For me, right to to repair isn't just about ewaste, and preventing corporate gouging.
It's about mental health. Being able to fix your gadgets is therapeutic. Empowering. Good for the soul.
In a world full of complex technology it's easy to feel small and helpless. And maybe I'm too much of an idealist, but I think that if everyone could experience the joy of fixing or modifying a gadget now and then we'd all be a little more open minded, a little more daring. A little harder to push around.
When I was around 9 yo, our TV had vacuum tubes.
We had an ironmonger's (hardware store) on the next street, just a tiny place in row housing.
It had replacement tubes (valves, we called them), and we'd need one once a year.
My dad was a mechanic. He taught me to fix cars.
I've rebuilt engines, but I look under the hood in mine and wouldn't dare start.
And if you’re not going to fix it yourself, having the quiet guy with his little repair shop in the old service station or the funny woman with cool hair in the basement shop under the sandwich place is a public good whether you need something repaired or not. Those places existing are good for a community’s ephemeral spirit.
In "New York Cities Hypogeographies" (the novel I've been working on for two years) the old woman who runs the repair shop is the connection that unites the robots who are having a revolution and the people of Deep Brooklyn who are oppressed in less obvious ways by the Distributed Prison. She helps families to locate the pods of inmates and free them, and is one of the few human people aware what is really going on at the lower margin of the excavations.
Have you read "Unauthorized bread"?
More focused on DRM than repairability, but modifying your devices as an act of joyful power made me think of it.
The trashiest electronic channel on YouTube. We test and use affordable electronic soldering equipment and tools to build, teardown, modify (and sometimes destroy) random electronic stuff. A British TV licence is NOT required to view my videos or almost every other video on YouTube. Many of the builds and projects featured here operate at full mains voltage and carry a high risk of shock and fire. As such they're really intended for either entertainment value or for those who do similar stuff. The videos are generally uncensored and may contain tasteless jokes, profanities and even blood and electric shocks when things go wrong. So just like a normal workshop really. So kick back, grab a beer and enjoy the ride.
@futurebird whether or not you’re an idealist aside, you’re also correct. In DBT, what you’re describing would fall under the broader category of “building mastery” (learning new skills in general also fall under that category), which is a useful tool for emotional regulation and creating positive experiences.
@futurebird the right and ability to repair also gives important outs from the cycle of constant crises that comes with poverty.
So many of those crises boil down to 'an essential item broke (because it's low quality/second hand, because poverty), now I'm between a rock and a hard place: pay money or try to exist without it'.
Boycott anti-repair manufacturers
@futurebird Preach!
Computers turning into walled-garden app-store-only consumer devices is one of my least favorite technology trends
@futurebird It's not just tech. How many people these days can thread a needle, stitch up a hem or replace a button? Make a loaf of bread from scratch? Plant a seed and nurture it into a plant, and on to fruition? Navigate by the stars?
We are losing all the skills that enabled our not so distant ancestors to survive. We are being nudged into a state of childish helplessness.
It's not a sustainable position for the human race.
@futurebird I suddenly hear Leah 'See Jane Drill' Bolden's "You can do this!" 🙂
My favorite recent one on the channel was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWNQoyPKhJE
...I agree; in fact, I made a career out of fixing computers/printers.
Wow yes.
Bet this is a part of the reason city mayors, the local lords of capitalism, come so hard against homeless encampments even when we're on the outskirts.
Every camp of unhoused people becomes a hotbed of scavenging and repair.
One of the best things that comes with the stability of the camp is fixing up your own stuff and own space.
@nearnorth @futurebird That's an interesting thought.
Broadly, I think the war on the unhoused is part of the long-running process to pin people people down in place to control them.
@futurebird Empowering, that's the word.
Not having the right to repair is all about power. Corporations are in fact mafias flexing their (legal) power to force you to pay. It's a system designed to make you submit to them.
Racketeering. n. A type of organized crime in which the persons set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit.
Doesn't DRM for repairs fall exactly under the definition of racketeering? But they call it "business".
It's all about power, really.
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