Post-Growth HCI

We all share mother earth and what one person does, for better or worse, affects the rest of us. Commoning provides benefits that corporations can’t provide such as healthy ecosystems, economic security, stronger communities and a participatory culture.

"What is the good life?" An answer to that question has so many variations today that the competition between answers can often paralyze the imaginations of people who want to implement positive social change. How can one break through the noise and violence of such competition and begin moving global society in a positive and deliberate direction?

Students identify with good teachers and value their knowledge highly. This might mean, however, that students might be reluctant to “go against” the teaching of their mentor/hero/professor. Teaching to Transgress actively questions and tests society's “received wisdom.” Teaching to Transgress helps instill the idea that societies must change and that we all have responsibility for promoting that change.

Opportunities are critical as they help determine possible paths to the future. Opportunities can include classes and seminars, volunteer positions, jobs, timely announcements, contests, access to the media, mentoring, scholarships, grants and others. It is imperative to devote attention and resources to help create new (and improve existing) Opportunity Spaces for people and communities who need them.

Conversion is the process of efficiently transferring people and facilities from military-oriented to civilian-oriented activity. Given the urgent need to redirect attention and resources to new economic and security realities, Economic Conversion has never been more important.

As problems become more and more intractable, more—and more diverse— people much work together. While diversity is a necessity and can be a source of strength, it introduces problems that can worsen if we don't address them effectively. We must acknowledge the importance of Open Action and Research Networks while resolving the issues and building on the incipient wisdom.

Simulations can help illuminate long-term consequences of major public decisions on land use, transportation, and the environment. Citizen Access to Simulations can provide powerful capabilities for informing community discussions, particularly if the results are presented using the same indicators that were used in a participatory community and civic indicators project.

Despite the significant effort that goes into decision making and design, bad decisions and designs are often made because a critical and relevant perspective was not heard. This is especially true if the perspective is that of a stakeholder. Remind people of voices that aren't present through procedures, diagrams, or, even, songs.

The purpose of Future Design is to get people actively engaged envisioning better futures and making plans on how to get there. Through "rehearsing for the future" we hope to create possible scenarios that could become the positive "self-fulfilling prophecies" of tomorrow.

Schools with unchanging assumptions can't meet society's changing needs. This is unfortunate now when the need for public problem-solving is most acute. An Experimental School attempts to accomplish positive aims while adopting experimentation as a guiding orientation. The key concepts are respect for learning, reflection, and faith in the importance of reasoning and, especially, reasoning together.

Stories have the power to link many threads into a coherent whole that can animate and reveal hidden purposes. To link many threads into a coherent whole we must weave words and images, scientific information and poetic inspiration, and incorporate multiple voices to tell multi-faceted stories of our earth communities.

Although information and communication may seem abstract and immaterial, the systems that support them are built with solid things whose manufacture and disposal cause significant environmental damage that must be acknowledged and addressed.

This pattern underscores the importance, often unacknowledged, of attitudes and aspirations to a given enterprise. In the case of post-growth, important attitudes could include humility, creativity, self-efficacy, perseverance, and, even, heroism. Aspirations could be ambitious and longterm, but coupled with the necessity of regular, small, tangible gains.

While direct communication between everybody working on a project is impossible, indirect or loose coordination among the groups working in this field is essential. There are diverse ways for this to take place and spending some time considering this — and testing and implementing this — will be time well-spent.

This pattern could be considered as a complement of the Coordination Support pattern, or a pattern with Coordination Support as its metapattern. At any rate, the existence of Mutually Reinforcing Activities, is necessary for complex and sustained social change.

The Problem Mapping pattern can provide invaluable services in many ways including problem understanding a situation and highlighting HCI interventions within groups while providing avenues for loose coordination across groups

The broad groups and groupings workin this area are diverse, and in many cases, are freely agreeing to participate. Thus, the need for self-governance arises. This is likely to be largely informal but understanding basic assumptions, aspirations, and responsibilities of the members can help provide durable action networks.

A recent article in Nature (Hickel et al 2022), e.g., discussed, "new macro-economic models that combine economic, financial, social and ecological variables" some of which are now in use.

This pattern is inspired by Tony Fry work. Efforts towards change remain weak and fragmented. This pattern highlights the importance of design in changing the world towards a desirable future. Design Futuring argues that responding to ethical, political, social and ecological concerns now requires design as a new type of practice and theory.

A sustained community that works on Post-growth HCI issues — process, actions, goals, and this pattern language.

Trying to understand, anticipate, mitigate the risk of rebound effects or negative indirect unintended effects.

Data intermediaries are people who provide support to others for accessing and using data through services and tools. Data intermediaries could be important stakeholders in the data ecosystem making data higher quality or lower quality. Shaharudin et al. (2023)'s Towards a Common Definition of Open Data Intermediaries summarizes the role of data intermediaries, who are they, what they do and why are they needed.

Rarely easy and almost never without some risk, confronting the people, organizations, and institutions that are perpetuating the problems we face is central to this work. The questions that result from this include: How to do it, when to do it, what forms should it take — and many others. From discussion, dialogue, debate, letter-writing to picketing and whistle blowing, "everyday heroism" is likely to needed. And while the magnitude of the forces we face are considerable, the potential resources we have are not nothing. And "small acts of speaking truth" can be useful as well.

The Sphere of Influence refers to the ability of one person, or other collective body to influence other people or collective bodies — and to what extent. Because the ability to influence others is essential for any group working for social change an examination of the sphere or influence is vital. In simple terms, it's designed to give a group some rough idea of what's feasible at the time. Having said that, the sphere of influence isn't destiny. It can be expanded or contracted in many ways: There is the sphere of influence that exists and the sphere of influence that might be attained. In other words, the sphere of influence is dynamic. It can change over time due to conscious effort, through collaboration with an allied group or a change in tactics, for example, or because of external events beyond your control. Thinking of sphere of influence, as a pattern, rather than a fixed relationship, makes it open-ended enough to be useful in many ways. Using the Sphere of Influence pattern means thinking about the set of people and organizations whom you want to influence in addition to other stakeholders. This could include those that you might expect to support your actions and those who are likely to oppose them. It could also include others who might be affected indirectly. Using the pattern further can help us think about the means through which we are trying to influence and the likelihood of the effects of that influence. Considering the sphere of influence is particularly important at the early stages of a project or campaign and it increasingly more important in relation to the magnitude of the group's objective and the diversity of the actors. There are many dimensions that could be considered. The closeness to the various entities, your status in relation to them, and their willingness to be persuaded, are all likely variables. Examining the sphere of influence is valuable as an exercise even if you think you're already well-acquainted with the situation. It may be that the examination reveals an entity you have influence over that you didn't know about, or that an approach to influencing that you hadn't thought about exists. It may be that some influence may be unexpectedly easier or harder to accomplish. This also helps point out that the exercise is best done by a group of people. It might turn out that one entity is noted by some and not others or that the sphere of influence analyses of a group are at odds with each other. The group result is more likely to be richer and more coherent than one developed by a single person.

just to show how its done

The Social and Environmental Linkages candidate was originally proposed as a pattern for the proposed Green New Deal pattern language [34]. This linkage was present in the original GND that was proposed to the US Congress, but the thought was to formalize it because other people working in this realm might not realize that it is a core principle. We selected this pattern to begin work on at least partially because of the strong endorsement of those who participated in the online assessment (17 ins, 2 neutrals, 0 outs). The interesting thing to see was how much this focus on the linkage between the two perspectives was present in the LIMITS papers — perhaps all of them. Finally, exploring this principle as a pattern helped promote thinking on how it might become more usable, but it is currently very much a draft.

This pattern, also inspired by Weber et al (2017) in their book on Wicked Problems, reminds us that there are various levels of citizen engagement. Much of the potential is underdeveloped and very loosely coordinated at best.

Salvage computing makes use of locally available, discarded hardware, transforming it into a renewed resource. It involves hardware repair and maintenance, as well as the development and maintenance of open source software for older devices.

Local knowledge refers to the contextual knowledges of the people about themselves and their situations. Often times, they know more about the problem(s) than experts. Thus, by taking into account practices that exist at local/regional levels, this pattern could serve as a model for transition towards a sustainable post-growth economy.

Identifying and presenting Appropriate Mitigation Actions develops guidelines and provides examples that diverse communities can build on. (Inspired by UN Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions)

This pattern was inspired by Weber et al (2017) to establish linkages between scientists and policy makers for policy implementation. This approach to formalization and legitimization, while not necessarily legally binding, can help people develop and sustain positive collaboration and agendas.

This omnibus enabling pattern is intended to depict various modes of interaction that occur within and outside of the HCI community. It is important to think and act proactively with this pattern, fully knowing that if this isn't done right, the enterprise will not succeed.

This pattern, although missing from traditional HCI work, is indispensable to this venture. For a post-growth world to be attained, new norms, institutions, and policies are all needed. The pattern implies that, at the very least, regular discussions with people in the academic and practice policy spheres are needed, and, at the other end of the continuum, strong and sustained collaboration among wide swathes of stakeholders.

This pattern supplies the basic foundation of this enterprise. From the paper by Sharma et al (2023): "Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers have increasingly been questioning computing’s engagement with unsustainable and unjust economic growth, pushing for identifying alternatives. Incorporating degrowth, post-development, and steady-state approaches, post-growth philosophy offers an alternative not rooted in growth but in improving quality of life." This pattern seeks to help establish this as a major focus for research, practice, and action.

Rather than further the illusion that technology is neutral, this pattern foregrounds issues around harm and benefit. From Sharma et al, quoting Borning et al. [36]: “[the] IT industry has linked itself strongly to this ethos [of growth], with some particular manifestations being the constant need for novelty, the accompanying throw-away culture around consumer electronics, and the glorification of disruption for its own sake." We can also add ubiquitous surveillance, predatory capitalism, and ongoing and increasing violence to the environment (Schuler, pending publication). This pattern has a strong focus on harms being perpetrated by technology, but the overriding concern is mitigating those harms: "We aim for the critiques, concerns, and recommendations offered by post-growth to be integrated into transformative HCI practices for technology-mediated change." [Sharma et al]

This pattern emphasizes the importance of impact. How should this be characterized? Can it be measured or otherwise formalized? How can plans be evaluated and modified as circumstances change?

This pattern combines two concepts, Perspectives and Strategies, which highlight the importance of both of them and, significantly, their relationship to each other. From the paper by Sharma et al (2023): A Post Growth HCI agenda "recommends an equitable reduction in resource use through sensible distributive practices where fulfillment is based on values including solidarity, cooperation, care, social justice, and localized development." From the same source: Post-growth HCI .. "undertakes to reassess our collective roles as computer professionals and to work towards these ends collaboratively with each other, other professionals, and with other living entities, whether they have formal voice or not."

HCI, as well as CS in general, has Education and Research as central foci for a long time. These have been institutionalized in many ways, many seemingly resistant to the needs of post growth HCI enterprises. Thet seem to be geared towards the individual achievement, often working with toy problems, and in isolation from the "real world" of communities (both academic and not), messy situations, and from not-for-profit

This pattern highlights the importance of projects in HCI work. How will the character of projects change? Presumably they would be more inclusive, ongoing, and purpose-driven. The Post-growth HCI article (Sharma et al 2023) mentions the following project that integrates technology within a post-growth framework: "Makerspaces can be linked through digital commons of design and knowledge, avoiding the commodification of technologies. For example, Kostakis et al. [171] discussed Open Bionics, a prosthetic hand created using off-the-shelf materials available at a hardware store, supplemented with an online repository of designs with comprehensive tutorials to guide the manufacturing. "

Identifying post-growth indicators is a critical aspect of this project since it implies supplying another set of measurements of assessing the current situation and where things seem to heading. One such indicator is the Gross National Happiness scale mentioned in the Sharma et al paper. Developing these indicators is challenging, but garnering widespread buy-in is presumably vastly more so.

Basic economic literacy — and the desire and ability to critique the ubiquitous "water we swim in" that is the current corporate-market based system (at least in the Western countries) — is critical. Building and popularizing this capacity will increase the hope that a transition to a post-growth system will take place. [inspired by Sharma, Kumar, Nardi, 2023]

This pattern highlights the importance of technology in HCI work. How will the character of technology projects change? Presumably they would be more purposefully driven and less amenable to economic or political capture. How would policy affect technology development and vice versa?

"Decolonial and non-Western frameworks have been integrated in cross-disciplinary proposals that aim to pluralise current dominant models [11]. From the perspective of HCI, this redirection of attention and widening of concepts are shifting particular technological, data and information-driven dynamics, challenging Global North and Western perspectives… Reaching far and wide in understanding how different indigenous groups approach, repurpose and use technology could not only lead to greater diversification of perspectives, but also, as Escobar [7] notoriously framed, to more sustainable and relational approaches to design. " [from Indigenous Technologies for Decolonised Post-Growth(s), Millan, 2024]

This pattern was exemplified in the paper by Mohan et al, in relation to Lost Lakes submission. Natural Capital Reclamation seeks to identify features of the natural landscape and systems, that have been lost or degraded, and help heal this damage and seek to reduce future harm. "In seeking a way forward, the…" PATTERN (candidate) "… proposes to learn from the historical evolution of landscapes, social practices and embedded traditional and experiential wisdom. Technology is posited as a tool to enable an imagined post-growth transformation pivoted on redirecting economic activity to align with social and ecological urbanism. And, who is better placed to tell this story: the elusive (and endangered) nocturnal Slender Loris (Kaddu paapa, meaning forest baby in Kannada)." And, what an excellent example of the Voices of the Unheard pattern (Schuler 2008)? [inspired by (and with quotations from) Aligning Cities to Post-Growth Transformations: Finding the Lost Lakes of Bangalore, India, by Mohan et al, 2024.

The Repair pattern was proposed at the 2022 Limits Within Computing workshop. Repair Cafe, a submission here, could be an instance of the Repair pattern, or a pattern in its own right. Here's the Repair pattern description: Repair of computing devices is a valuable pathway to energy and material conservation. It reduces the need for newly produced devices, thus reducing pollution and resource use in the entire production chain, requiring action in the arenas of design, manufacturing, policy, and practice. The Repair Cafe idea could have resulted from thinking about the Repair pattern used in conjunction with the Future Design, Opportunity Spaces and Shared Vision (or Strategic Frame) patterns from the Liberating Voices project.

"Collectively, steady-state economy, degrowth, and post-development can support a post-growth society via radical shifts from growth to redistribution, production to reproduction and care, acquisition to sharing and community, and industrial development to development appropriate to local circumstances and contexts. Values cannot be reduced to material accumulation; they must include solidarity, sufficiency, leisure, conviviality, sharing, and autonomy [90, 254]."[Sharma et al 2023]. A post-growth economic system does not rely on the profit system to supply the necessary "hidden hands." There are a variety of initiatives that could be undertaken in this community, including "conduct[ing] conferences in regions of the Souths, increasing wider participation and more diverse paper submissions… " and "creat[ing] opportunities for scholars from the Souths to participate in global HCI circles by providing support for work to be submitted, presented, and disseminated in languages other than English."

Limits, in general, are concerns within Post-Growth economics: "After the economic crisis of 1929, Bernard Charbonneau and Jacques Ellul released a manifesto criticizing “gigantism,” i.e., capital accumulation, big cities, and big industries [300]. They suggested prioritizing quality of life and solidarity instead of productivity and individualism. In 1972, Meadows et al. [204] published The Limits to Growth, presenting results from a series of computer simulations analyzing the long-term sustainability of the economy. They argued that if current growth rates were to continue, we would face a global economic collapse before 2100." (Sharma, Kumar, Nardi, 2023) but there are limits within computing in particular as the Limits with Computing workshops explore, especially "the role of computing in human societies affected by real-world limits (ecological and otherwise)" and, moreover, to "reshape the computing research agenda as topics that acknowledge a need for limits are seldom discussed in relation to contemporary computing research."

From the Sharma et al article: "To attend to current curricular gaps [198], we can teach students design that does not require immense resources and insistence on innovation at a massive environmental cost. We have many excellent examples, such as the design of a low-tech off-grid solar-powered website [6] or an approximate internet which provides a good-enough networking service based on ecological limits [237]. We can teach how to ask better questions to challenge growth-oriented ideology". … "Can we prepare future HCI professionals to embrace this uncertainty without being overwhelmed by it? Can we make them realize that sustainability issues are not someone else’s problem but a current reality happening to all of us and around all of us? Can we convey that not everything can be solved by designing a technology?" Also see Christoph Becker's book, Insolvent, which discussed "critical friends" which calls for broadening the CS curriculum by integrating critical ideas from outside the discipline.

Digital cameras have changed not only the habits of individuals but our collective memory, behavior, as well as our imprints on the environment: "while professional photographers capture the decisive moment with precision and focus" at the soccer match, 50,000 or so spectators are also capturing the moment, while participating in "the inextricable link between photography and social media, where the production of images is often driven by a desire for recognition rather than authentic moment capture." This pattern, inspired by the submission From Every Angle: The Superfluity of Images and its Impact on Collective Memory, suggests that the collective, often mediated, habits of modern life, may need to be reexamined and reevaluated.

This pattern candidate is inspired by discussion of Guaranteed Income and other proposals relating to declining employment opportunities. How likely is that people will spend their newfound free time wisely? Some will of course, but is some time spent more "wisely" than others? This pattern would explore the new free space that some economic systems are proposing — and what would — or should — be done within that.

Numerous potential transformative and emancipatory concepts have been proposed concerning environmental issues and solidarity among which post-capitalism, post-growth, commoning, mutual aid, subsistence, pluriverse, community or care-based economies, real utopias, and prefigurative politics." All point the need of "creating alternative networks of value where relationships between individuals and groups are not characterized by profit but solidarity and interdependence." These go by names such as "gift economy, mutual aid, non-monetary sharing, network-generalized exchange, self-help, indirect reciprocity, third party or reciprocal altruism, or random acts of kindness. Nowadays, these longstanding conceptions of solidarity are continued or reinvented and materialized in different forms and places, including e.g. free exchanges; gleaning; free shops; community and solidarity fridges and repair cafés. Inspired by the proposal by Raphaël Marée, this could be a pattern, and Shareish, the platform described in the submission could be also be a pattern, perhaps called "Share and Cherish" as well as the examples provided. The proposal also suggests Radical Cartography that could also be a pattern, but perhaps this is described in a current (or modified) Meaningful Maps, a pattern in the Liberating Voices pattern language.

The pervasive influence of technology in today's workplace has reshaped job roles, demanding proficiency in collaborative tools and communication platforms. Despite legislative advancements and improved assistive technologies, individuals with disabilities remain notably underrepresented in the workforce. Overcoming barriers requires challenging workplace culture, adopting post-growth ideologies, and questioning preconceptions of productivity. This position paper attempts to understand some of the underlying issues and re-imagine work for people with disabilities using post-growth principles centered on cooperation, social solidarity, care, justice and sharing.

Many public data portals are used by developers and other people whose priorities aren't always aligned with post-growth sensibilities. But data is important to people wishing to engender and enter a post-growth world too. This pattern, inspired by Qiao, Bhardwaj, Becker 2024, points out that "design decisions embedded in such tools could either support or impede us from envisioning and pursuing a post-growth world." An "urban data dashboard" that "prioritized data and metrics that reflect social and environmental wellbeing" such as "land surface temperature, vegetation, tree coverage, green space, active living potential, bikeway comfort and safety, and access to amenities" thus, "reflect[ing] the living conditions of residents instead of the capital market, thus prioritizing a post-growth mindset." Open access to data about our cities can support collective efforts in tackling urban sustainability issues and pursue a post-growth world.

While many games focus on domination or wealth accumulation, a new type of game, a "cozy" or "wholesome" game which are noted for three qualities: "safety, abundance, and softness, instead of scarcity, high-stress or competition [Post-Growth in Games and Extended Realities, Kosa 2024]. These new games may help encourage new frames of mind that are more conducive to a post-growth world: "They can implicitly teach players the benefits of slowing down, remind them that they don’t need to be in a constant race, and provide a break from capitalist mindset" and they can encourage values such as "caring for others (e.g., Spritifarer), hearing out / helping others (e.g., Coffee Talk), and local development (e.g., Stardew Valley)." [Kosa 2024] Many questions remain, but HCI can encourage research in game design that advances human flourishing.

Aviation is a common source of CO2 emissions and other effects that accelerate climate change. But people will inevitably still need or want to travel by air. How could and should aviation systems in the broadest sense transition in a new post-growth era? HCI can play strong roles here, via an "ecological turn in HCI, and a broader consideration of planetary limits" coupled with appropriate systemic approaches and adapted design methods [Designing interactive systems for aviation in a post-growth context, Letondal & Bornes 2024]. The authors "argue that any design exercise involving the cockpit or air traffic control tools needs to take into account different scales (including that of the socio-technical system of air transport and mobility in general) and temporalities, and to situate itself on a trajectory towards a desirable, mutually supportive, post-growth future that respects planetary and social limits." "Future studies research and design fictions are a way of representing possible futures, and back casting aims to work backwards to build trajectories that lead to desirable futures" [ibid]. These aspects are likely to be true when considering any complex socio-technological system. Could systemic and speculative approaches help make aviation a "convivial" technology?