#appropriate technology

[kjp-muse]

I SOOOOO love appropriate technology!

[dipperdesperado]

Notes on Solarpunk Beyond Eurocentrism

Crisis and collapse seem to be the currency of the present. 1st World societies, enveloped in the long shadow cast by prosperity, find themselves coming into open, naked conflict. Reality, or Eurocentricity¹? Reality says, ‘we can't have infinite growth on a finite planet!’ Eurocentrism laughs, walking away with delight. Rather than understanding “that which cannot be repaired is already broken,”² Eurocentricity tells us that we can pull and pull and pull, that a rudderless faith in extraction will somehow lead to balance. What happens if the world is bent until it breaks? All of our communities are at stake. This is “the clearest signal that there is something deeply wrong with the global system in its current form”³. We can see that somewhere along the line, someone fucked shit up. There's no other meaningful way to explain how we've gotten to where we're at. Eurocentricity is so prevalent that we even understand our technology on the scale of the “complex and special”, rather than “how a society copes with physical reality.”⁴ Solarpunk's focus on appropriate technology⁵ is a welcome corrective to the myopia of modernity⁶ and capitalism⁷. However, it is incomplete without an understanding of coloniality⁸.

If there are facets of coloniality that we need to address, they are the processes of (1) creating rigid taxonomies and categories for classifying the world⁹, and (2) creating hierarchies of power and value for the ways those things are classified. These two moves are embedded in the in-group/out-group exclusionary dynamics that coloniality needs to function, from the way that we privilege ‘humans’ over ‘non-humans’, ‘centers’ over ‘margins’, and the ‘visible’ over the ‘invisible’. This isn't just philosophical or for the sake of pontification. These presuppositions of knowledge, being, and meaning privilege Eurocentric assertions that see "other human beings’ ways of life [as] wrong and harming nature, [since] nature needs no human beings."¹⁰ If we are to move out of ecological calamity, ‘The Last Shall be First’ must be our operating system. By centering the margins (in the ontological and epistemological sense), we can actually end suffering, rather than outsourcing it. This has to take shape in such a way that engenders room for a polyculture of meaning, diametrically opposed to the hegemonic "monoculture of meaning"¹¹, beyond the ability to label any human based on what they "lack" as an "Other"¹².

This move to truly embody decoloniality has to critique modernity, capitalism, and coloniality. This is important to understand as “modernity organizes the world ontologically in terms of atomic, homogeneous, separable categories. Contemporary women of color and third-world women's critique of feminist universalism centers the claim that the intersection of race, class, sexuality, and gender exceeds the categories of modernity. If woman and black are terms for homogeneous, atomic, separable categories, then their intersection shows us the absence of black women rather than their presence. So, to see non-white women is to exceed "categorial" logic. [...] the modern, colonial, gender system [is] a lens through which to theorize further the oppressive logic of colonial modernity, its use of hierarchical dichotomies and categorial logic. [...] categorial, dichotomous, hierarchical logic [is] central to modern, colonial, capitalist thinking about race, gender, and sexuality.”¹³ We see that even in ostensibly postcolonial societies, "indigenous people who had already suffered from decades of colonial conservation policies, little changed with decolonization."¹⁴ This shows the depth at which we have to go to adequately respond to the social and ecological issues that are currently coming to a head.

This commitment isn't (principally) a moral or ethical one. One of the main reasons that we have to move towards a holistic decoloniality is because of the inability of coloniality to address the issues we're facing. "Indigenous leaders say [30x30, a worldwide conservation program] ignores generations of effective indigenous land management. [...] there was limited scientific attention paid to Indigenous stewardship."¹⁵ Unless we are willing to be radical, to grasp the roots of all the oppressive structures that we're facing, we will reproduce the things we are (ostensibly) trying to abolish in our (potentially unintentional) inability to critique coloniality onto-epistemically while proposing responses rooted in other ways of being. In the effort to try and correct the excesses of Eurocentricity, we see that Eurocentric modes of being like "nation-states [...] struggling to catch up with indigenous and other non-capitalist cultures’ understanding of the interdependence of life."¹⁶ This is not to exalt Indigenous, Black and 3rd/4th world onto-epistemes, to reify them beyond critique. It is to say that the Eurocentric onto-epistemic inability to see those modes as valid dampers the emancipatory potential extant in the world preventing the ability to reach the purported values of "progress" and "development". Eurocentric ideas have to play catch-up, and by their colonial and capitalist nature are unable to.

We have to problematize, to see as an issue, many of the foundational concepts might deploy as mired in Eurocentrism and coloniality. We can do this by (1) decolonizing what it means to be human by creating the space for Black, Indigenous and 3rd/4th worlders to self-determine and (2) "[take] non-humans seriously as persons[/beings] with agency [which] allows us to de-center humans, to notice how limited our field of sight becomes when fixated by the idea of the Anthropocene. Far from remaining a matter of theoretical discussion, non-humans [... ] influenc[e] social, political and legal realities."¹⁷ We have to bridge these two worlds: acknowledging the ways that the ideas of animality were defined along the bodies of Black people, how that relates to conceptions of humanity, and the care that we should have in highlighting the agency of non-human beings (both in the actual sense, and those who get denied humanity). This has to be done on the terms of those beings, as best as we can manage. If we are able to acknowledge that there are issues in modernity with how we taxonomize humans & how that relates to non-humans, for the sake of the biosphere, and we center those marginal and invisible beings, we can get a lot done.

I really want to impress the fact that not taking the trifecta of Eurocentrism¹⁸ seriously is resigning ourselves to doom. If we continue to build the cyberpunk future that we've been worried about for decades, the future of "urban decay, corporate power and globalization. The rise of zero tolerance policing, anxieties around health care and the psychological toll of the Cold ‘Forever war’ and the possibility of nuclear annihilation,"¹⁹ we resign ourselves, even in our imaginaries, to further our immiseration. We can use the 30 x 30 framework for conservation as a great example, where 200 countries were willing to accept it²⁰. This conservation framework reinforces the dichotomy between human/non-human²¹, assuming that top-down, bureaucratic processes of "management" are the answer to the problems that those very ideas created. The ironic thing is, even though this move would be woefully inadequate in addressing the issue of biodiversity loss or climate change²², we very likely won't even get to see it achieve protection of "30% of the world's land and water by 2030."²³ There's no meaningful accountability structure within the Eurocentric hegemony to do this. There is no room for living freely and honestly under these conditions.

"To see the coloniality is to see the powerful reduction of human beings to animals, to inferiors by nature, in a [piece-meal] understanding of reality that dichotomizes the human from nature, the human from the non-human, and thus imposes an ontology and a cosmology that, in its power and constitution, disallows all humanity, all possibility of understanding, all possibility of human communication, to dehumanized beings."²⁴ This is the double-edged sword of creating hierarchies and taxonomies around valid ways of being, knowing, and meaning. By operating along these lines, we end up in a situation where there is no meaningful way for anyone to truly reach the kinds of fulfillment that modernity is supposed to provide. Now, this is not to say that I'm personally going to cry very hard about colonizers dehumanizing themselves by dehumanizing me, but I think it's worthwhile to mention; we all benefit by tearing down Eurocentrism and building a new, multifaceted perspective that allows for mutualism between different ways of thinking about the world and our relations with/in it.

By creating these rigid categories of difference, there is an assumption of innateness that tends to become a part of it. If we are looking to dismantle coloniality, we have to situate ourselves in such a way that those seemingly subtle distinctions between differences in general²⁵ and the specific conception of colonial difference become visible. This allows us to see that "the epistemological fractures between the Eurocentric critique of Eurocentrism is distinguished from the critique of Eurocentrism anchored in the colonial difference."²⁶ Critiques of Eurocentrism that don't apprehend the imbrication of coloniality, capital, and modernity are left unaware at the meaningful distinctions that can be made between critique left incomplete and critique that gives us a way to move forward and build new relationalities.

I want to point back towards the phrase "The Last Shall Be First", which comes from Fanon (and the Bible). I understand this as resonant with the adage of centering the marginalized. If we truly believe that harmony and unity in life are worthwhile to work towards, the practical move to make is to, in every moment, work towards empowering those removed from power. By foregrounding those most negatively impacted by Eurocentrism through an understanding of intersectionality in material and onto-epistemological senses while spotlighting the "'decolonizers of the imaginary’, [which can be understood as] future generations, past generations, non-humans, and spiritual beings and concepts"²⁷, we can point ourselves towards more egalitarian and self-determining outcomes. We can compose and integrate efforts together, where cultural workers can do solarpunk art and organizers & community/affinity groups can build solarpunk sociality and architects can do solarpunk guerrilla urbanism and more, where collaboration becomes a space that starts to break down the borders between different ways of relating to the world. By problematizing the human "we", by understanding that while, ideally, abstractly we are including everyone, in practice, there are critical things missed that lead to the issues we purportedly want to face. We have to point towards a world where many fit.

As far as my specific commitments on the matter, I'm what I call an egoist. I've appropriated this term to mean that I find myself to be important (though not supremely so), to assert my onto-epistemology as valid, even though Eurocentric society was built at my (people’s) expense²⁸. I have hope, which I understand as the grounded counterpart to "faith" or "optimism", that things can change, that even if the world has to be broken down, that it can be, and a new, decolonial one can be built. In this space, I hope that every being is acknowledged on its own terms, to have the capacity for its "ego" to be fulfilled, roughly along the lines of the golden and platinum rules, depending on what makes sense given the situation²⁹. Solarpunk is very egoistic/anarchistic in my conception. Through horizontal power structures, we can minimize immiseration and foreground approaches to life that move our social activity towards the biosphere.

We can start working towards this, right now. Like, on some "you can go do the work after this" kind of thing. While we don't necessarily have a linear path forward, we can listen to ourselves and our desires, and experiment with doing things to fulfill them in the present, seeing them as springboards for further movement into the kind of spaces that we want to go. On a basic level, we can think about the ways that we are restricted by our needs due to alienation from self-determination, and devise plans to get those things, from food autonomy, to housing security, to social and cultural spaces. With this, I want us to be rooted in place--no White Flight ass culty commune shit. Our work should ground in locality and communality. If every being deserves the kind of world that solarpunk futures suggest, it makes no sense to leave if we have capacity³⁰ to stay. In a more egoist turn, I think places where we can practice what James Scott calls anarchist calisthenics³¹ are worthwhile endeavors; authority, as in authoritarian rule, is never legitimate. Whenever we can and have the desire to, we should rage against it. Hosting do it yourself (DIY) events are a good example of this. DIY events are usually music shows, but they can be parties or anything else, where you do it without "permission" from the state or authorities. They can happen "in a park, on a beach, deep in the forest, in a barn, under a bridge, in a parking lot, next to a pool, or at the top of a mountain. The event could be on wheels: in an RV, on the back of a truck, in a van. You could build a secret tree house. You could borrow a boat. You could find an abandoned or empty building and re-purpose it. If there’s no electricity and you need it for a PA, find a generator. If you don’t need electricity, use candles for lighting. If you would like to lessen the chance of police interference, acquire several buildings and move people from building to building during breaks. You could even take over a street."³²

If we're willing to commandeer space, the elusive element in much theorizing on change³³, we can start changing the paradigms. Rather than "fall[ing] back on [...] creat[ing] protected areas"³⁴ for the sake of reaching "biodiversity goals" and "ecological harmony", we can focus on land back, we can pull from knowledges in appropriate technology, traditional ecological knowledge, and the best that western science has to offer for being good partners with other beings in our communities. To horizontalize relationships between humans, breaking down barriers of political and socioeconomic varieties, we can put the last first and act as accomplices, supporting their needs and fighting alongside them. Any critiques that we have of the system should, within our capacities, be externalized, the (dialectical and logical³⁵) contradictions laid bare in the material world. If there is a public building that isn't being used for the public, we can commandeer it and turn it into a commons³⁶. Around these moves we can build or tie in networks of support and take seriously the militancy, strategy, and tactics required to defend that space. Or, we can be more fluid, moving from place to place, an occupation traveling band that swarms spaces, creates more solarpunk and communistic relations within, shares those tools and collaborates with folks more rooted in that space, and floats out as to remain flexible. Or, a ton of other possibilities, a ton of other ways to engage space. There are many ways to do it.

This is meant to be a conversation starter. I have a lot of love for solarpunk--you can see that from my writings. It is a really useful meta-frame for the narrative component of systems change. I also acknowledge the susceptibility that it has towards eco-modernism, crypto-scheming, and reactionary yearning to return to the "good old days", whether it's a time "before agriculture" or a time before industrialization". I hope that, through the works of 3rd and 4th worlders, and more material ties to prefigurative and insurgent practices vis a vis systems change, solarpunk can shake off the chains of Eurocentrism, towards a pluralistic decoloniality and anti/non-capitalism.

Notes

Eurocentricity/Eurocentrism is the cultural and philosophical constellation of worldviews that sees the ideas birthed from Europe and wedded to capitalism and coloniality as the only valid, worthwhile, and legible modes of knowledge, being/existence (especially as it relates to “humanity”/humanism), and meaning. Things like linear progressions of time, a fetish for scientific thought, and atomistic conceptions of the individual permeate Eurocentric thought.

XXIIVV — permacomputing

Beyond Extinction. Transition to post-capitalism is inevitable | by Nafeez Ahmed

Anthem of the Sun — Real Life

Appropriate technology is essentially what it sounds like; it looks at what technology would be appropriate, meaning that it would minimize ecological harm, to achieve specific needs/goals.

The advent of nation-statism, colonial empires, and industrial capital make up modernity. It is the “never-ending” historical period in which we find ourselves.

Capitalism is distinct, in all of its configurations, for the fact that it combines: (1)private, dictatorial authority over property, most notably of the means of production, (2) wage labor relations where those who don’t have productive private property need to work using someone else’s to survive, and (3) a focus on continual growth, which is seen as an unquestionable good.

Coloniality is the power structural relationships and ways in which society was chopped up and categorized, that, while originating during the eras of European Colonialism, still persist to this day.

Toward a Decolonial Feminism - Maria Lugones

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

Decolonizers of the imaginary

Wynter Sylvia 1492 A New World View

Toward a Decolonial Feminism

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

Decolonizers of the imaginary

Decolonizers of the imaginary

Capitalism, coloniality, modernity

SOLARPUNK: Life in the future - Beyond the rusted chrome

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

This is meant in an expansive sense, where colonized subjects and what is commonly referred to as nature is included

Eurocentric assumptions on what it means to "conserve" certain lands go against the very things that are done to preserve biodiversity. There is not a mechanism by which we can meaningfully protect lands from "on high", away from an intimate understanding rooted in place.

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

Toward a Decolonial Feminism

I don't find issue with the concept of "difference". I am not my phone, or my mom, or my favorite animal. At the same time, we have to be able to separate the idea of difference from the idea of colonial difference, and understand the ways that material and social processes shape the ways that difference in general is constructed. Ossified understandings of difference, like "I am a man and men do X" are antithetical to liberatory change.

Toward a Decolonial Feminism

Decolonizers of the imaginary. Not that there's overlap here between acknowledging 3rd & 4th world folks ways of being and knowing and a flattening of the "nature-culture" dichotomy that is generally espoused in 'colonized imaginaries'

This system tells me to assimilate or to stop existing. I choose neither, and go towards full spectrum resistance and abolition.

The golden rule is treat people how you want to be treated. The platinum rule is treat people how they want to be treated. I think there's an innumerable number of options in this range, depending on how well we can understand what other beings need. By not pedestalizing any one being over the other while understanding the deep history and present, we can move towards that. I want to make it abundantly clear that we cannot just "jump" towards that moment, as things like reparations and land back need to happen. It's a yes and situation. We should understand that every being deserves what it wants as long as it doesn't systematically/power structurally prevent someone from doing the same. And to this end, there are certain, non-privileged/marginalized/invisibled beings that will have needs that reflect a different reality visavis self-determination.

I am not saying to stay in dangerous, toxic, harmful situations. I'm saying that changing the places you're already in has more radical potential, if you're specifically looking for that, than getting a commune established out of arms reach from society.

Anarchist Calisthenics, by James C. Scott

A DIY Guide to Creating Spaces

Anecdotally, it seems easier to imagine vastly different economic, political, and social systems, but it is harder to imagine different technologies, and even harder to imagine different ways of interacting with spatial-temporal dynamics. Much of politics is actually about space and how it is occupied, and we should lean into anarchic, decolonial takes on "geography", "urban planning", and "architecture" among other fields so we can really take seriously how we are addressing all the things we need to.

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

Contradiction (logical): when a subject, object, or phenomena is said to have features or properties that can’t exist at the same time and be factual. For example, All apples are fruits. If someone were to say that some apples are not fruits, that is a logical contradiction, because there is no way to substantiate that claim through information, reasoning, or data. Logic is all about “internal” consistency, where the “internal” refers to the relation between the claims being made and the things being compared. Within the system of interest, in this case the “system” of fruit classifications, of which an apple is an element, the claims and conclusions should be supported by the characteristics of that system. Contradiction (dialectical): In dialectics (or a dialectical process), contradictions can take the shape of logical contradictions, (All X are Y → Some X are not Y | No X is Y → Some X are Y) but they only need to take the shape of tensions between elements in a system more broadly. It’s all about the relationship between elements.

What if We Cancel the Apocalypse

[nonsense-repository]

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

In this episode, Christina talks with hacker and enthusiastic solarpunk Paweł Ngei about the power of solarpunk narratives to open our eyes to the ways in which we do things and invite us to critically examine them. Why is tech built this way? Who are we disenfranchising by not having more or different designs for things? Who are we handing over too much power over our lives to mindlessly letting them thrust their tech into our lives without us knowing how it works?

For more info about and thoughts from Paweł, can check out his blog (https://alxd.org/), be inspired by his podcast (https://podcast.tomasino.org/@SolarpunkPrompts), read his short story about a disabled inventor at https://glider.ink/, or read his review of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future (https://alxd.org/ministry-for-the-future-review.html#ministry-for-the-future-review).

Other links Paweł recommends are about the book A Half Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys and to a great solarpunk engineering wiki: https://www.appropedia.org/Welcome_to_Appropedia

[solarpunkshoppe]

Recycling And Salvage Practice!

I've recently come into possession of a very neglected (3+ years in a shed where winter happens) one of these "power wheel" toys. Batteries are probably shot, but motors might be good. These toys are for small children to drive around in. Can usually haul two children at a time.

What uses could the resulting salvage be turned into?

Components:

- plastic frame

- possible drive train

- gears

- motors

- plastic wheels

- (possibly more, but that's what I can think of)

Tell me in the tags or reblogs!

[solarpunkshoppe]

In permaculture, we call that "appropriate technology". Ideas like "high" vs "low" tech ignores the pedagogical, material, and social aspects of how technology and tools are developed. These considerations matter more often than we are used to thinking about, mainly because modern tools and "industry" have been waving their flag since the steam engine.

You could argue a fair portion of our environmental issues are because industrial capitalist economies are inherently "inappropriate technologies". They prefer production over environmental and social stability. They are literally anti-humane.

https://www.appropedia.org/Appropriate_technology

A historian or a sociologist will say something like “technology doesn’t exist on a simply hierarchy like in a video game,” and I think people whose exposure to history is primarily through pop culture will go “huh? that seems like nonsense. I mean, an automatic rifle beats a sword. 21st century America is richer than 3000 BC Mesopotamia. Our medical technology right now, today, is better than anything in the Middle Ages. Of course you can ‘rank’ technology!”

But the real answer is still no; because no technology exists apart from its context, and the question you are forgetting is–better how? Better in what situations?

The Ancient Greeks knew the principles necessary to build steam engines, and probably would perfectly understand the principle of operation of a steam locomotive; but they didn’t build trains, because they didn’t have the metals to build trains with, and they didn’t have the metals to build trains with because the economy of the ancient eastern Mediterranean didn’t support the manufacture of steel; and it didn’t support the manufacture of steel because bronze and the iron they had solved all the problems they needed metals for, a king of ancient Greece devoting his city-state’s spare productive capacity to mining iron ore and turning it into steel would have been wiped out by neighboring states who didn’t waste time and energy doing that, and spent their time making a bunch of bronze swords and beating the crap out of that king and his soldiers. Even if the Greeks could have built trains, what would they use them for? Railroads are a solution to transportation when you have industrial quantities of goods moving around to support a highly integrated economy, a rich source of high-carbon fuel easily available, and (for instance) warfare based on massive formations recruited from a mobilized, industrialized population.

None of which ancient Greece had. If you Connecticut-Yankee’d your way into 5th century BC Greece, you would find that trying to bootstrap an industrial economy from the ground up would require first speedrunning 2300 years of intervening demographic and economic developments, as well as technological ones, and even then a modern Greece surrounded by a Bronze Age world would be a very different animal, along all those dimensions, than a modern Greece surrounded by a modern world.

If you wanted to go Alexander with modern combined arms tactics and maneuver warfare, you could–but modern combined arms tactics and maneuver warfare is a solution to modern arms, and you might find it was significantly cheaper to arm your hoplites with slightly upgraded versions of the old spear-and-shield, and invest all the materials and energy you would have spent on tanks in building up the wealth of your state–because remember, everything you spend on building a better tank you’re not spending on anything else. This is why German technical skill was a miserable failure in WW2–their overengineered bullshit was expensive, and for each fancy German tank they pumped out (from a much worse position resource-wise than the Allies), the Allies made many less fancy, good enough tanks, and the Nazis got overrun. To recall the earlier metaphor: your automatic rifle is only any good if the other guy is way over there. If he sneaks up on you with his sword, you might wish you had a sword instead, though that won’t help you if you’ve only ever practiced using a rifle, because it’s “better.”

Even the process of innovation is not like most people imagine it, I would argue. The bulk of innovation comes from incremential trial-and-error improvements in processes that accumulate over decades, if not centuries or millennia. Incremential improvement is hard; unless you have a wild overabundance of resources, too much experimentation is just going to waste scarce materials; the thing that drives major innovations is having a problem that needs solving, and (again, until a resource becomes superabundant) a reliable method that produces consistent results is better than wasting time and effort testing a new way of producing something that may or may not work.

If you want an antibiotic or to send a message across the world, or figure out what the Moon is made of, yes, modern technology is better for all those things; and there are periods of cultural and societal change that open up the space for innovations: the steam locomotive was impossible in 5th century BC Greece, and inevitable in 19th century Britain. But it only became inevitable because of economic changes that only became inevitable because of demographic changes that started much earlier; those in turn were dependent on factors beyond the control of any single person or state.

Technologies can be dependent on each other, or on other factors, in the way living organisms are dependent on each other or on environmental factors in a food web; but a shark isn’t “better” than a jellyfish because it has a more complicated anatomy. It’s solving the problem of how to be a shark, while the jellyfish is solving the problem of how to be a jellyfish. Even our industrial, “scientific” technologies can struggle in environments they’re not suited for, which more “primitive” technologies do perfectly well in–because even our best technology (and our best scientists) are constrained by the environments and assumptions they are developed in.

[geopolicraticus]

Friday 15 November 2024

Grand Strategy Newsletter

The View from Oregon – 315

Non-Integrated Industrial Production

…in which I discuss civilizational collapse, non-integrated industrialism, the SS Savannah, entelechy, evo-devo, deep homology, appropriate technology, Khyber Pass copies, bespoke manufacturing, Kenneth Clark, Ulfberht swords, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, and roundabout production…

Substack: https://geopolicraticus.substack.com/p/non-integrated-industrial-production

Medium: https://jnnielsen.medium.com/non-integrated-industrial-production-d9b61f0c8a45

Reddit: https://new.reddit.com/r/The_View_from_Oregon/comments/1gts764/nonintegrated_industrial_production/

[richardvarey]

It's that Bucks Fizz buzz time, finally

With the continued arrival of state-of-the-art performance at very attractive prices, I feel like I’ve stepped out of the hi-fi audio land of make-believe into reasonable territory, where “trust me, I’m a hi-fi seller” doesn’t apply. Since the marketers took over, many product offerings are firmly fairy tale stories. Now, Aiyima, Fosi, SMSL, Topping, WiiM, and others, are creating products that…

[brawlingdiscontent]

Reflecting again on Armand’s Rashid disguise. Besides it being fucking hilarious and making for a fantastic twist (especially at a point in season 1 when we really need a break from all the downers), it gets Daniel's suspicions up and soft-launches the idea of Armand’s big lie for season 2, which is then pays off spectacularly in the finale.

Daniel: You know, real Rashid, I’m pretty good at my job. A bright young reporter with a point of view. Interviewed a fallen Catholic archbishop, four Enron vice-presidents, and if they’ve got something to hide, they always start with some kind of disguise. Not literally, not some dumb Halloween costume, gloves, contact lenses. (Armand smiles). They tell jokes, they’re charming. And then at some crisis point when I get close, it drops away and I see a flash of truth (Season 2, Episode 1)

(Screencap from KissThemGoodbye's TV gallery)

[angelof-thevoid]

Hobbies / Scholar

Soft scratching sounds fill the room as she draws pen against paper, leaving steady and precise ink strokes in its wake. When the tip runs dry, Ikora dips it into the small bottle of dark liquid perched in the corner of her desk, metal making the slightest clinking noise when it makes contact with the glass. 

Impractical as it may be, there was something soothing about traditional writing when taking personal notes of her research. Usually, everything could be found in a digitized form available from a database or via their ghosts. But she still believed there was value in practicing good handwriting. 

You never know if something could happen where you would need it, a hard lesson learned after the red war. Lacking access to digital information and hard line connected communications as cabal soldiers trampled the city underfoot taught her that the older ways of technology still had their uses. 

Radio was a main staple until they purged the red legion and got the city networks back up. Information written down and passed through scavenged scraps of paper when they needed to share vital details quietly. She also didn’t have her personal data pad, and telling Ophiuchus every troubled thought or concern was out of the question. Some things were best kept private to a guardian’s own mind. 

Besides, there was something soothing about recording with her own writing, seeing letters brought into reality guided by one’s own hand instead of automated by a screen or keyboard. A different kind of satisfying to have something other than the boring pixel perfect font, Ikora’s work is a flowing script with the minor flaws of her real hand.

It was also a nice way to make use of a calligraphy set gift given to her as a holiday present, being astutely thought to appreciate old historical techniques and hobbies. Ikora even considered the idea of using it to do personally written letters to others closest to her, but part of her wondered who for. She would want to do it for someone who could share her appreciation of an old art. 

Zavala was a pragmatist and likely thought keeping things digitally was more efficient than taking handwritten notes. There’s Chalco, but Chalco seldom sat still enough and it wasn’t an impossibility that anything sent to her post would be waiting a while. Ikora would hope to send a letter to someone who would see it.

Someone who would also send letters the old fashioned way. Ikora finishes off her notes and gives the ink a chance to dry on the page before pulling open a drawer for storing private papers. In it she finds an old piece of hive leather with writing scratched into it by a practiced hand, its strange odor long faded from when it first arrived. Now that’s an idea. Ikora smiles to herself as she rummages around for a fresh piece of paper and checks the small bottle of ink to make sure it remains wet. Pleased with the liquid she dips the calligraphy pen, clink clink clink, and begins to write.

Dear Eris-

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

If technology wasn’t such a central aspect of solarpunk, we’d all just be hippies redux. Yet not all tech, right? Because solarpunk is also about living the good life while building a just, inclusive, and sustainable society. So, what is solarpunk’s attitude toward and relationship with tech? How do solarpunks decide what’s worth it and what’s beyond the pale? And what’s all this about appropriate technology?

[whitetailunitedstatesamericaalia]

IF THEY REFUSE TO BE TRANSPORTED OFF BEATING INVADERS WITH RODS AND OTHER WEAPONS SOUNDS APPROPRIATE. SO THEY PULL GREAT NOTICE.

[abyssmalice]

Tonia has two socmed accounts:

Her public main with the most generic cutesy-girl handle ever, where she posts/reposts mostly pictures of things that catch her eye - like candy, sweets, toys, whatever. Very few text posts and no personal comments whatsoever. Has garnered a large following by virtue of looking like a typical aesthetic account.

Then, there's her private/vent account where she acts very much like how you'd expect her to act on a private vent account. Hardly anyone knows it exists because Tonia has kept it locked since its creation and she doesn't let anyone know she has more than one account anyway.

[aur3olin]

Thank you for purchasing our latest in AI Companions! Made with the latest and greatest technology, Version 0.5 is the perfect everyday helper! They can cook, clean, and even learn! Be assured your upgraded Lover model can fulfill all your emotional and physical needs!

I’m on a sci-fi kick right now 🥰 if you have any good sentient AI books I would like to hear them 👀🖤🤖

[goatmilksoda]

Some mfs MY AGE are like "god, gen alpha is so screwed. So glad my parents raised me right" despite the fact that they still had a DS that they could take to family parties by age 6 and a fully working phone and Twitter by 9. GIRL YOU WERE THE PROTOTYPE IPAD BABY!!! DONT EVEN SAY THAT "I lived a real childhood and went outside" SHIT TO ME!!!

[ghostcrows]

They have got to fucking add bulk crafting to acnh it is ridiculous that they haven't like that is one of the most basic crafting qol mechanics possible. I'm really hoping in general that we might get at least one more major update..it could happen I mean look at the welcome amiibo update and how long after the game came out they released that