. Insularity begets them both.
I guess I would say, I'm not sure what the basis of your critique is. I guess if you want to sit back and watch a more centrist permacomputing organization push those values without you doing anything, that doesn't seem like a fair ask. If you do want to do something, you could probably make your own website/etc. "Please tailor your activism to my aesthetics/politics" is kinda self-centered.
The pro-life movement is older than the Reagan era courting on Christians to grow the Republican base. So it was not a Christian base that caused a shift, it was the other way around.
This is silly - people are pro life all over the world. E.g. this guy in the UK[0].
When we showed up with the anti-abortion message at first we failed. The evangelicals who had attended our seminars by tens of thousands when we were launching the first series just were not interested in the abortion issue. At first we were looking at empty seats in places like the Grand Ole Opry we’d filled a few years before.
It took a lot of hard work to change that apathy on the “issue.” And oddly what in the end gave the series credibility were the Republican political leaders who saw the chance to cash in on the issue. The fact they began to pay attention to Dad and me got evangelical leader’s juices flowing: They coveted our new access to power!
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2014/07/the-act...
I think that is capitalist ideology (“make number go up”), not a fact for a non-capitalist definition of “success”. So, you just might not be part of the audience they care about.
Personally, I think there is a certain divide between capitalist and collectivist mindsets that cannot be bridged easily. In the end, it is either-or. In the end, one will win, and the other will lose. That does not mean either mindset is unable to acknowledge and incorporate methods and practices from the other, but it does mean that, in the end, you have to decide what to do when those values clash.
If putting up a some kind of flag or another is gonna keep people who would otherwise interfere with my core purpose from showing up, that might be the most expedient option for getting shit done. It's like: I'm not religious, but I'll wear a cross if it keeps the vampires at bay.
Never heard of permacomputing until right now. Super intrigued, very interested in the topic... Saw that whole line of "anti-capitalist, post-marxist, etc." and just got turned off, man. I don't even disagree with any of the principles of those intersections I just don't want to join a movement that labels itself that way.
I've definitely been a part of orgs, in my case working with homeless folks, where people vaguely want to help but become hindrances when the struggle tries to actually start to address core issues like police abusing homeless folks instead of just being a food distro where they can get their pic taken and feel like they did something.
> more sustainable society and thoughtful use of electronics
This is where I feel there is a difference and disagree with their overt statement of ideologies as the core of the movement. Any environmentalist worth their salt should celebrate any action or idea that just generally supports getting more people to care about, get involved with, or want to protect the environment -- regardless of their age, sex, background, whatever. See: national parks.
And then in the sense of sustainable use of electronics. Who is more sustainable in this sense than the old white dude who runs the computer repair shop or the indian dude running the phone repair place? If I'm on board with permacomputer, I want to look at these guys as the experts in long-lasting & recylable use of electronics... but what's the overlap between those guys and intersectional feminism, ya know?
> Maybe that's by design?
hey man, if they just want a group built around their values to make friends and take on the machine that's fine. who am I to say they shouldn't? anyone should gather with who they please. It's just a shame to turn people off from a movement by defining such a narrow intersection of beliefs, as the OP comment here says. I also would argue that it doesn't have to be strictly *anti-*capitalist as much as pro-socialist/communist/whateveridk.
What do you think?
The drawback with a big tent is that small subgroups inside that tent may have their concerns ignored. For instance, black women in early feminist movements were treated poorly, but what were they going to do? Start a schism? That'd be a setback for everyone.
Intersectionality is a second-order tool that protects the interests of smaller sub-groups within a big tent. You're wrong to assume that everyone outside the intersection is "actively repelled." When an environmentalist group says they're anticolonial, feminist, BLM, etc., environmentalists are typically fine with it. Sure, it does turn some people off, but that's a feature, not bug. If your group gets co-opted by people who reject some of these values, it makes it difficult to work together with groups that do focus on issues affecting indigenous people, women, etc.
> 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.
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.
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 office! You can think of this as an 'anarchist' observation if you want, but it's just a fact of life. So when we see corporate activism come up with such hamfisted ideas that we wouldn't see in less "activist" corporations, this has to tell us something about the merit of the underlying politics.
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 don't see "polycules" as achieving that in the near term, even though that kind of fluid free association is undeniably the very earliest step towards what I'm thinking about.
A traditional community is not going to just dissolve when the going get tough, or when interpersonal conflicts arise (and such conflicts are inevitable in large-enough groups!): they uniquely encourage people who might otherwise dislike each other to cooperate for collective benefit. There is great value in that, which is not often acknowledged.
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.
Many of these things were actively advocated for by the Progressive movement, back in the early 20th c. (Lobotomies came a few decades later, but were ultimately rooted in the exact same ideas about the primacy of 'science!' and trusted institutions over people's lived experience and the deep reality of enduring traditional values.) Studying that history in depth is an excellent way to disabuse oneself of the naïve notion that Progressives are inherently the good guys.
This is like when laypeople say "economics is all hogwash because humans aren't rational actors": They are citing behavioural economics as if it disqualifies the field of economics rather than being part of the field.
Yeah, the early 20th Century American Progressive movement has no connection to the late 20th-early 21st century American progressive movement, the latter of which adopted “progressive” not in reference to the earlier movement but in reference to "progress” in contrast to what its members perceived to be increasing static defense of a corporate capitalist status quo by other elements of the American liberal movement from which it emerged. It is a essentially a social democratic movement, which is about as far from the early 20th century movement's technocratic elitism as you can get.
Yet they are unable to build or keep one, due to the need to track all signs of thought heresy.
The same statement holds for left-wing radicals: they insist that their community should be a certain way (with the radical left-wing value being that it must be a certain way, for various incompatible versions of "right way").
Maybe the difference is not left versus right, but "my community" (trying to recruit people into your imagined better society) versus "the community" (acknowledging that we all live in the same world, and meeting people where they are)? Or maybe it's just that the people doing the actual boots-on-the-ground work tend to care more about doing the actual work than about fracturing over ideological disagreements. ("Leftist infighting" long predates the internet, after all: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/165.)
Both for left-wing and right-wing people, it's about who is in-group vs out-group [1]. The only difference is by which values, psychometric and socioeconomic traits, ... left-wing vs right-wing people decide who belongs to their respective in-group vs out-group.
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?
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.
It's funny you mention Switzerland, surely you must have seen their far right's party compaign posters? The ones with the sheeps or rotting apples? How is that not marginalization and stigmatization?
I don't know how "radical" you can call it since it was popular enough to get the White House and most of congress. Twice.
I really don't see what in right-wing ideology has ever served the cause of minorities and marginalized groups, even before MAGA.
The same holds for the left wing.