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writing:high_context_living [2026/08/15 00:44] – [Tradeoffs] JacobCoffinWriteswriting:high_context_living [2026/08/16 22:51] (current) – JacobCoffinWrites
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 ====Tradeoffs==== ====Tradeoffs====
  
-It's important to remember that there's a reason these systems are almost exclusively the domain of solarpunk, environmentalist weirdos, remote homesteaders, and people for whom the default, low-context alternatives are too expensive or simply unavailable. +It's important to remember that there's a reason these systems are almost exclusively the domain of solarpunk, environmentalist weirdos (complementary), remote homesteaders, and people for whom the default, low-context alternatives are too expensive or simply unavailable. 
  
 They're more work, less convenient, and less reliable. And because they require much more involvement and skill from regular people, they can also be less safe. In examples below you'll see systems that require the end user to routinely sterilize their drinking water, electrical systems which require manual load balancing to keep from overcharging the batteries, and similar risks.  They're more work, less convenient, and less reliable. And because they require much more involvement and skill from regular people, they can also be less safe. In examples below you'll see systems that require the end user to routinely sterilize their drinking water, electrical systems which require manual load balancing to keep from overcharging the batteries, and similar risks. 
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 And that's probably not a bad thing. And that's probably not a bad thing.
  
-There are some important benefits to the systems that allow for low-context living. The standardization of parts and design, the safety and quality standards, the accessability benefits from their ease of use, the efficiencies of centralized infrastructure, and the emphasis on expert-run operations are all good, admirable things which would likely be prioritized //more// by a solarpunk society than our current one.  +There are some important benefits to the systems that allow for low-context living. The standardization of parts and design, the safety and quality standards, the accessibility benefits from their ease of use, the efficiencies of centralized infrastructure, and the emphasis on expert-run operations are all good, admirable things which would likely be prioritized //more// by a solarpunk society than our current one. Regulations are written in blood and most of this complexity came about for good reasons.
- +
-At the same time, high-context systems operated without a reduction of consumption can be far worse ecologically. +
  
 It's just also worth recognizing that the places where low context living is the default also tend to consume far more resources per person, possibly (partly) because these systems are easy to use, seemingly without limit, and because they abstract away the complexities of operation and the sourcing of resources.  It's just also worth recognizing that the places where low context living is the default also tend to consume far more resources per person, possibly (partly) because these systems are easy to use, seemingly without limit, and because they abstract away the complexities of operation and the sourcing of resources. 
  
-There's a sort of implicit trade-off here, where low-context systems can have significant externalities, hidden complexities, and allow for greater waste by abstracting the supply, while high context systems are less generalizable and less convenient. 
  
  
 ====So where/why are these systems likely to show up?==== ====So where/why are these systems likely to show up?====
  
-These systems are already common in real life, in deliberately-offgrid homesteads, regions where the existing grid is unreliable or nonexistent, and remote areas of otherwise-developed regions where it is too costly or difficult to connect to existing utilities. +These systems are already common in real life, in deliberately-offgrid homesteads, regions where the existing grid is [[https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/01/climate/pakistan-solar-boom|unreliable]] or nonexistent, and remote areas of otherwise-developed regions where it is too costly or difficult to connect to existing utilities. 
  
-A solarpunk society would likely make advancements in sharing resources equally, and prioritize providing electricity, clean water, sewage treatment, and internet to as many people as possible. But it's also likely that these categories will still exist to some extent even in the most aspirational setting, if only for practical limitations around distance.+A solarpunk society would likely make advancements in sharing resources equally, and would prioritize providing electricity, clean water, sewage treatment, and internet to as many people as possible. But it's also likely that these categories will still exist to some extent even in the most aspirational setting, if only for practical limitations around distance.
  
-These categories could also expand and contain far more people, depending on your setting's backstory. If the solarpunk society is a recovering one, perhaps rebuilding after war, climate disasters, societal crumbles, or some combination thereof, then it's possible that supply chains broke down, that even well-established municipal services became unreliable, and that people had to set up at least some alternative systems to get by. +These categories could also expand to contain far more people/places, depending on your setting's backstory. If the solarpunk society is a recovering one, perhaps rebuilding after war, climate disasters, societal crumbles, or some combination thereof, then it's possible that supply chains broke down, that even well-established municipal services became unreliable, and that people had to set up at least backup alternative systems to get by. 
  
 These may be temporary fixes that are fading as society recovers and reestablishes the low-context alternatives, or they might be elaborate DIY systems that people are not just comfortable with, but even proud of, with no plans to go back to how things were before. It's very possible you'd see both even in the same place.  These may be temporary fixes that are fading as society recovers and reestablishes the low-context alternatives, or they might be elaborate DIY systems that people are not just comfortable with, but even proud of, with no plans to go back to how things were before. It's very possible you'd see both even in the same place. 
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 =====Examples of High Context Living===== =====Examples of High Context Living=====
  
-The following section will attempt to gather good examples of the sort of systems people build when they're living off grid or trying to reduce their consumption.+The following sections will attempt to gather good IRL examples of the sort of systems people build when they're living off grid or trying to reduce their consumption. With any luck, they will provide inspiration and useful details for describing similar systems in fiction. 
  
 Some of the following links are to blog posts, others are excerpts from permaculture or off-grid forums. Some of the following links are to blog posts, others are excerpts from permaculture or off-grid forums.
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 >"When I was still knee high to a grass hopper, my dad built a similar water wheel driven generator system in a stream behind our neighbour's property. They had a little permanent mountain stream from a strong fountain in the hill above the house. Built a little retaining dam with overflow. The 3" feeding pipe was built into the bottom of the dam, and fed the flow to the wheel about twenty meters downstream. The generator supplied the power to a bank of 6 truck batteries in a store room. The oom was a bit of an eccentric chap (and a stingy old fellow), he collected a bunch of old car light fittings and installed them all over the house. A 12v system. He powered them from the batteries. I know the living room, kitchen, store room, dairy and garage's lamps burned permanently, to keep some load on the system and prevent overcharging the batteries. It was crude, but free." >"When I was still knee high to a grass hopper, my dad built a similar water wheel driven generator system in a stream behind our neighbour's property. They had a little permanent mountain stream from a strong fountain in the hill above the house. Built a little retaining dam with overflow. The 3" feeding pipe was built into the bottom of the dam, and fed the flow to the wheel about twenty meters downstream. The generator supplied the power to a bank of 6 truck batteries in a store room. The oom was a bit of an eccentric chap (and a stingy old fellow), he collected a bunch of old car light fittings and installed them all over the house. A 12v system. He powered them from the batteries. I know the living room, kitchen, store room, dairy and garage's lamps burned permanently, to keep some load on the system and prevent overcharging the batteries. It was crude, but free."
  
-  * Here's a similar project converting a 12v household to 24v:+  * Here's a similar project converting a 12v household to 24v with a great level of detail:
  
 >[[https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/12_to_24_volt_house_conversion/]] >[[https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/12_to_24_volt_house_conversion/]]
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 >[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_converter]] >[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_converter]]
  
-**High Context expectations**: DIY electrical systems may require careful management of the load connected to them, in order to balance power available from generation and storage. This could include rationing power use at certain times (such as night or cloudy days for solar, or drought seasons for small scale hydro) and used freely at others. This requires a more careful awareness of time, weather, and season. These systems may also include nonstandard usage of existing hardware, such as some outlets designed for 120v AC being used for 24v DC, or appliances and lamps being modified to use 12v DC.+**High Context expectations**: DIY electrical systems may require careful management of the load connected to them, in order to balance power available from generation and storage. This could include rationing power use at certain times (such as night or cloudy days for solar, or drought seasons for small scale hydro) and used freely at others. This requires a more careful awareness of time, weather, and season. These systems may also include nonstandard usage of existing hardware, such as some outlets designed for 240v AC being used for DC (or other outlets if they're not following the building codes), or appliances and lamps being modified to use 12v DC.
  
  
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   * Solar Hot Air systems can be useful for winter heating, food dehydration, or any other daytime space-heating goal. These [[https://stonehavenlife.com/comparing-solar-air-heater-designs-performance/|can be DIY]] or [[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0549/4905/2463/files/4000_Series_Heater_Manual_V2c.pdf?v=1651793890|factory made]]. Typically they are set up with an electric thermostat (or two, one to check that the interior of the heat panel is hot enough to warm the designated space, and the other to check that the designated space is cool enough to need it, the second is optional). But there is still some complexity in adding these systems, closing the vents and covering the glass in the summer.   * Solar Hot Air systems can be useful for winter heating, food dehydration, or any other daytime space-heating goal. These [[https://stonehavenlife.com/comparing-solar-air-heater-designs-performance/|can be DIY]] or [[https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0549/4905/2463/files/4000_Series_Heater_Manual_V2c.pdf?v=1651793890|factory made]]. Typically they are set up with an electric thermostat (or two, one to check that the interior of the heat panel is hot enough to warm the designated space, and the other to check that the designated space is cool enough to need it, the second is optional). But there is still some complexity in adding these systems, closing the vents and covering the glass in the summer.
  
 +  * Solar Hot water can be as simple as a length of hose coiled in the sunlight or as elaborate as vacuum-lined rooftop tube systems carrying antifreeze-based heat transfer fluids through a heat exchanger to provide warm water even in winter. Some of these systems can be seasonal, and must be disconnected before temperatures drop below freezing. Either way, the water only heats to a comfortable temperature at a certain time of day so you have to plan around that.
 ====Cooking==== ====Cooking====
  
-[[solar_concentrators|Solar cookers]] +There are a wealth of  
 +[[https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Solar_cooker_plans|Solar Cooker designs]] designs used all over the world to cook food using only heat from the sun.  
 + 
 +There are a ton of ways to cook with sunlight, there's a vibrant DIY community and hundreds of designs to fit almost any circumstance, requirement, or starting materials. 
 +      * Two interesting variants to call out: there are some designs that allow for fairly traditional ovens. Most solar cookers are more of a replacement for a camping stove than a kitchen oven, but even that can be done: [[https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/04/23/solar-baking-how-the-sun-is-helping-to-reduce-the-cost-of-bread-in-lebanon|This system]] appears to use a series of reflective troughs on the roof to heat a transfer fluid running through a tube and conveys that down to a fairly traditional convection oven. While a [[https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Scheffler_Community_Kitchen|Scheffler reflector]] is a huge mirrored dish positioned outside a building to [[http://www.solare-bruecke.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/2-the-scheffler-reflector?itemid=|bounce light through a hole in a wall into an oven]]. 
 + 
 +**High-Context Expectations**: You generally need clear skies and they get less and less effective at higher latitudes. You also need sunlight - this might seem obvious, but think of how many changes you'd have to make if you could only cook when it's light out. No hot breakfasts (at least for much of the year in certain latitudes), no more bakers hours getting food ready before you open. Solar cooking and baking are done exclusively during the heat of the day.