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.)

@Euphoria @ajroach42

(It can be, absolutely -- but after a certain point those will run out, so some comrade64 will be a good test of that for those circumstances, and as sheer proof-of-concept anyway.)

You know, I don't think they'll run out for a very long time. Lots of people have hordes of stuff, some that's useless to them but still perfectly functional or, at least parts of those things are. There are many useful, usable treasures just sitting around collecting dust or rusting.

One could possibly even advertise for used stuff, simply offering to pick it up and take it off the hands of people who don't want it around.

@sydneyfalk @ajroach42

@Euphoria @sydneyfalk the problem here is that old tech and new tech can't talk to one another without a lot of work, and that's assuming that the old tech hasn't been locked down in some unfortunate way.

I recycle old Nokia phones in to screens for new projects, but nearly every other part of the phone is useless because of software.