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A solar punk world means reconsidering how we do technology.
Literature/NonfictionI'm all for programs like this - there's a local one in Detroit: https://detroitcommunitytech.org/eii
Definitely a great replacement for the commercial parts of it - local netflix, libraries, plex servers, etc. But I really don't see this as a large scale replacement for the internet, just a supplement to it. Like you're backing up Wikipedia, which wouldn't really exist without that global scale centralization. Same for other projects like github, arxiv, archive, etc, that are important parts of maintaining equitable access to information.
There is nothing centralized that couldn't be federated! We just have to design apps differently. Wikipedia could exist, there would just be a propagation period. Of course it would have its own challenges.
I just don't see why we would want to replace the entire internet with federated systems. You could build your own Wikipedia, I could too. So could plenty of other people. Then there's Wiki, Waki, Woki, Wuki, and Wyki pedias that are all fragmented and become less efficient for use.
There're plenty of great use cases for decentralized networks! I just don't think that decentralization is a goal unto itself.
Im glad you are confused. It means you arent oppressed...yet. It also means you can afford internet. Im glad you can. Try considering what it would mean for you life when you don't or can't?
Have you ever bought an online game? Is the store front still up? Ask 3ds owners how they feel. Or psn subscribers how they feel.
Did you ever buy a perpetual license only to have it become subscription? Ask folks who's business depends on adobe how they feel.
You ever feel like you were at risk if you openly criticise power? Ask Russians or Chinese, though they won't be able to tell you.
What about when you support solar punk, and oil companies can't stand for that?
What about news is pay walled, yet ignorance still votes?
How does you feel about all this talk happening here? What if reddit changes their mind? They did on their api!
Decentralization is a goal in itself. It's always been in the internet bones, but it may not always be. The question is, do you trust the world knowledge in the hand of others who can't take it away?
Currently there is a reasonable argument that you can do all of those things. How long before you cant? I don't leave things to trust. Lust of power defines our species.
All im saying is download and read the book now, as you pointed out, you currently can.
I already work on equitable internet projects, and one of the biggest pieces of them is connecting people to life changing resources they don't have available to them - online education or portals for aid or work. Not my personal version of Netflix or prepper porn.
The issues you're describing with 3ds, Adobe, and psn are problems with capitalism more than centralization of the internet. Solutions already exist to get around something like taking down the 3DS store with homebrew and people don't do it because to most people it's a bigger pain in the ass than it's worth. See: Linux and why it's what, 5% of the market? 10%?
Like I said, there's a lot of good uses for decentralization - but I don't agree that it's a goal in and of itself. Centralization can cause problems, but it has a lot of benefits, too.
In any case, I think I've been engaging in a pretty good faith manner here but it's disappointing that you immediately get this defensive when someone disagrees with you. Not really worth engaging anymore.
Okay, the Netflix stuff was just to raise a glass to the common man immediate potential needs of drugs to cope with the world as it currently is, it doesn't undermine the potential. I fogured it obvious the idea expands well beyond entertsinment including all of the examples you just mentioned. The goal is they maintain acces to those life changing resources you and I both covet. Calling extraction and storage of information prepper porn was meant as an insult, so your claim youre operating in good faith is dubious at best.But likely your just respinding to my elevation that you pointed out. I was trying to paint a picture but yes, I was rude. Sorry about that, I'm not the best advocate of ideas, I'm to short tempered because I assume other are operating in bad faith. A life like mine teaches you that unfortunately.
Yes, it's a problem with capitalism but not more then centralization, they go hand in hand, imo. And yes there are solution but imo they aren't adopted for both the reason you identify, as well as others. Gatekeepers, purposely ignoring user experience etc.
I believe in changing that relationship with computers personally. Sorry for being offensive!
Also, Thanks for the link!
Legit question. If you decentralize the internet into a version of itself that is at least equivalent in size, to a hive of smaller local, even domestic data centers and servers. Spread out around the world.
Would it really suck less energy? A MB of data still costs the same energy input to be read, writen and sent. And there would be areas where people aren't super tech savvy or even capable of affordable electronics so some places would have super low grade internet.
BUT IT WOULD BE AMAZING as a paralel infraestructure. Just like some people would be able to opt-out of buying energy by running solar panels and batteries, you'd be able to opt-out of "corporate" internet by running the scrappy and probably unregulated "folk-web".
It'd be probably a weird and potentially dangerous place like the dark web, which is and isn't great in some points.
the problem with cloud services is that they run in giant datacenters that run massive cooling fans to operate at the proper temperature. if that compute power was decentralized, I believe the energy draw would be less because we arent running a datacenter at home and will be running the "folkweb" on smaller servers that don't need to be cooled. depending on the hardware, it could even be integrated into your heating for your home.
"folkweb" is a fucking awesome name, gonna use that. thanks
If you consider that most of the data on datacenters are dedicated to corporate uses and digital services, having one 1TB HDD drive on your machine connected to the "Folkweb" would be more than enough for users to run folksites, most webapps with more than enough file storage.
I don't think most people would even need a dedicated server to host stuff on the "Folkweb" just some side storage.
Exactly this. We need to reshape our thinking from using someone else all the time, to atomic approach. Mostly self sustained but copy info from others. We need to move away from ignorance based computation into a true "personal computer" world.
Were so ingrained to consume over produce, even in this space. We need to change our relationship to code, computation and technology. It's now an extension of yourself and your family, we need to act like it.
This is more ornless capture by the worl at xerox Parc: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/smalltalk.html
I believe in the concept of an omniuser. There is no programmer user split. No producer consumer split. You use and shape your computer at will. And to do this we need to change how programming is. From ivory towers to creative augmentation
The only way that programming will become a possibility to anyone is with the development of better visual programming systems.
I've tried for a whole year to learn how to code. And I'm really bad at it, I understand the concepts, I am a creative person. I've just hit a wall and I do not know how to build a thing with all these concepts and pieces.
Yes yada yada, visual programming stiffles a bit, but if you want average people to code it shouldn't take an aneurism and years of study to be able to do simple tools.
Completely agreed. Visual programming is indeed one way. But I believe the real way to do it is through minimizing cognitive overhead and creating a truly predictable environment. One of the reasons learning programming is so challenging is because you can't learn anything in isolation, but learning requires this! To combat this, you simplify all possible actions and just fromtload that. Then, everything becomes predictable. I urge you to give smalltalk/squeak a try. The language is so simple that it only has 6 keywords and fits on a postcard. But it's not at a toy. It's image based, meaning, you work in a live environment amd don't need to worry about other things you aren't ready for, like the os, command line or files.
Bonus. Squeak was the basis for scratch. A wonderful visual language.
Heat becomes an issue quickly if you move beyond regular desktop computing or if you live somewhere warm enough to need AC. Encoding and distributing video, for example, puts out quite a bit. And your options for cooling are far less efficient than what is available for a commercial scale operator.
Not exactly, my own servers require no extra consideration because the load is not that intense. Because you don't need to serve that many users when everyone is serving users ya know? But data centers also locate themselves by distance to users and cost of land rather than biome. It's odd to have one in Texas, yet, they are simply because less tax, cheaper land etc.
So they waste that way as well.
Apples to apples, there are economies of scale that allow 1 big server to handle the workload of many home computers, so the data center is "more efficient" , strictly speaking.
2 big counter-points: an amazing amount of the data being shuttled over the internet is advertisements. About 25% are credible estimates, which is absolutely mindblowing when you consider how much data is streaming content. Not serving ads would mean using a lot less energy for the same amount of useful content.
2nd point : The scale of energy in a data center has overhead that you wouldn't have in a home installation, you wouldn't need to have a chilled-water plant at home. Somehow, that 'facility' energy usage sometimes isn't included in the energy consumption of individual servers in some calculations.
Bottomline for me is that it's a very interesting idea inline with the earlier visions of the internet, and seems completely compatible with SolarPunk as well.
I know I'll sound super hipster. But other being able of streaming content live caused by just better hardware I don't think the current internet is an update from the last generation. Before social media.
It's much more barren, it's almost like it shrunk.
You and I are in agreement. It's something entirely different then even my youth. It's a baron wasteland of pay gated knowledge and technofudalism. Burning commentary thats useless. It's a far cry from what it could be.
Excellent points. I hadn't considered just the massive reduction in useless commercial data thags works against solar punk initiatives.
Regarding advertising, distributors will still need to be compensated. If its more costly to run these services, then we should expect more advertising to compensate.
Regarding heat, that depends on your environment. I live somewhere hot enough to use AC, so any extra heat will increase my AC usage. If you live somewhere cold, then yes it works out.
I'm not sure why we've gone this direction in the convo. I don't need advertising. Neither do you. Neither does folkweb. We're not selling or buying here. At least, that's how I maybe naively see it. I suppose if you see this as also capturing the commerce side, then we're not on the same page, but I see where you are going.
For more expensive activities like hosting images and videos, people will need to be compensated in some way for their services. People hate paying money for that stuff, so selling ads is the common way to get compensated. If you are getting rid of that, you will have to provide alternatives.
For example, if you want to upload some content to Youtube. Youtube will host it for free(and even pay you) because they make money back off advertising. If you are uploading it to random people's webservers, they will either insert ads or start charging you for your uploads instead.
I disagree. Maybe thats just the model you are aware of. Ornless favorably, that's what you would do. The world's largest image and knowledge database, Wikipedia and wikimedia commons do not have profit models and don't sell ads. People donate that data. Project Gutenberg, the world largest public domain book site doesnt. People donate that data. I personally run one of the largest image repositories focused on cc0 content. 10s of thousand of software engineers donate their time and skill everyday without compensation and the fruits of their labor literally run the world as you know it.
Both of those sites work because they serve mostly text, with some pictures. Video gets much more expensive.
Also, both of them still rely on centralizing hosting solutions that they pay a good bit of money to.
Alright this is a waste of time your not even reading. It's in the name, wikiMEDIA commons it's not even close to mostly text and I named more then 2 sites as well. Most are focused on media. Have a good one.
Good point and maybe you are right. Would need data. I was thinking mainly about air conditioning required for rack severs as the source of major electricity usage. My though was, less load concentrated less heat generation, less cooling needs.
Aside from that though, the now coined "folk web" (amazing). Could be a way to communicate to achieve other solar punk initiatives with less chance of surveillance? It's undeniably more affordable because of the cost of internet access. Great thoughts!
I'd love to check if it would be possible to create a Folk Web. Problem would be, you'd have to go full wireless since the cables are owned by corporations. And an initiative like that wouldn't fly without their ownership.
Agreed. Has to be wireless, much less overhead and cost. I'm afraid of corrupt initiatives for legislating it as outlaw.
Just like piracy, it would probably be outlawed as soon as some dumbass uses it to share ilegal content or sell drugs. I'm thinking of something that uses the current infraestructure like a hidden layer of the internet.
Would work like ham radio. P2P encoded transmissions between PCs, with several archives of websites hosted by users on the Folkweb so you don't need google to find what you want. Said archives could work like the old phonebooks, but with search tools to make browsing easier.
Each time a PC access onother files they'd create and use a different encryption key, so the owner could control how "public" the access is.
Different PCs could work as repeater stations to make tracking hard since they would basically work like proxxies so that you wouldn't get people knocking on your door asking what were you doing browsing "folksites" hosted by a dude on Armenia.
True, but that's true od the internet as well, and it's not illegal... yet. But of course it's because it's making some one money.
Yeah, that sounds interesting. As to how/what sits on the folknet, I'm open to all lll kinda of things. Including long range radio that just transfers text! Or shortwave meshed full on site. I've even theorized a complete re-inventiom as to the relationship with have with computation and our desktop. I'm working on my own metaverse implementation as we speak. But not that web3 crypto bs. Putting ownership on digital assets couldn't possibly be a worse idea. Digital realestate, gtfo.
I'll be ready to demo my work in probably about 5 months. I think.
Problem with using radio is that you can easily triangilate the transmition point. And you can't just blast any bandwidth. At least in my country you could get arrested for jamming frequencies.
Great point. But if there were enough buy in and nodes, you cant prosecute the world, although America would try.
I also hear you about human behavior and dark web style abuse. No easy answer there, when security us needed it usually used as a banner to expand a use and oppression. I don't have a solid though about how to stop this and it'd an age old problem. I don't want security of any kind, but humans won't change...
There are two choices, both have pros and cons.
Would you rather have:
A: Good infraestructure, easy to use, out of the box ready, corporate controled internet, with algorithms and an ilusion of freedom of speech and free access of information?
B: Unreliable, DIY systems spread out between a colective of cooperative users, with very few ways to control what's available or even findable online. But no corporate/government control.
So it's the Freedom X Safety debate again, personally I don't think there's a point to safety without freedom. But then again, I'm on r/solarpunk, I am biased.
You and I completely agree. I go total freedom always. I'm bias as a good faith participant.
Saved for later reading 🙂 thx for the resource!
Care to shed some light on your homeserver setup? Do you use smth like homar, or whatever it's called, docker hosted? What OS is on the host?
Standard ubuntu linux server!
I read a very interesting article about how telecom companies are pretty much scamming the tax payers in the USA. They get tax cuts and funding from the government while at the same time monopolizing the services and price gouging.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcast-fcc-high-speed-internet-gigabit
Here's a little article about what I read. We need to get past this corporatocracy if we are to advance with this idea of an open internet.
This is EXACTLY how I've seen the internet and power. I find it absolutely appalling that tax payer money subsidies the infrastructure, the research (darpa) and yet some company get to claim it? This is true of a massive amount of America. The corporate recipients of tax payer handouts is nauseating. Pure corruption.
It's also interesting to not that this very concept is why unix couldn't be sold by att, how it ended up in University, and by extension, the basis of linux creation! The government stepped in and said, if we give monopoly, you can't sell software.
We partnered with the Cellsol Project in 2020 (and are currently hosting them, f3.to/cellsol ) to provide decentralized mesh wireless over LoRa, and it has worked fairly well. It never aligned with the goals of more commercial projects like Meshtastic, but we have attempted to get mutual routing of other projects' packets, with success from Disaster Radio at least. It can also connect through IRC or HTTP to the broader internet, through your wifi network or local cellular.
More people expanding on this with the goal of a decentralized internet over low frequency wireless might be great. Two years ago we even deployed pylons with gliders all over the place, and many are still running with 0 maintenance.
It's not a mature technology by any means yet, but there are a number of open source projects that we hope will work together for this kind of future. We'll probably be able to dedicate more volunteer time as the human factor begins to help, too.
Much of this significantly increases resource consumption.
For example, producing your own energy consumes far more resources than a utility scale solution. Residential solar is over twice as expensive as utility scale solar.
I don't agree on that axiom, id like to see some numbers on that. There are other things to consider though, decentralization opposes oppression. Any established hierarchy creates abuse. Power corrupts. The utility provider would by nature of being human, become a force we'd have to bargain with. As we do today. This has already proven to not align with ecosystem symbiosis. See basically all utilities.I might even go as far as to say that conglomerate conginitive dissonance is why we're in the boat we're in, and why "not my problem" is a problem. Consider that units of cellular cooperation at the household level hold individuals morally culpable for what they do. Being in symbiotic relationship with either means admitting and accepting what we are as a species and working to figure out how to work with that. It's not just dollars and cent.
So even if costs increased to then dismantle the power structure. It may be worth it. And again, I don't take that cost axiom at face value.
id like to see some numbers on that.
LAZARD has great data on this. Rooftop solar is around 200 dollars/kwh. Utility scale solar is around 40 dollars per KWH.
So I was wrong. Utility scale solar is actually about 5 times cheaper than residential scale.
https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Lazard_LCOE_Nov2019.pngÂ
So even if costs increased to then dismantle the power structure. It may be worth it.
I would say the opposite. Successful societies are ones that can organize large-scale efforts, where can specialize and take advantage of economies of scale. The poorest societies are the ones where everything has to be done at the individual and family level.
Forgive me if I'm cynical, but, why would I trust Lazard, a corporate entity, and there executive one sheet?
That logic aside, the very notion of "economy" in its current industrialized, globalized form, is on the docket for evaluation. Its literallynthe excuse we use to abuse the ecology, today. Ask yourself, what an economy be if you didn't need industrialized society to produce Mercedes benz for some at the cost of others?
And are you referring to the poor nations who were colonized and stripped of it's resources for the wealth of their aggressors? And no chance of recovering, so they are reduced to agrarian living that you now call poor?
Is there an example you'd say is a "successful society"? Because I think you and I see that definition very very differently.
A large scale effort can be successfully organized atomically. Biology has already proven this correct.
Tangentially, have you consider how humans existed prior to profit motive? Would you consider that inferior to your existence today? Have you tried drinking from your local river? Or do you enjoy the necessity of process plants? Would you call that societal success? The solution of symptoms that wouldn't have existed in a parralel approach? I don't.
Tangentially, have you consider how humans existed prior to profit motive? Would you consider that inferior to your existence today?
Absolutely I would. People back then had extremely little medicine, parasites, frequently dealt with malnourishment, infectious disease and famine.
You bring up the water supply, but it was very common historically for people to not drink water at all because it was too likely to be tainted. Ale was a staple because the alcohol was a way to kill harmful bacteria.
Unfortunately, people don't have access to those advances today though, at least not here in america. And the ones that do are under very leveraged circumstances for that access, forced labor, high insurance etc. Which it itself drives up prices. A select few, do indeed have it.
I'm guessing you consider america a successful society?
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