PILL: "Internet of Squirrels" - A Short Story

SoP 2024 RFC
1

I am writing a short story “Internet of Squirrels”.

This will attempt to answer “How can we minimise the detrimental
environmental impact of the Internet on more-than-humans?”.

Story will be based on a non-anthropocentric view of the natural world, using squirrels as a symbol of considering all non-humans: ecosystems, other species, planet… when designing technologies for utopian future, including: civilisation collapse and alternative networks, climate justice and low-tech, anarchism and forests, hackers ethics and rivers…

IMHO, Internet protocols development has “lost its way” since the 1990’s , and the attempts to “fix it” have been “too little, too late” (e.g. RFC8890).

My previous proposals were in the form of presentations, articles, contributions to actual RFCs , or creatively - as an essay or a zine; now I want to focus on fiction.

keywords: solarpunk hackers cli-fi eco-feminist green-anarchist squirrels

Links:

4 Likes
2

Find this concept very interesting! and the aim of writing from a non-anthropocentric view of the natural world. Are you thinking it would be described from a squirrels perspective? like we see them coming across various internet infrastructure that has disrupted their ecosystems? Or would it be about squirrels building their own internet-like technologies?

I am reminded of the Redwall series, which I was a big reader of in my youth. It could be cool to see something like that where the squirrels are telling a sort of autoethnography of their culture and the effects of human internet infrastructure on their world.

2 Likes
3

Here’s another way to present my application : a 2-page PDF , combining the form I’ve sent & this forum post… & some images.

1 Like
4

a friend of mine has a wildlife refuge to support wounded animals, and the main creatures (for 15+ years) have been squirrels. I’m sure she’ll love this, I’ll send it her way as she has a lot of perspective about the theme :slight_smile: