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generator: pandoc
title: A Manifesto for Communist Technology Use
viewport: 'width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes'
---
2018-08-30T14:49:21+10:00
By Blair Vidakovich - vidak\@riseup.net
\# Thesis Zero: Electrical Systems Are Tools For The Liberation of
Humans From Work
1. Electrical systems are tools created by humans for the purpose of
solving the many and various problems humans may encounter. Unless
some electrical system acquires sapience, electrical systems cannot
have moral agency. They remain at the status of tools, and not
people.
2. Almost all the electrical systems we come across today were created
and implemented for the purpose of profit. The fact that capitalism
is the dominant mode of production for the human species obscures
the fact that electrical systems are tools, which are created,
operated, maintained and for the benefit of humans. As Marx says in
[Das Kapital]{.underline}: Volume I, capitalism makes it look as if
electrical systems, as commodities, have some sort of magic power,
and have some sort of ability to move [themselves]{.underline}
through human society. Capitalist makes it look as if [commodities
themselves]{.underline} have the ability to make decisions and limit
or enable human potentials.
3. But the idea that, say, Facebook, the x86\_64 ISA, Twitter, Bitcoin,
the US Dollar, MacOS or Windows are moral demeritous forces in human
society in and of themselves is a complete falsehood, and an
illusion of capitalism.
4. Electrical systems, like computers, music synthesisers, lasers,
satellite surveillance systems, RFID tags etc. etc. are always under
the control of some human, or group of humans. The evil effects that
electrical systems can have in our current society are because they
are under the control of a tiny minority of ultra-rich people. This
ruling class uses systems like nuclear weapons and big data
processing algorithms to control and oppress the population of the
world.
5. \~nand.club stands for the liberation of electronic technology from
the hands of the few. When placed into the hands of the many,
electrical systems will lead to the liberation of the human species
from work, boredom, and drudgery. \~nand.club promotes the use of
electrical systems for the liberation of human beings.
Thesis One: Technological Disobdience is a Categorical Imperative
=================================================================
6. [When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty]{.underline}.
There exists a ruling class using electrical technology to enrich
itself at the expense of the great mass of humanity. It is therefore
everyone's moral duty to protect themselves against the oppression
that the global ruling class exerts through computers and
electronics.
7. It is also everyone's duty to fight back against the oppression of
the global capitalist ruling class that they exert through
electrical systems. Reverse engineering, circuit bending, piracy,
theft, and other forms of ethical hacking are all necessary to bring
about the end of capitalism.
8. This is because big electrical-commodity producing firms are trying
to limit your freedom through your use of their products. Microsoft
and Apple operating systems for instance are not distributed with
their source code. This renders them non-liberatory forms of
technology, because one is not able to transparently check to see
exactly what is running on one's computer when it is running Apple
or Windows code.
9. The same goes for the ''purpose'' for which capitalist firms
originally advertise their commodity to be put. Following and
obeying the technological authority of a capitalist firm and using
their commodities the way they tell you to limits your freedom. Marx
put it rather vividly: capital is like a vampire, feeding on your
living vital forces. The more capital sucks from you, the more it
lives. The more you follow the authority of Microsoft, Apple,
Facebook, Adobe, Nvidia etc., the more they gain control over you,
and continue oppressing the human population of the world.
Thesis Two: Private Property Must Be Abolished; All Products Should be Giftware
===============================================================================
10. Private property is immoral. The sole basis of capitalist private
property is the ability to coerce people, by excluding them from
control of the means of production. Without private property, it is
possible to have democratic control over the means of production. In
a word: [**Communism**]{.underline}.
11. In order to combat the forces of capitalism [under]{.underline}
capitalism, the \~nand.club tilde promotes the practice of gifting
objects (use-values), products, services, and data. Capitalism seems
to succeed because the use-values it provides are incredibly cheap:
The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it
batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians'
intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all
nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of
production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation
into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word,
it creates a world after its own image. (**[The Communist
Manifesto]{.underline}, Marx and Engels, 1848**)
12. As the quotation from Marx and Engels explains, people choose
commodities like Windows and fast food because (at least when OEM),
they are cheap and conveninent. People frequently opt not to
participate in more ethical and environmental practices because
capitalism deliberately disincentivises them from doing so. Why use
some Free Software when there is some cost in time to gain the
skills in order to use it?
13. Nothing is more convenient, however, than a gift. Some data, some
electronic components, either [liberated]{.underline} from some
capitalist outlet or otherwhise, should all be gifted on
\~nand.club. This is one way we can create a culture of
[true]{.underline} hacking--the kind of hacking of the 1950s and
1960s--the free sharing of tools and information by those with
bosses trying to steal their products of their labour. Something
freely available in the commons that does not ameliorate the effects
of capitalism is resistance to capitalism.
14. \~nand.club also supports the practice of [liberation]{.underline}
of use-values and services from the status of being private property
of some capitalist firm. In the case of tangible, physical
use-values, theft is not an insurrectionary or power-building form
of praxis, it is merely amelioratory, but is is a progressive act of
resistance. In the form of software, some liberation of software may
in fact significantly damage the control the ruling class may have
over some particular means of production.
Thesis Three: The Best Solution to the On-Coming Ecological Catastrophe is Solar Punk
=====================================================================================
15. \~nand.club is a part of the [Solar Punk]{.underline} movement. The
following sections are lifted from [What is Solar Punk]{.underline}
@ [**Solar Punk
Anarchist**](https://solarpunkanarchists.com/2016/05/27/what-is-solarpunk/).
They express the essence of what solar punk is, and it is worthwhile
giving quotation at length because it is good to re-use and promote
other people's work where it expresses the same goals as your own.
16. Solarpunk's vision is of an ecological society beyond war,
domination, and artificial scarcity; where everything is powered by
green energy and a culture of hierarchy and exclusion has been
replaced by a culture founded on radical inclusiveness,
unity-in-diversity, free cooperation, participatory democracy, and
personal self-realisation.
17. While steampunk imagines a past that might have been, based on
Victorian-age technology, solarpunk imagines a future that could be,
based on current-age technology. It anticipates the type alternative
history science-fiction the people of the future might write about
us if things turn out horribly. But more than just a new
science-fiction or fantasy subgenre, it's also practical vision for
(maybe) bringing the things it imagines into being in the real
world.
18. This would be a world of decentralised eco-cities, 3D printing,
vertical farms, solar glass windows, wild or inventive forms of
dress and design, and a vibrant cosmopolitan aesthetic; where
technology is no longer used to exploit the natural world, but to
automate away needless human labour and to help restore the damage
the Oil Age has already done.
19. \~nand.club exists, among the other purposes of anti-capitalism,
commodity liberation, participatory democracy etc, for the promotion
of the solar punk movement.