I send in two talk proposals to this year’s re:publica and since one never know what might get accepted and what not, I thought I’d archive both here. If one or both gets rejected, maybe I can find another home for them.

The Future is Decomputing: An Approach For More Humane Tech

Summary: When talking about tech we rarely leave the established frame of reference: Software need to scale up to the whole world – but we want it open sourced for example. But That way lies only doom. Decomputing is a frame that’s not (only) about less and smaller computing but about the WHY and HOW of it.

Description: Our perspective on technology is shaped by the logic of the TECH sector. Even critical approaches are building on it. Whether it’s strong push for open source software, open data, transparent algorithms or certain regulations there only very rarely is a challenge to the logic of the tech sector.

This logic is based on ideas of scaling, of systems needing to grow and at some point include or contain the whole world, on the belief in the truth of data, in computation as an expression of efficiency and therefore being a necessity. But this logic leaves the future already shaped and defined by a logic of dominance, homogeniety and exploitation – even if we were not living in a capitalist system.

This talk will present a different approach to thinking about technologies and their application. Decomputing does share some aspects with ideas such as degrowth in order to mitigate material harms but it goes further and sees even our political processes as deeply influenced and structured by the logic of TECH. In this talk, together we’ll try to start a journey towards a better world that includes some, better tech. But mostly a more convivial life for all.

Democracy instead of just “Open Source”

Summary: This year got many people to think about leaving US-tech platforms. Good. But our answer tends to be just “use an open source alternative”. But we mustn’t stop at “open source Instagram”. Which approaches are available to democratize the Internet? How can we materialize democratic principles?

Description: This session is based on one analysis: That even the alternatives for commercial digital platforms that we keep nudging people into are not democratic.

They might be non-commercial or even Open Source but we’ve kinda settled on focusing on those very technical (and simple) terms instead of asking where and people can actually participate in the decision making without being programmers or sth. Open Source Software is great but we have to demand more.

Which examples for more democratically run services or platforms can we see? What works and what doesn’t? Which demands can we put towards new projects that want to be part of building a better Internet for the people aside from technological implementation details or licensing issues.

Democracy is practice and not just theory. We should use the malleability and degrees of freedom that software can give us to experiment with more radical forms of democracy in the platforms that run our lives. 

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