Why lbr8.tech exists

The story of humanity is deeply intertwined with the story of technology.

Our toolmaking capacity has told the story of our arc on this planet. Stone tools, fire, language, the wheel, the written word, metals, the steam engine, electricity, computing, the internet: each heralded in a new era of humanity, and dramatically shaped the lived experience of the majority of humans on the planet.

But technology is not values-neutral.

Each of these technologies brought about tremendous benefits (most of which are obvious, and do not bear repeating), but also tremendous consequences. They upended the social order, entrenched hierarchies, facilitated exploitation and domination, and enabled the destruction of our environment on a scale previously unimaginable. Perhaps most notably, they shaped the human psycho-social experience, leading to an evolution of our very value systems, and our stories about our own place on this planet.

In the modern era, the invention of nuclear weapons marked a step-change in the story of humanity. For the first time, it became possible for humanity to end itself entirely. In the decades since, climate change and ecological overshoot have added to the list of existential threats. The information era enabled global instantaneous connection, but it also enabled the furthering of the project of empire, of neo-imperialist plunder, and of planetary-scale behavior modification and control. And artificial intelligence threatens to further concentrate wealth and power towards a narrower and narrower slice of society.

The sum total of these developments means that the question of progress is no longer pedantic, it is existential, and it's something we need to ask individually and collectively.

What do we mean by progress? Who is it for? Who does it serve? How does it change the way we think and do things? How does it shape our relationship with each other, and with the non-human world around us?

I was once enamored by the tech firms at the cutting edge of modern internet technology. I worked for one as a software engineer, and I believed that furthering the limits of science and technology was unambiguously good. But then I started to see the cracks.

I struggled with tech addiction of my own for many years. And I began to see that my affliction was not unique, but that nearly all my peers had an unhealthy relationship with their own devices, in one form or another. I also saw the other side of the same coin. I saw, first-hand, how cutting-edge algorithms and computing were being used not to expand people's consciousness, but to curtail their agency, shape their thoughts and desires, and control their actions.

I then learned about the myriad of other issues with the modern tech ecosystem: its extraction of attention, its monetization of data and free-will, its Orwellian surveillance apparatus, its prison-like platform-lock-in.

These products do sometimes deliver real utility. That's what makes them effective: the convenience ensures you stay. But the transaction isn't what it appears.

You are not their customer—you are their feedstock. The product is the behavioral data, and the structural incentives ensure it will eventually be used against you.

I then began to research alternatives. I'm far from the first to recognize this dynamic: there's a whole ecosystem of good alternative solutions for most of the technology that we're accustomed to. Free/libre and open-source software. Encrypted applications. Ethically produced repairable hardware. Protocol-based platforms that have interoperability baked in. Apps designed to be used, not to keep you using.

More often than not, these solutions aren't behind because they're worse. It's mostly just because there isn't public awareness about them. Many folks don't know what to switch to, how to switch, or why they should.

That's what lbr8.tech is for.

We think curating one's own tech ecosystem is a tough challenge, but it's not one that we should be going at alone.

If you feel addicted to a social media platform, or overwhelmed by notifications; if you feel like your attention span has worsened because of short-form video but don't know what to do about it, or if you don't trust big tech with your data; if you're worried about government surveillance or getting hacked; if you care about the resource footprint of your devices, or you just want to be more conscious about how you build your tech ecosystem; this is the right place for you.

And in the process of curating our tech ecosystems together, we'll get to work on that central question of humanity: what does progress really mean? And we'll answer it not just with words, but with actions.

Welcome to liberation. Welcome to lbr8.tech.

Navigate to the protocol cards to find actionable steps for liberating your tech, or navigate to the wiki tab to learn more about the problems, alternatives, concepts, people, companies and solutions in the modern tech ecosystem.