Implementing Salvage Computing: Rough Thoughts II

In the hopes that maybe further discussion will happen I'm including more of my rough narrative drafting for this clean tech grant here in gemspace. If anyone wants to talk further about this as always please feel free to mail me at left_adjoint@rawtext.club

The writing here is probably going to be slightly awkward because this is closer to what I'm going to put in the grant application.

Part I

The Narrative

The issue we're addressing, in short, is computational waste: this means both the waste incurred by treating devices---smartphones, chromebooks, laptops, desktops, tablets---as disposable, driving the continued purchase of new computational materials built in polluting factories with rare minerals, as well as the waste that comes from software that operates inefficiently---whether that inefficiency is intentional, as in the case of crypto mining, or a consequence of other pressures such as the move to always-online services instead of locally installed hardware.

A fundamental axiom underlying this project is that we can do far more with the computers---in the broadest sense---we currently have than it may seem, again due to the growing inefficiencies of software and the unplanned obsolescence created by both media and web only services. There are several main barriers to being able to do more with what we have and prevent computers from being wasted.

The first barrier is an educational one. The skills needed to actually use computers beyond glorified web-browsers are not taught in schools or even in most career prep programs but rather exist on the periphery of tech sector careers in pockets of programmer and IT culture. We propose to instead develop workshops and educational materials teaching these skills: how to maintain your computer, how file systems work, how to put together small scripts for utilities, how to install and use open source software, how to operate a computer that isn't always connected to the internet. Over the course of the planning grant we'd be developing these educational materials, doing community outreach to partners for recruitment, and running small scale workshops to test out the effectiveness of our teaching and do followups later to see how well those skills have been retained and determine their long-term utility.

The second barrier is access to computers at all let alone ones that can be maintained and used effectively. Our proposal here is to try and and take advantage of ubiquitious, powerful, and frequently disposable computers we have all around us: smartphones. In the last several years, open soure programmers and researchers have made massive progress in taking smartphones and turning them into usable computers you can install software on rather than closed systems with limited utility. One of the main thrusts of this effort is postmarketOS, a Linux distribution designed to be run on a wide variety of mobile devices that's aware of the uniqueness of computing on these little machines. Our goal in the planning period is to both develop materials to help people install postmarketOS as well as to work on testing postmarketOS on an even broader variety of mobile devices and developing workflows for it for common tasks. From the research done in this

The focus on helping people use devices they already have for computation is a novel approach to shrinking the digital divide and improving access that also can potentially reduce long-term waste, save participants money, and help develop skills that are going to be useful far beyond the scope of the project.

This is absolutely an issue of justice as people who aren't marginalized already have access to buy new computers and treat them as disposable objects that can be bought again year after year. Meanwhile, a program that merely provides access to refurbished computers is an incomplete one---we need to also teach the skills needed to maintain computational materials for years at a time.

That brings us to the final arc of the proposal, which is promoting a new way of thinking of computer hardware that will not only prevent waste and save money but also help promote community autonomy: permacomputing. Permacomputing is a young field and philosophy, one that is the anti-thesis of cryptomining that burns fossil fuels and graphics cards in the name of evergrowth. Instead, permacomputing recognizes that computers can and should have long-term use like any other kind of artifact. Computers have had, for at least a decade but perhaps longer, the capability of performing most of the tasks we'll ever need. The long-term goal of this project, beyond the planning grant, is to help start a self-sustaining culture of permacomputing that eschews shiny new things in favor of treating computational materials like things to be cherished in the long-term. We say "start" because there's much work to be done to determine what makes a solid permacomputing platform, what are the challenges for maintenance of machines over multi-year periods, &c. These are questions we can only investigate after having a solid community of participants attempting to push the limits of what can be done without treating computers as disposable objects.

That last observation is why we are focusing on smaller steps for the planning grant with regards to education and participation among already marginalized communities. We want to prepare slowly, building up a proper base of knowledge, interest, and community.

Our milestones for this planning grant are:

Develop preliminary teaching materials for maintaining and using older computers for common tasks

Provide documentation for installing and using postmarketOS on common smartphones

Deliver test versions of workshops to small community selected groups to receive feedback

Follow up with participants and community partners to evaluate workshops and determine the improvements needed