Vernacular Computing

2 November 2024

What would a culture of vernacular computing look like?

This idea comes to me as a synthesis of two ideas:

• Broadly speaking, any given nation (especially in its less urbanized regions) is comprised of a wide variety of local dialects and customs. These tend to have deep roots in place and history, and form a substantial contribution to culture.
• Diversity is demonstrably crucial to resilience. Biodiversity helps ecosystems sustain and balance themselves, as is reflected internally through the immune system: the more diverse our microbiomes, the more resilient we are to disease. Computational diversity means if a bad actor injects malicious code into a widely-used software package, or in the case of the infamous CrowdStrike fiasco, faulty code is pushed in an update, it is less likely to cause widespread damage.

As a radical localizing of computation, a radical push back against global, hegemonic tech solutions, what would it be like if regions had their own culture of computation, informed by the specific needs of the community and as living as language? Now that the world is abuzz with systems theory discourse, how can computation break free of outmoded hierarchical conventions, instead becoming something more akin to a living ecosystem?