Tech Should Be a Tool, Not a Trap
Most modern technology is designed to make us dependent on corporations.
🔋 Devices break easily so you have to buy a new one.
📡 Software updates slow down old phones so you’re forced to upgrade.
🔗 Big Tech controls social media, communication, and digital knowledge.
🚫 This isn’t innovation—it’s entrapment.
✅ Convivial technology is about making tools that are open, repairable, and community-driven.
Most modern technology is designed to make us dependent on corporations.
🔋 Devices break easily so you have to buy a new one.
📡 Software updates slow down old phones so you’re forced to upgrade.
🔗 Big Tech controls social media, communication, and digital knowledge.
🚫 This isn’t innovation—it’s entrapment.
✅ Convivial technology is about making tools that are open, repairable, and community-driven.
Remember: Policy instruments are the means by which governments can achieve the degrowth goals/objectives we urgently need!
💡 Translation: Make technology repairable, accessible, and non-exploitative.
Right now, tech is designed to be expensive, disposable, and addictive.
📌 How this policy seeks to address this
🔧 Make tech repairable—ban planned obsolescence.
🚀 Invest in open-source, user-friendly tools—not products that lock people into ecosystems.
🔄 Fund community-owned digital infrastructure—instead of letting Big Tech monopolize everything.
💥 Tech should be designed for people’s use—not corporations’ profits.
💡 Translation: Help people use technology in ways that serve them, not exploit them.
Big Tech doesn’t want you to understand how your data, devices, and apps work—because that would mean power shifts back to the people.
🚫 The problem?
📲 People get trapped in digital addiction cycles with no real alternatives.
🛠 Few people know how to repair their own devices.
📡 Corporate algorithms decide what information we see, shaping our perceptions.
📌 How this policy seeks to address this
Teach repair skills & ethical tech use in schools & communities.
Push for transparency on digital platforms.
Give people control over how their data is used.
💥 Technology should be a tool for liberation, not surveillance.
💡 Translation: Take back tech and use it for social good.
Most technology is designed for profit or control, but we can reclaim it.
🚫 The problem?
🏢 Massive office buildings, military facilities, and shopping malls sit empty while people lack space for housing or social projects.
💊 Pharmaceutical patents block affordable medicine.
📡 Social media is owned by billionaires and used for profit, not public good.
📌 How this policy seeks to address this
🏭 Repurpose military facilities to produce green tech and public goods.
📡 Restructure social media as a public utility—not a private empire.
💊 Create open-source drug networks so life-saving medicine isn’t locked behind paywalls.
💻 Expand digital commons (Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Copyleft, etc.) to make knowledge universally accessible.
💥 Technology should be about community empowerment, not corporate control.
Information
Credits
Transcription