Thesis Zero: Electrical Systems Are
Tools For The Liberation of Humans From Work
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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.
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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: 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 through human society. Capitalist
makes it look as if commodities themselves have the
ability to make decisions and limit or enable human
potentials.
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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.
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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.
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~kaczynski.life 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. ~kaczynski.life promotes the use of electrical
systems for the liberation of human beings.
Thesis One: Technological Disobdience
is a Categorical Imperative
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When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes
duty. 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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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In order to combat the forces of capitalism under
capitalism, the ~kaczynski.life 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, Marx and Engels,
1848)
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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?
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Nothing is more convenient, however, than a gift. Some
data, some electronic components, either liberated
from some capitalist outlet or otherwhise, should all be
gifted on ~kaczynski.life. This is one way we can create a
culture of true 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.
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~kaczynski.life also supports the practice of liberation
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
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~kaczynski.life is a part of the Solar Punk
movement. The following sections are lifted from What
is Solar Punk
@ Solar
Punk Anarchist. 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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~kaczynski.life exists, among the other purposes of
anti-capitalism, commodity liberation, participatory
democracy etc, for the promotion of the solar punk
movement.