What might degrowth computing look like?
- Author: Author: Neil
- Full Title: What might degrowth computing look like?
- Type: #snippet✂️
- Document Tags: #tech
- URL: https://criticaledtech.com/2022/04/08/what-might-degrowth-computing-look-like/
Highlights
- One area of interest involves what has been labelled ‘Collapse Informatics’. This explores ‘preparedness’ approaches to computing – i.e. building systems in the abundant present that might later prove durable during subsequent times of scarcity. Allied to this is the notion of ‘Permacomputing’, advocating the application of permaculture principles to the digital domain. Here, interests centre on developing ways in which computing can be sustained through practices of re-use, repair, maintenance and non-waste. Crucially, permacomputing stresses the need to develop digital technologies that are drastically less reliant on artificial energy, and designed in ways that acknowledge their interdependence with natural systems. (View Highlight)
- ‘Computing Within Limits’ (CWL) community of academics, software developers and activists. CWL sets out to reimagine the development of digital technology through principles of constraint and restraint. This stresses the need to develop forms of computing that fit with rapidly changing real-world environmental limits (Pargman & Wallsten 2017), therefore rejecting ‘cornucopian’ presumptions of limitless, replicable technology resources. Instead, CWL advocates for radically leaner and ecologically-aware approaches to developing and deploying digital technology across society. (View Highlight)
- The ‘salvage computing’ movement picks up on this and looks toward extending the use of already available resources, and encouraging repair and reuse of existing computing technology. In its purest form, salvage computing demands an immediate halt to the production of new computing devices and, instead, redirects effort toward prolonging the life of what has already been produced. (View Highlight)
- In tandem with the established ‘right to repair’ movement is the emerging idea of ‘designing for disassembly’ – i.e. hardware designs for computing devices built from components that can be reclaimed and reused beyond the device’s working life. (View Highlight)
- The practice of re-assembling ‘new’ devices from reclaimed components also gives rise to ‘scavenge-friendly’ designs which can be constructed from reclaimed electronic parts and assembled with low-tech tools. (View Highlight)
- the ‘frugal computing’ movement is built on the understanding that computing resources are finite, precious, and to be used only when absolutely necessary and in the most efficient ways possible. The underpinning goal of frugal computing is to extend the shelf-life and energy efficiency of successive generations of devices until the point is eventually reached when “the world will have computing resources that last forever and hardly use any energy” (Vanderbauwhede 2021). (View Highlight)
- Such efforts mark a deliberate distancing from the current tolerance of ‘bloat-ware’ – where a continuous ‘beta’ state of software development encourages the continual addition of extraneous code and features. This is seen to lead inevitably to the production of software that is increasingly cumbersome, and reliant on advanced hardware specifications and processing (View Highlight)
- Nothing in nature grows endlessly, things reach a level of maturity and they stop there. Same should be true for software”. (View Highlight)
- In terms of digital infrastructure, for example, Wi-Fi ‘mesh’ networks have been set-up across various locations to establish alternate forms of networking that do not require corporate datacentres, satellites and cabling. Elsewhere, large communities of developers and enthusiasts have formed around basic single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi. Accompanying these are projects such as the ‘Collapse O/S’ – a self-contained operating system that can run on ‘improvised’ computing devices. (View Highlight)
- Alongside these example are various innovations celebrated at annual ‘Computing Within Limits’ conferences. One such example are solar-powered websites that can be hosted across networks of solar-powered micro-computers set up to capture sunlight in different locations around the world (Drecker et al. 2020). Similarly-minded designs include applications that limit data traffic on smartphones to encourage moderate internet use, alongside ‘finite’ social media platforms such as ‘Minus’ – a ‘slow’ service which restricts participants to a lifetime limit of 100 posts. (View Highlight)