Appropriate Technology
Operational Mechanisms
✴️ Symbiotic Commonwealth
🔮 Sustainability Theorems
A cross-domain analysis of Political, Economic, Cultural, and Ecological theories.
Political Theory
Digital Commons
Economic Theory
Open Source Hardware
Cultural Theory
Attention Sovereignty
Ecological Theory
Appropriate Scale
The Liberatory Tech: Tools that enhance human agency and ecological wisdom.
📑 Observations
Establishing a triage containing observations of social experience.
🪞 Self-Enquiry
What does Attention Sovereignty mean to me, and how can I use or support Appropriate Technology and Open Source Hardware to reclaim it from corporate platforms?
🩺 Diagnosis Questions
1. Does technology increase autonomy or dependence?
2. Can tools be understood, modified, and repaired by users?
3. Does tech scale enhance or diminish life?
Related Variables
- Technology accessibility and literacy
- Repair and modification rates
- Ecological impact of tech systems
"The craftsman, having first established the truth within his own self, creates accordingly." — Rig Veda (On mindful creation)
🩻 Targeted Organ
The Liberatory Tools
Capacity for Augmented Agency
🧾 Rationale
To create tools that serve life, enhance understanding, and remain under community control.
💉 Extraction/Cultivation
Open-source hardware, digital commons, and design principles favoring repairability and appropriate scale.
😷 Defense/Propagation
Sovereign Toolmaking: The community's ability to understand, modify, and control its own technological means.
❌ Tetrad Analysis
- Object of Perception: Technology
- ENHANCES: Autonomy; understanding; repairability; ecological integration; human scale
- OBSOLESCES: Dependence; obscurity; planned obsolescence; ecological harm
- RETRIEVES: Craft traditions augmented with open-source and digital fabrication
- REVERSES INTO: Technology becomes seamlessly integrated into life without dominating it
📝 Partial Diagnosis
Symbiotic Tools: Technology serves life—digital commons protect data sovereignty, open hardware enables repair, scale matches ecological context.
⚗️ Research Repository
🔮 Engagement Circle
🧊 Life Course
🎓 Case Study
FarmBot Open Source Farming Robot (2011-present)
FarmBot demonstrates appropriate technology through open source hardware designs for precision agriculture, digital commons sharing of farming knowledge, attention sovereignty by reducing time spent on routine tasks, and appropriate scale technology accessible to home gardeners and small farms.
Sources: FarmBot Documentation | Open Source Ecology | MIT OpenAg Initiative
📚 Literature
"Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered" by E.F. Schumacher (1973)
Schumacher's seminal work on intermediate technology emphasizes human-scale, environmentally sustainable, and locally adaptable technologies that serve community needs rather than maximizing profit or efficiency.
