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Nostalgia

Like most folks around these parts, I find myself missing the computers and internet of my past. But something about these feelings hasn’t sat right with me; I reckon that’s due to the association between nostalgia and conservative¹ ideology.

Picking through all this, I realize that “nostalgic” isn’t really a great description of what I feel. I do not “miss the past” so much as I miss the future (a version of the present) that I thought would arrive, and which I have since accepted never will... This isn’t nostalgia, it’s mourning! And, sure, in hindsight it may be obvious that I was naive to believe that stuff about computers solving the world’s problems. It doesn’t matter — the past 20–30 years of technological development have’t gone how I thought they would, and I’m sad² about it.

I’m no good at being sad. At least, I dislike being sad. So when it comes I try to get out of it quickly, but I’m old enough now to have learned this lesson: you don’t get out of being sad by pretending you’re not. You have to give your feeling some space — “acknowledge” them — and allow them to pass through you without grabbing ahold of them or trying to shove them away. And whenever being sad about “the future” clears away, I remember that I will be more productive and spiritually nourished if I focus on the potential futures I want to help bring into being. This isn’t “hope”, but it is something to hold onto.

I previously claimed that I’m “not a doomer (anymore)”

I was feeling pessimistic about temperature targets recently. Remembering that I wrote the above, but not recalling exactly what I said, I revisited that post to see if it needed an update. But I think I’m more or less in the same place about all this as I was then. Overall, I feel like I’ve been doing a decent job of following my own advice.

Anyway, even if I don’t want computering to go back to exactly how it was in the late 90s or whatever, that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be gained from looking at past technologies. Old devices and software embody good ideas since abandoned; picking them back up and pushing them in new directions is something we should be doing. Making old devices do new things is one of the activities that help make better futures more likely³!

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¹ I’m not interested in exploring the distinction between conservatives and fascists here. I’ll just note that the majority of today’s fascists would describe themselves as conservative and take offense at being called fascist.

² Ok, and also angry.

³ I have two arguments to support this belief. First, fighting planned obsolescence is absolutely vital to any strategy of degrowth, and the best way to do that is to prefer using old things to constructing new ones. Secondly, when a new device must be constructed, it’s far cheaper to build and run one that looks more like an old computer than a new one.

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