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writing:repairability_in_solarpunk [2025/12/23 03:02] – [Changes to Existing Stuff] JacobCoffinWriteswriting:repairability_in_solarpunk [2025/12/24 20:27] (current) – JacobCoffinWrites
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-Solarpunk artwork often features sleek, futuristic technology –  sometimes because it contrasts well with nature in ourdoor scenes or because the smooth shapes compliment it and reject the techno aestetics often found in cyberpunk and real life. But do those aesthetics match with the DIY, Open Source, Copyleft, Right-to-Repair activist side of the solarpunk movement? What would tech, appliances, etc look like in a society that prioritizes resilient, long-lasting, repairable stuff?+Solarpunk artwork often features sleek, futuristic technology –  sometimes because it contrasts well with nature in outdoor scenes, or because the smooth shapes compliment it and reject the techno aesthetics often found in cyberpunk and real life. But do those aesthetics match with the DIY, Open Source, Copyleft, Right-to-Repair activist side of the solarpunk movement? What would tech, appliances, etc look like in a society that prioritizes resilient, long-lasting, repairable stuff?
  
-Some of the language in this page will be a bit generic as it tries to covers everything from computers and washing machines to bicycles to pots and pans. As with all of these resources it's a work in progress and I'm happy to add more links, dedicated sections, and specific examples if you have something you think fits!+Some of the language in this page will be a bit generic as it tries to cover everything from computers and washing machines to bicycles to pots and pans. As with all of these resources it's a work in progress and I'm happy to add more links, dedicated sections, and specific examples if you have something you think fits!
  
-In western nations, much of how we interact with //stuff// is through a siloed system of **extraction -> manufacture -> purchase -> use -> and disposal**. It's a sort of default, with a lot of resources spent to make sure that buying something and throwing things are both easy. And that default feeds back into manufacture - things are produced with the expectation that they'll be thrown away.+====A change in ethos (incentive?)====
  
-In a library economy, it should be assumed that stuff will be around for a long, long time, and it’ll be worthwhile to design it to last. There are (very broadly) two ways to do this: design it to not break, and design it to be fixed (durability and repairability). Generally the best examples will strive to do both, but these goals can sometimes conflict and force the designers to choose one or the other:+I think in order to talk about how stuff might be made differently, it’s worthwhile to talk about the goals and incentives that structure what gets made today, how it gets made, and how different those goals and incentives might be in a solarpunk society.  
 + 
 +I think there’s two broad categories to look at: the first is the goals and culture of the industry/engineers/designers/company owners responsible for what gets made, the second is the mindset, expectations, and needs of the people who buy and use the products. 
 + 
 + 
 +===Making things=== 
 + 
 +In our present day, at least in wealthier nations, much of how we interact with //stuff// is through a siloed system of **extraction -> manufacture -> purchase -> use -> and disposal**. The companies that produce a thing generally don’t care what happens to it once it’s sold. Their only interest is in producing and selling things, and in making a bigger profit than last quarter. They’re not responsible for the long-term, societal and environmental costs of their product, or for what happens to it after it breaks down. 
 + 
 +Instead the rest of our society has stepped up - and subsidized them, in a way - by providing an elaborate system of waste management which whisks these unwanted things away out of sight, keeping the whole purchase -> disposal system convenient. The person who buys a short-lived appliance might find their frustration at a bad product compounded by dump fees, but they can at least know that it will be hauled away from them and they won’t have to figure out what to do with it, or else see it every day. And so it is for all other stuff, from tech to appliances to furniture to the eternal packaging it all comes in. 
 + 
 +And this is a huge part of the responsibilities of local governments, to the point that in some small towns, maintaining roads and operating some kind of dump or transfer station are almost their only real responsibilities. Bigger cities have to find suitable locations to store tremendous amounts of garbage, and create the massive lined (and eventually capped) pits which store our waste, operate fleets of trucks to gather and sort it all, and either build and run recycling centers or pay companies that do. It’s a lot of money and labor spent to make sure that buying something and throwing it away are both easy.  
 + 
 +And that default feeds back into manufacture – to some extent, things are produced with the expectation, even requirement, that they'll be thrown away. This leads to a lot of clever shortcuts, cost-cutting, and even intentional sabotage under titles like planned obsolescence or the use of sub-par custom parts.  
 + 
 +Several people I talked to while looking for examples for this page recommended that I look into household stuff produced in the Soviet Union. So far at least I haven't really found many major differences between them and stuff produced by other countries in the same time period (that doesn't mean they don't have great examples, I'm just having trouble finding stuff and that may come down to the fact that most of my searching is done in English). One thing I did find while following up on that was [[https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79R01141A002300080002-5.pdf|a report on soviet appliance manufacturing drafted by the CIA in 1962]]. I think the most interesting thing there was their analysis of the Soviets' goals. They described what they considered to be an ambitious goal at the time: that by 1965 there would be one refrigerator for every five urban households, one washing machine for every three urban households, and one sewing machine for every two households, both urban and rural.  
 + 
 +And that struck me as a very different way of looking at the production of goods. 
 + 
 +Basically if you're an American appliance company your goal is to make and sell refrigerators. In fact, because your shareholders are looking for growth, your goal is to sell more refrigerators every year, or to sell them at a higher profit each year, or both. You don't care if you're producing more than people need, or what happens to the old ones, as long as this year's model is selling. In fact, if the previous years’ models are too reliable, your business might not be sustainable because you need new sales. You might even start an advertising campaign to try and convince people to replace a working refrigerator with a new one to bring in more money. 
 + 
 +If you're the Soviet government, by contrast, it appears your goal was to make enough refrigerators that (eventually) every household had one, then get those factories back to work making industrial equipment, or tanks or whatever. The longer those refrigerators lasted, the fewer factory cycles had to be wasted producing replacements. (They didn’t even build dedicated factories for household goods, in many cases.) 
 + 
 +State communism may not have much in common with most solarpunk settings, but this sort of structural/incentives framework might have a bit of overlap, even if the underlying reasons are very different. 
 + 
 +Almost by definition, a solarpunk society is going to want to minimize the harm it's causing to the species, habitats, and landscape around it. It's going to want to extract as little material as possible, pollute as little as possible, and to clean up the existing damage wherever possible. Modern manufacturing underpins much of our current quality of life (and many peoples’ actual survival), but it's a messy, damaging, extractive, externality-producing field. There are ways to improve on it but one big sidestep to that problem is to simply produce less. 
 + 
 +Without making other changes, producing less generally entails a lower quality of life. But there are a few ways to balance these goals: you can design things to be durable and fixable, and arrange some of the systems of society into a library economy, so that any unwanted item is recovered, cleaned up, and provided to someone else, easing both the need for new production and the burden of long-term storage in dedicated landfills.  
 + 
 +A refrigerator company under capitalism has no incentive to sell fewer refrigerators but a solarpunk society might very much want to extract less, dispose of less, or choose to spend its limited resources on other projects. Fewer person hours, raw materials, electricity, all spent making refrigerators might actually sound great to them. 
 + 
 +This breaks the siloed pipeline from extraction to disposal and changes the incentives: In a library economy, it should be assumed that stuff will be around for a long, long time, and it’ll be worthwhile to design it to last. Manufacturing might be less speculative, and even less specialized, depending on the local needs and conditions.  
 + 
 +**New Production:** 
 + 
 +This might be sounding a bit too state-run or top-down so lets look at other ways this sort of thing might be done. A more anarchist framework might involve open-source hardware designs, circulated freely and available to anyone who needs to make a thing. Picture something like thingiverse. 
 + 
 +If someone needs something they might go to their local fabrication workshop and ask them to make the thing (and work out whatever compensation fits your setting). The fab shop might pull down a design - perhaps this is just a highly-rated volunteer design, or, as in Ecotopia, it's been reviewed and approved by some form of government/panel of volunteers. They buy/scavenge the parts and materials and produce a one-off, or a short run of the product to meet local need, then move on to something else. This keeps the manufacturer’s incentives more or less in line with the societal good: their livelihood/existence isn’t dependent on people buying enough of the same thing every year, so they don’t need to convince people to throw out their old one and buy a new one (through advertising, planned obsolescence, or other sabotage). I think this can also be described as a move away from speculative production to a more on-demand system. 
 + 
 +We’ll talk in the next sections about how these goods might be made fixable and durable, but if they become unwanted (maybe two people move in together, or someone dies) the item might be passed ad-hoc to someone who needs it, or it might be returned to the library economy – volunteers or employees would collect it, inspect it, clean it up or make repairs, and provide it to someone else. If it’s beyond repair for some reason, it would be stripped for usable parts and the remaining materials recycled. Ideally only a very small portion would end up needing forever-storage. This process could take place in a huge, futuristic facility, or tons of small workshops; it all depends on your setting. 
 + 
 +It’s important to note that there are some huge downsides to this kind of operation - a general fab shop will be far less efficient at producing any given thing than a dedicated facility. The dedicated equipment/layout, the per-arranged supply lines for parts, the specialization and experience of the workers all play a huge role in producing a quality item as quickly and efficiently as possible.  
 + 
 +With each new product, even a skilled fab shop crew will be relearning lessons other teams elsewhere already learned, and they'll burn a lot of time learning how to make each thing, and even just maneuvering it around their workshop.  
 + 
 +And these efficiency losses aren’t just made in person-hours and minor injuries – this slower, less-specialized work means more electricity spent running tools and lights, parts and materials wasted through accidental damage. All of this may come with an environmental cost (in extraction or pollution) depending on how the larger society creates energy and sources materials. 
 + 
 +But if your setting doesn't need tons of an item per year, or can't sustain the long distance shipping necessary to cover a much wider area, then a dedicated operation might not be worthwhile.  
 + 
 +The other downside is in wait time - with speculative manufacturing, items are produced in anticipation of need and they're just waiting on a shelf when you decide you need one. This is great if you need it, but when demand is low, it leads to a lot of brand new items traveling straight from factory to warehouse to landfill without ever being used.  
 + 
 +In an on-demand solarpunk society, you might be stuck waiting while someone downloads a design, finds parts, and assembles the thing. This is another place where a library economy shines - instead of an individual showing up at a fab shop to commission a new refrigerator, the workers at an appliance library might notice that they never have enough refrigerators in stock and commission some from the fabricators. Then when an individual needs a refrigerator, they can hopefully just go to the library and get one. 
 + 
 + 
 + 
 + 
 + 
 + 
 + 
 + 
 +So let's get into how this long-lasting stuff gets made. There are (very broadly) two ways to do this: design it to not break, and design it to be fixed (durability and repairability). Generally the best examples will strive to do both, but these goals can sometimes conflict and force the designers to choose one or the other:
  
  
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 **General Themes** **General Themes**
  
-  * **Fasteners not tabs or adhesives** - the first steps to disassembling something should be clear from looking at it. Plastic shrouds, hidden fragile tabs, and glue all make a device harder to open up and work on, and harder to put back together. Screws or bolts should be standardized within reason, ideally drawing from a limited number of sizes & thread pitches (such as M3 for smallish things) and standard bits (not special snowflake security bits), things like Torx that won’t be stripped easily. If something has to be assembled in an unintuitive way, instructions should be attached or printed/etched on the case. +  * **Fasteners not tabs or adhesives** - the first steps to disassembling something should be clear from looking at it. Plastic shrouds, hidden fragile tabs, and glue all make a device harder to open up and work on, and harder to put back together. Screws or bolts should be standardized within reason, ideally drawing from a limited number of sizes & thread pitches (such as M3 for smallish things) and standard bits (not security bits), things like Torx that won’t be stripped easily. If something has to be assembled in an unintuitive way, instructions should be attached or printed/etched on the case. 
   * **Standardized parts** - whether we're talking about electronics components on a Printed Circuit Board, electric motors,  or even the bolts holding it all together, a fixable design should prioritize using commonly available, off-the-shelf parts wherever possible. Where a custom component is necessary, ease of stadardized fabrication should be a goal - this might include sharing files for 3d printing or milling hardware, or wiring diagrams and bills of materials for making a replacement PCB.   * **Standardized parts** - whether we're talking about electronics components on a Printed Circuit Board, electric motors,  or even the bolts holding it all together, a fixable design should prioritize using commonly available, off-the-shelf parts wherever possible. Where a custom component is necessary, ease of stadardized fabrication should be a goal - this might include sharing files for 3d printing or milling hardware, or wiring diagrams and bills of materials for making a replacement PCB.
   * **Documentation** - modern designs are frequently obfuscated, to the extent that appliances commonly have limited (or inaccurate) user manuals and service manuals which are generally kept secret but sometimes leaked to the internet. Fixable solarpunk items should have robust documentation, including schematics, wiring diagrams, bills of materials (and guides for finding alternative parts wherever possible). If you'd like to see some good examples of this, thingiverse and other sites where people share their designs host many volunteer projects which have excellent documentation aimed at making assembly easy no matter which continent you're on, or what your local standard for measurements, stock material, and fasteners is in.   * **Documentation** - modern designs are frequently obfuscated, to the extent that appliances commonly have limited (or inaccurate) user manuals and service manuals which are generally kept secret but sometimes leaked to the internet. Fixable solarpunk items should have robust documentation, including schematics, wiring diagrams, bills of materials (and guides for finding alternative parts wherever possible). If you'd like to see some good examples of this, thingiverse and other sites where people share their designs host many volunteer projects which have excellent documentation aimed at making assembly easy no matter which continent you're on, or what your local standard for measurements, stock material, and fasteners is in.
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   * https://smartlab.cs.umd.edu/publication/solderlesspcb – Techniques for prototyping PCBs with SMD (surface-mount) components, including high-speed / high-current applications, in a reusable way because you don’t have to desolder anything. Uses pressure (with 3D-printed housings) to hold the components onto the board!   * https://smartlab.cs.umd.edu/publication/solderlesspcb – Techniques for prototyping PCBs with SMD (surface-mount) components, including high-speed / high-current applications, in a reusable way because you don’t have to desolder anything. Uses pressure (with 3D-printed housings) to hold the components onto the board!
   * [[https://www.jivamaterials.com/|Jiva Materials]]: recyclable AND biodegradable! (Cellulose, I think?) “Can be dissolved using hot water within a controlled environment”   * [[https://www.jivamaterials.com/|Jiva Materials]]: recyclable AND biodegradable! (Cellulose, I think?) “Can be dissolved using hot water within a controlled environment”
 +  * https://slrpnk.net/post/31860327
  
  
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 Some materials are a little less exotic but still expensive enough (or enough of a hassle) that they're not used in every task - think of every steel machine part, tool, piece of furniture, or part of a building you've seen rusted away to nothing. Some of them needed the specific properties of a different grade of steel which was carefully chosen - others just weren't worth making out of stainless. Perhaps they would be, in a solarpunk society. Some materials are a little less exotic but still expensive enough (or enough of a hassle) that they're not used in every task - think of every steel machine part, tool, piece of furniture, or part of a building you've seen rusted away to nothing. Some of them needed the specific properties of a different grade of steel which was carefully chosen - others just weren't worth making out of stainless. Perhaps they would be, in a solarpunk society.
-====So how would fixable stuff look different?====+====So how would solarpunk stuff look different?====
  
 //“Objects that are available in stores seem rather old fashioned. I have seen few Ecotopian-made appliances that would not look pretty primitive on American TV. One excuse I’ve heard is that they are designed for easy repair by users. At any rate they lack the streamlining we’re used to – parts stick out at odd angles, bolts and other fasteners are plainly visible, and sometimes parts are even made of wood. I have, however, observed that Ecotopians do repair their own things. In fact there are no repair shops on the streets. A curious corollary is that guarantees don’t seem to exist at all. People take it for granted that manufactured items will be sturdy, durable, and self-fixable – which of course means they are also relatively unsophisticated compared to ours. This state of affairs has not been achieved easily; I have heard many funny stories about ridiculous designs produced in the early days, lawsuits against their manufacturers, and other tribulations. One law now in effect requires that pilot models of new devices must be given to a public panel of ten ordinary people (‘consumers’ is not a term used in polite conversation here). Only if they all find they can fix likely breakdowns with ordinary tools is manufacture permitted.”//  //“Objects that are available in stores seem rather old fashioned. I have seen few Ecotopian-made appliances that would not look pretty primitive on American TV. One excuse I’ve heard is that they are designed for easy repair by users. At any rate they lack the streamlining we’re used to – parts stick out at odd angles, bolts and other fasteners are plainly visible, and sometimes parts are even made of wood. I have, however, observed that Ecotopians do repair their own things. In fact there are no repair shops on the streets. A curious corollary is that guarantees don’t seem to exist at all. People take it for granted that manufactured items will be sturdy, durable, and self-fixable – which of course means they are also relatively unsophisticated compared to ours. This state of affairs has not been achieved easily; I have heard many funny stories about ridiculous designs produced in the early days, lawsuits against their manufacturers, and other tribulations. One law now in effect requires that pilot models of new devices must be given to a public panel of ten ordinary people (‘consumers’ is not a term used in polite conversation here). Only if they all find they can fix likely breakdowns with ordinary tools is manufacture permitted.”// 
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 That said, a lot of this might be mitigated by the kind of iterative design improvement/refinement we already see in open source projects on thingiverse. The level of quality produced by volunteer designers collaborating on hobby projects has amazed me plenty of times over the years, and a world where passionate people create, release, and improve free designs for everyday products, and smal, local shops produce them as needed, feels very solarpunk. That said, a lot of this might be mitigated by the kind of iterative design improvement/refinement we already see in open source projects on thingiverse. The level of quality produced by volunteer designers collaborating on hobby projects has amazed me plenty of times over the years, and a world where passionate people create, release, and improve free designs for everyday products, and smal, local shops produce them as needed, feels very solarpunk.
  
-There are also other ways to make something visually appealing. Older products often featured all kinds of embossing, etching, guilding, or other artwork. Various iterations of the punk scene have placed a heavy emphasis on DIY and customization. Perhaps a solarpunk society where resale value is a low priority might add colorful custom decoration and embellishmen to its tech and appliances. Perhaps small workshops would produce a run of appliances to spec in every way but a decorated case, or perhaps people would add art once they got it home.+There are also other ways to make something visually appealing. Older products often featured all kinds of embossing, etching, gilding, or other artwork. Various iterations of the punk scene have placed a heavy emphasis on DIY and customization. Perhaps a solarpunk society where resale value is a low priority might add colorful custom decoration and embellishment to its tech and appliances. Perhaps small workshops would produce a run of appliances to spec in every way but a decorated case, or perhaps people would add art once they got it home.  
 + 
 +**Other Examples:**
  
-If you're looking for other guideposts, even if some of the stereotypes of Soviet design aren't historically accurate, they might not be a bad generalization for new production stuff in a solarpunk society - items might be big, bulky, heavy and overbuilt, meant to last a long time and able to be fixed with parts you can scavenge from a radio, tractor, or nearly anything else. They'd just also prioritize +  * Industrial Appliances/Tools - Industry has different priorities than individual people/households, and it seems to have more bargaining power. They don't generally expect the equipment they buy to look nice, but they expect it to work for decades under conditions that would kill 'consumer grade' appliances in weeks. The commercial/industrial version of a product will generally be repair-friendly, easy to order parts for, and long lasting. It will also be big, heavy, expensive, and it'll probably be painted battleship grey.  
 +      * For my own anecdote, I've seen a {{:writing:37360394_1-1255170388.jpg?linkonly|big industrial mixer}} in a bakery run daily for years with no maintenance and put up with all kinds of abuse while little countertop KitchenAids (supposedly the consumer-grade top-of-the-line) burned out routinely.  
 +      * This can be applied to all kinds of other appliances - commercial washing machines used by laundromats and hotels, kitchen appliances and tools used by restaurants, tools intended for mechanics, factories, or metal shops, and even exercise equipment designed for gyms rather than home use. 
 +  *  Old Stuff - if you look around a mechanic's shop, it's not uncommon to see a Sears Craftsman Drill Press from the 1940s, or some other tool that's been used for generations (I once saw a drill press whose column was a metal pipe which had been cemented right into the floor!). To some extent this stuff has already been winnowed down by survivorship bias, but it also exemplifies a lot of the qualities which make a thing both durable and fixable. I've seen consumer-grade washers and dryers from the late 1970s still limping along in some homes too. 
 +  *  Even if the stereotypes around Soviet design aren't historically accurate (and I'd love to see examples from where they are), they might not be a bad generalization for new production stuff in a solarpunk society - items might be big, bulky, heavy and overbuilt, meant to last a long time and able to be fixed with parts you can scavenge from a radio, tractor, or nearly anything else. 
  
 ====Changes to Existing Stuff==== ====Changes to Existing Stuff====