Today is Seize The Means of Production Day #comrades.

So let's talk about what that means, in today's high-tech, distributed world.

From my home, I can produce: Books (but not paper, or ink), Music (but not instruments), Movies (but not the media on which to distribute them), various plastic bits and baubles (but not the plastic itself), applications/games/programs (but not the machines that they run on.)

I am a producer, but in order to produce, I am also a consumer of raw and semi-raw materials.

Often, I can recycle those raw materials (I pick up used instruments and audio gear, I repair old computers) or I will soon be able to do so (I want to get a grinder and an extruder for turning failed prints in to new filament, for example.)

We live in an age of abundance. There are millions of blank CDs and DVDs out there. We could stop making them for a while, and be okay with the overstock.

But eventually, the Overstock won't be enough.

We need to be able to make CD-Rs in our basements. We need community owned CPU factories.

The Raspberry Pi enables me to make All Kinds! Of Neat Things! but it depends on an international shipping infrastructure and the goodwill of several corporations.

We need a community made pi. We need a #comrade64

But see, even that leaves out the fact that current computer chips come out of a massive industry of mining and manufacturing.

There is so much money changing hands. And so many precious and valuable resources that we are running out of. And the human cost is enormous. Even if we manage to get a community/public owned chip foundry, we're left relying on and exploiting the existing capitalist infrastructure for collecting raw materials. (Think of the human cost.)

@ajroach42
You know, it seems to me that instead of collecting fresh /raw/ materials old, used materials could be collected, repurposed, or remade into components for new things. I, personally, don't know how to do this (unless it comes to food--I can do a lot with food), but I'm convinced it can be done with desire and initiative.
@Euphoria Several of us have been picking through this idea throughout the day.

@ajroach42 I see that. I think I jumped in early this morning without realizing, somehow, that it carried on. Possibly due to technical issues here.

It's funny--Lately I've been thinking about how I went for about 5 1/2 years without having a phone or owning a computer, part of the time living without electricity, running water, gas or even walls, doors or windows, which was wonderful. Rather isolated, though.