4.2 KiB
Hi all, Oikos here
Post #1 • oikos Created: 2024-09-22 08:06 Updated: 2024-09-22 08:12
Hello hackliberty community
I’ve been on the internet since the late 90s when I went to university and got my first “real” PC with a modem. I started out life as a computer programmer, but latterly over the last ten years I’ve gotten more into electronics and hardware, I strongly believe that if you can’t repair it, you don’t own it. I’m working on (and very close to) moving out of the suburbs and out into the country somewhere so that we can be a bit more self sufficient and further away from the whole concept of 15 minute cities or whatever nonsense is on the way. I really love the idea of permaculture living, and being self-sufficient as much as possible. Although we only have a fairly small suburban garden we grow some of our own food, do home brewing, make our own dehydrated fruits and meat, that kind of thing. A while ago I helped start and run a food-swapping co-op where you could buy or trade other people’s backyard produce. I’ve since moved away from that town so I think it’s getting close to time to start another one here.
I think I’ve been a libertarian since my early 20s although I didn’t put a label on it until much later. My favourite fiction book is Neuromancer: I think it breathes life into the concept that people left alone unmolested by “the state” are essentially self-regulating and self-policing. A truly free market looks like a rain forest: it’s chaotic and dangerous but also vibrant and rich in resources, with every niche filled and everything utilised to the maximum.
I’m a big proponent of open source software, hardware, books, recipies, open source everything really. I think the internet’s mere existence absolutely mandates and enforces open source as the only viable and sustainable way forward. All the information and resources you need are available online and it’s almost impossible to keep things proprietary any more given how fast and easy it is for information to spread, with the advent of 3D printers, cheap CNC machines and other marvels of the modern world you can even share what amounts to physical objects as easily as you can click “send” and share a file. Since it’s manifestly impossible to beat it, you might as well embrace it and at least then you benefit when someone takes your work and expands on it. I also think it’s time to start building out a “new” parallel version of the internet built from the ground up on decentralised open source principles to prevent its capture and ruination at the hands of corporate and state interests, as happened to the original internet.
So that’s a brief tour around what’s inside my head at the moment. I can see this is a small community but I like the look of it and plan to stick around so I hope to find other like-minded folk to discuss and develop some ideas with.
Post #2 • orca Created: 2024-10-05 14:07 Updated: 2024-10-05 14:07
Welcome, fella! I like your vision. You’ll get there for sure.
Post #3 • xeleriac Created: 2024-10-12 17:35 Updated: 2024-10-12 17:35
Hey @oikos
Welcome. Did you check out the cypherpunk homesteading thread? Looks like you’re headed in that direction…
Your produce swap co-op is a really cool idea. Food security and community is key.
So you’re into hardware and electronics. I’d love to get into the hardware side of things because I think it’s imperative that we produce our own hardware. I don’t trust all the shit that’s available to us. How can we say we are anti-surveillance or pro-privacy because we use GOS on a fucking Google device??? I don’t care how secure the OS is, if the hardware is backdoored—which I don’t see why it wouldn’t be—then we’re pissing in the wind. Privacy-by-design from the bottom layer up, not from the top down.
All the best as you close in on a countryside lifestyle. There is nothing like it.