Pass Me the Screwdriver! Why Don’t We Tinker With Our Devices Anymore?

Translation: Victoria Bakshina

Far far away, both in time and space, one finds – not a place, really, and not a single world either . . . 

. . . perhaps the term "eyjaklasi" or "archipelago" can be used to describe the society that appears to us in the unnamed galaxy of the Star Wars films. Its inhabitants live in a multi-layered world, their homes in the Galaxy are distorted, mismatched, but years of infrastructure, for better or worse, have made transportation frequent and communication essential – between all planets.

The creatures of the galaxy are alien to us. We do not know their biology, we don't understand what they need to survive, we don't know if they need shelter, what kind of food they eat (although it is usually blue) or what their clothes are made of. These elements are as varied as the people that appear to us, but in their existence there seems to be one constant, even some kind of common denominator for this galaxy: technology. 

It may be an obvious solution for an archipelago society in space to use spaceships as its primary means of transportation. But they need spaceships not only to get to places, but also to transport goods, to move supplies from generous planets to the barren ones (such as Tatooine), in order to do business, and probably a number of other things that I have not thought of. But the important thing is that technology doesn't end there. Spaceships are important, but so are vacuum cleaners, robots, board games, various kinds of gadgets that people have in their homes, and – and this is what I want to talk about – things that people are able to fix themselves. 

There is a difference between how people work with technology. Some people are born pilots, such as e.g. the surname of the Skywalker family suggests, and the three cousins have a unique connection to robots and their function, which at the same time becomes a guiding principle in the story. Gadgets and gimmicks are a part of other people's religions, so I'm not talking about the communities built up around the garbage heaps, shipyards and machine cemeteries which seem to be abundant in the galaxy. Humanity is also a much broader concept than in our world, and the boundaries between sea urchins, robots, and androids range from minimal to nonexistent.

The front seats of spaceships are usually loaded with all kinds of tokens and cranks that most pilots seem to understand, and even once inside the institutions of the Empire, the technology is never incomprehensible, although it is more stripped and spotless. In the resistance movement, it can be clearly seen that the ships are traditionally built from found parts, they are composed of scraps and scrap iron – and somehow functional.

In a society of this magnitude, not all of its inhabitants are expected to be able to disassemble robots or spaceships and repair them. But this often seems to be the case. Anyone seems to be able to pick up any kind of device and tool, open it and fiddle with it until it’s as good as new! How genius! I realize that this is a society that relies 100% on technology and as such should have been technologically advanced for about a thousand years, but still, I cannot help but admire this movement. 

I want to be able to take my computer apart when it breaks down, know what's wrong with it and fix it, without going to a specialist who then tells me that I need a new one - it's simply too expensive to fix this one. I want to be able to press a button in my car in order to open the trunk or unlock it so that I don't find myself completely helpless if the operating system in the display fails. I want to see more people who understand how gadgets work and which accessories are missing, so that electrical appliances are not discarded and thrown away too early. 

The problem described above is the product of a strategy that has dominated the tech industry for the last 20-30 years. Glossy, spotless technology - but completely incomprehensible. The technology around us is a technology that we do not understand, cannot disassemble and fix, which is why we feel like we need to throw away what is broken and replace it with new stuff.

It is not as if we are incapable of developing technological literacy. We are literate on various programs and learn at breakneck speed how to navigate new social networks, we study new operating systems soon after they are updated (although we are rarely given much choice). We are literate in Excel, literate in Word, literate in Notes and Numbers, literate in Photoshop and InDesign, all kinds of websites and applications, not to mention all of the apps! I needed to use an app to enter a hotel room last summer. There was a Bluetooth mechanism in the lock that was definitely more expensive than a simple lock case with a key. But what do I know! 

About 30-40 years ago, most products were designed so that people could disassemble them in their homes; we could unscrew the back of the computer screen or lift the hood of the car – and find out what was wrong. I suggest we take it up again. Let’s take some courses! Let’s learn how to repair our devices! Let’s design products so that they don't have to be thrown away when they break! Perhaps we will then be able to develop long-term relationships with our vacuum cleaners, like the character R2D2, who is a companion for three whole generations, from start to finish.