Part Four: Technology for Life
In this website so far we first looked at some ways to calm our thoughts, in order to gain some inner quiet and an
improvement in our emotional state. Then we went on to consider our daily nutrition and some suggestions for basic exercise,
so we can become more healthy physically as well as mentally.
Now we're going to start exploring our interactions with the outside world, and find some possibilities for making our
day-to-day actions more practical and efficient. This is helpful because if we are able to complete our everyday tasks using
less of our time and energy, then we have freed ourselves to use this time and energy to do the things that we each find more
interesting and exciting. It will also help to reduce our level of dependence on other people and institutions, again giving
us more freedom and choice as to what we want to do with our lives on an individual basis.
Not everything in this section will apply to everyone reading. For example some people might not have the time, money or
space to make significant changes to their everyday living conditions, but they may be interested in gaining some more
efficiency and self-agency when using the internet. Others might not be able to change their online behavior because of work
and/or personal commitments, but they may be looking to make changes to their physical surroundings or location in the medium
term. So for this section of the website just use the parts that seem relevant to you as you feel appropriate.
1. Energy and Ecology
We all use at least some quantity of energy in our lives, be it for heating, lighting, cooking, transport, entertainment or
education etc etc. In an urban environment this energy will usually be supplied by a centralized electricity and/or natural
gas network. We will also most likely be dependant on mains-supplied water and will buy food produced far away, possibly even
from different countries. Many of us will have no realistic alternatives to these, but for those fortunate enough to have
some outside space, or even some extra room on the roofs of our buildings, there are a variety of options to generate at
least some of this energy for ourselves. Doing this can be useful for a number of reasons:
Firstly, transporting electricity over large distances means that significant amounts of energy will be lost during the
transmission process itself, which means that more has to be generated in the first place at the power station or wherever is
the original source. Generating our own energy locally allows us to use smaller amounts of natural resources in the first
instance. Also if we can generate or gather our own energy, light, warmth, water and food we will have gained much more
freedom and independence as we are no longer dependant on other people or corporations for these things. Even just being able
to take personal control over any one of these gives us more self-determination over our lives going forward.
If you have any outdoor space adjoining your home, or the ability to install items onto the roof of your building, then an
obvious way to locally generate your own electricity is with a simple solar array or wind turbine. Not everyone lives in an
ideal location to do this, and sometimes people find the look and sound of wind turbines (as well as the appearance of solar
panels) to be unsightly or annoying. However, even a relatively small wind or solar device can generate a surprising amount
of electricity, quite possibly enough to cover your lighting, entertainment and computing needs. And if you have enough room
and budget for a larger installation, then there are even sometimes possibilities for getting a small financial return on
your investment by selling excess power back to your local electricity supplier. Here are some possible options:
https://www.popsci.com/reviews/best-solar-panels/
https://www.popsci.com/gear/best-home-wind-turbines/
https://electricityplans.com/texas/compare/solar-buyback-electricity-plans/
https://solarenergyuk.org/resource/smart-export-guarantee/
https://windandsolar.com/
While even a small solar panel or wind turbine can help out a great deal with our less-demanding electricity needs, for most
people our major energy requirement will be for heating, both for room heating for those living in colder regions (or during
colder times of the year elsewhere), and also for heating water and cooking food for pretty much everybody, year round. Many
families will still need at least some degree of mains electricity and/or natural gas supply to fulfil these tasks. For
people looking to live "off grid", and to end their dependence on national commercial networks, there are a variety of
options for gas heating, multi-fuel heating and power generation, or even just burning spare firewood in a flexible stove.
This will obviously be highly dependant on each of our individual circumstances, but here are some (hopefully) useful links:
https://emergencyprepguy.com/the-best-multi-fuel-generators/
https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/g37791189/best-wood-stoves/
https://www.atg-germany.com/multifuel-generators/
One way to reduce our heating demands is to try and make best use of the natural heat from sunlight, by maximizing the
insulation and heat absorption properties of the buildings we live in. This is often referred to as "Thermal Mass Housing",
and examples of which include buildings which have their windows nearly all arranged along their "sunniest" side (so
South-facing if you live in the Northern Hemisphere), and then have at least some of the building's interior constructed from
materials suitable to absorb and then release the gathered heat. The idea is that the windows collect as much warmth as
possible from the sunlight during the day, heating up the the rest of the building, and then at night the thermal-absorbing
materials slowly release this heat back into the building's interior, working in a similar concept to an electrical concrete
storage heater. The thermal material will also help to cool the house during hot days by absorbing excess heat, allowing its
occupants to enjoy a relatively consistent temperature throughout the year.
https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/thermal-mass
https://earthship.com/systems/thermal-mass-heating-cooling/
It's quite likely that even thermal mass utilizing buildings will sometimes need some additional heating during cloudier,
colder days. However they do significantly reduce the amount of extra energy needed for heating, at least in comparison to a
more conventional home design. The key thing with all these technologies is that they potentially allow us to have more
efficiency, economy and choice with regard to our energy needs and therefore to enjoy greater day-to-day freedom in the rest
of our lives.
Finally, depending upon our location, climate and outside space it is also possible to harvest rainwater for tasks such as
washing ourselves and watering plants etc. We can even grow some plant-based protein (as recommended in the previous section)
right at home, all reducing the amount of food and water we have to source from elsewhere.
https://www.watercache.com/education/rainwater-harvesting-101
https://www.treehugger.com/beginners-guide-to-rainwater-harvesting-5089884
https://soulfullygreen.com/blog/growing-protein-at-home
https://www.housebeautiful.com/uk/garden/plants/a29664120/plant-based-protein/
2. Computing and Cyberspace
For the purposes of this section we will be considering our regular mobile phones and tablets to also be kinds of
"computers". Modern smartphones have as much processing power as the laptop or desktop computers of not so long ago, can
perform a variety of "computer-like" tasks beyond basic phone calls, and most of us carry one around with us every day.
There are good points and bad points to this. As a positive we gain the ability to immediately get in touch with our family
and friends and to follow news and entertainment events as they occur throughout the world, wherever we may be at the time.
Some downsides are that the very act of always being "connected" in this way means that we are constantly reacting to news
and messages, with little time to actually step back and calmly evaluate the relevance of all this information to ourselves,
or to look for alternative sources of information from more local or even "offline" providers. This constant information
intake also makes it more difficult for us to find the rare moments of peace and quiet that are needed to do the mental and
physical exercises described in the other sections of this website.
We are not trying to declare a particular technology or lifestyle to be definitively good or bad in this section, or to
recommend disconnecting from the internet entirely. Instead we simply suggest we could all consider slightly scaling back on
the amount of time we spend online and also think a little more about the positive and negative aspects of these
technologies.
In the sub-section above, we looked at some ways to try to reduce our overall energy consumption by increasing efficiency and
reducing wastage. This principle can also be applied to our personal computing needs to a large extent. All computers,
portable or otherwise, are usually replaced by new, upgraded, models from their manufacturers, year after year. They become
ever more capable in terms of their processing power, and also offer all sorts of exciting new features that we never knew we
needed. A cynic might say that this is purely to encourage us all to buy a new computer or phone every couple of years, but
it may well be that if you work in certain industries, or even just enjoy playing the latest videogames during your leisure
time, that you "need" the latest model computer/phone running the latest software in order to keep up-to-date with your
favored profession or hobby.
However if you have less demanding needs, and are really just wanting a phone/computer for communication, web browsing, and
basic word processing or other office-style tasks, you might find that even a ten year old (or older!) computer can still be
sufficient for your purposes. What you would really want in this case would be a way to keep your old computer going after
the major commercial software companies have moved on to newer models, and/or it is struggling to run at an acceptable speed
with all the new features built into the modern software. The good news in this case is that there are options to make things
more efficient by running a simpler and less resource-intensive operating system in the first instance, and then just adding
extra software later on as and when you need it.
There are a huge variety of Linux-based software distributions available https://distrowatch.com/, for hobbyists and/or
professional users, and the vast majority of these are free to use, both in terms of "free beer" and "free speech"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre. While there is a bewildering amount of choice among the hundreds of different distributions currently in
production, we think it's fair to say that the differences between them all are really more in terms of how they
work, and the default setup preferences of their users/contributors, rather than any significant restrictions or limitations
as to what they can do. So as long as you pick one of the larger and more popular distributions (rather than going
straight to installing an especially obscure or specialist distro at first), then pretty much any of them can be set up to
run your computer pretty much however you want. Also once you're up and running if you then decide you might prefer to move
over to try another distribution, this is generally pretty straightforward to do. As an initial suggestion one of the most
popular distros is Linux Mint https://linuxmint.com/, which is based upon the equally-popular Ubuntu (or sometimes Debian), and comes with a
default desktop installation that should seem relatively familiar and welcoming for people coming over from Windows or MacOS.
It also comes with some free software equivalents of popular programs for tasks such as web browsing, e-mail, office work etc
already installed as standard.
For phones and other mobile devices there is generally not quite so much choice, with many smartphones losing software update
support from their manufacturers after only a few years of release. A kind-of equivalent of LinuxMint for
Android-based mobiles is LineageOS https://lineageos.org/, which attempts to provide ongoing software updates for some Android devices by
using the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). So this may be an option for you to extend the useful life of your phone,
depending on its model. Alternatively, if you have a recent model Google Pixel phone then GrapheneOS https://grapheneos.org/is a
highly-regarded AOSP-based operating system for users prioritizing privacy and security.
In terms of privacy and security, it is important to remember that even if Linux or AOSP or anyone else are able to provide
ongoing software updates for older computers/devices, once the manufacturer has stopped supporting the device it
may well end up being left with unpatched (and publicly-disclosed) vulnerabilities on a hardware level. This should
be a consideration if you are using your phone or computer to store or transmit personally sensitive information, and if you
are concerned about capable "online adversaries" attempting to get hold of your data. On Android and iOS there are a variety
of supposedly more private and secure messaging options for your communications, each with strengths and weaknesses https://www.privacytools.io/privacy-messaging, but Signal https://signal.org/ can be seen as a useful starting point and has an interface that should seem
familiar from other messaging applications.
The majority of modern smartphones and desktop/laptop computers sold today have their storage systems encrypted by default,
but if yours does not, or if you would simply prefer to use other options, there are also various well-tested and scrutinized
free software options to (hopefully) safely encrypt your data https://veracrypt.fr/ https://github.com/FiloSottile/age. For people wishing to gain some anonymity when
browsing the internet there are alternatives such as the Tor network https://www.torproject.org/ which endeavors to keep your identity secret
from your destination websites, and your destinations private from your internet service provider. They do however make clear
that it is not capable of projecting your anonymity from "global passive adversaries", such as government agencies with the
ability to monitor both ends of the communication. All these tools are interesting and can be very useful, but it is up to us
all as individuals to decide how much faith we want to put in them, and how much of our personal information we wish to risk
potentially being broadcast online. The internet can be very useful to us all for things such as education, entertainment,
shopping and possibly even business and commerce if that is your interest. However please take great care as to how much
information about yourself you choose to share with it.
With all this in mind the main point is to think about what you really want from your computers and mobile devices.
It may even be feasible for you to start using different devices for different tasks, and to then keep them separate from
each other for reasons of efficiency and privacy. For example, a modern smartphone or laptop could provide for your
communication and financial/shopping needs, and you could then also keep an older computer around for creative and/or office
work. And maybe even use either of these and/or an older, possibly slightly obsolescent, videogame console for your personal
media consumption and entertainment? By keeping them separate and using different devices for different things you can reduce
your "online footprint" and hopefully also reduce the scale of any potential damage should one of your devices ever become
compromized. Things like Linux distributions and "open source" Android offer some degree of extra transparency in how they
work in terms of the software. However please bear in mind that many of the operations of the physical hardware on a firmware
level are usually still opaque to the end user, and older systems will often have the aforementioned publicly-disclosed
vulnerabilities which can possibly be taken advantage of by an adversary. Efficiency, flexibility and reusability are the
main plus points of the Linux/AOSP approach. Think about what you want to do with each system, and when you're on "The Web"
in general. Do you really need to do so much and put so much information on the internet? Taking all these considerations
into account can become a bit like going down the proverbial "rabbit-hole", but it is a useful thought process that can help
us to decide when we can use certain devices and online services and when we probably shouldn't.
Think in terms of your own life, and what you really need in order to live the life you want. Often the reduction
of consumption and consumerism is portrayed to be some kind of restriction or sacrifice, but you might just find that by
reducing the resources spent on daily, mundane undertakings you do in fact end up gaining the time and freedom to do more of
the things you feel are truly enjoyable and important.