Consider that the venn diagram of "people likely to be negatively impacted by climate change" and "people who belong to historically marginized or discriminated groups" has a lot of overlap. It's little wonder to me why permacomputing, having its roots in environmentalism, attracts people who spend a lot of time and energy on social justice causes.

But still: It's okay to enjoy the mindful and resilient and ecological aspects and not enjoy some other aspect.

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jl6 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Taking some parts and leaving others is exactly how intersectionalism should work: at an individual level. You throw your lot in with the orgs and movements you like, and leave or oppose the ones you don’t. The intersection is within you.

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.

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camgunz an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think there are successful orgs that do both. The pro-life movement in the US was laser focused on that issue, but it was a manufactured campaign by the Republican party to capture evangelicals. You can't say the Republican party is laser focused, but they're also pretty successful.

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.

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beepbooptheory an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

People are generally not "post-Marxist" or "decolonial," concepts/frameworks are. These are just theoretical markers, not something necessarily one identifies with in the way you suggest. And I would be curious to know why you are so certain that none of the "core ideas" of permacomputing have bearing to either of these things, if you believe they are so underdefined. Little bit of kettle logic there, no?

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.

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jl6 an hour ago | parent [-]

When I don’t put salt in my coffee, it’s not because I’m uncurious about what salt is, and nor does it mean I don’t appreciate salt in other contexts. But if a coffee shop only sells salted coffee, the burden is definitely on them to understand why they have so few customers. (And for my part I’ve seen enough shops that claim to be coffee shops but are actually salt shops).

	▲	wfurney 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly, their introduction seems broadly applicable: > 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.

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tolerance 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the issue being highlighted here is how polarizing causes are advanced and detract from a reasonable one that is supposed to be the pith of an organization.

> 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.

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zozbot234 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There's strong first-principles reasons to think that left-wing radical politics does a significant disservice to historically marginalized or discriminated groups. Historically the proper and most effective response to maginalization and discrimination was developing strong, enduring social ties (arguably, these social ties are what defines a "group" to begin with, especially on very long-run, even generational timescales), which in practice is now coded as a "right wing" value.

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wizzwizz4 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It is? The left-wing radicals I'm aware of are all very big on community. My understanding of the corresponding "right-wing" value is that community should be a certain way (with the radical right-wing value being that it must be a certain way, for various incompatible versions of "right way"). The radical left-wing response would be an insistence on the validity of other forms of community (notably including relationship anarchy: polycules, queer-platonic relationships, etc), the promotion of community organising (such as unions, food distribution networks, mutual aid networks, communes), and so on – which I can understand might appear to be an opposition to "community", if your understanding of "community" is narrowly-defined (e.g. as referring to the traditional practices of your cultural group), but the radical left-wingers certainly don't think they're opposing community.

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.

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zozbot234 an hour ago | parent [-]

> 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.

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.

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thrance an hour ago | parent [-]

> 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 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.

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zozbot234 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

> 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.

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.

	▲	thrance 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		These progressives and modern ones share nothing but the name, and you now it perfectly well.

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thrance an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> which in practice is now coded as a "right wing" value.

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?

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Jensson an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> The right wing is doing whatever it can to marginalize and disenfranchise anyone it doesn't like

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.

	▲	thrance 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The right is defined by its opposition to progressive ideas. No matter if it's American or Swiss or whatever. It will always champion reactionary ideals, seeking to marginalize some groups to further its appeal. 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?

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zozbot234 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

MAGA is structurally a lot closer to a radical political movement than to right wing politics in the traditional sense (which, to be fair, is mostly dead in the U.S. and that's a huge problem that the left also has a lot to answer for). I don't know how you can possibly read my comment as advocating for MAGA, especially the varieties of it that are most overtly and blatantly hateful towards marginalized groups.

	▲	thrance 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		MAGA is just the logical end-point of any right-wing ideology. Just like every far right party in the world, it wasn't birthed in a vacuum. It's just amping up the same rhetoric that has been the bread and butter of right-wingers for half a century: perceived unsafety, anti-immigration sentiment, destruction of social nets in pursuit of these ever-elusive trickle-down economics, scapegoating of minorities... 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.