We did work with Jabber/Email and 512MB/1GB of RAM running similar chat clients, desktop environments (XFCE 4.6 was much faster than 4.16), video players and office suites.
Nowadays to do the same today you need 10X the resources just for a chat application.
And by 'chat' I don't mean 'irc'. Jabber, embedded Youtube URL's, inline LaTeX documents...
>for the sake of "the environment," the solution is to go backwards?
Well, it's your environment, you would probably have to figure that out for yourself.
I don't think you would have to go fully retro to be more environmentally responsible.
When it comes to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, this is a proven hierarchy where lots of times it's like an order of magnitude better if you can reduce compared to merely reuse. And once again better to reuse as much as you can, before you finally recycle (which can require so much reprocessing beyond that needed for simple reuse) to extract any worthwhile components to be used in a circular way, that can preferebly displace the need for brand new raw materials or ingredients in freshly manufactured new products.
It's quite possible for freshly manufactured new products to be more environmentally friendly then ever and as high-technology as you would like, you just have to make the committment and step up to the plate.
Everybody's situation is different, but I do think there is a good reason why people say "think local" so much more, the deeper they do the math.
You shouldn't fail to figure, how much money does it cost just to work, and further how much of that is just to get to work?
How much pollution do you have to create just to earn the money to be able to work in the first place?
For everything you consume, or even worse waste, how much potentially environmentally damaging work did you (plus everyone else in the chain) have to do just to earn the money needed, and that's before the actual consumption could even be paid for? Whether consumption takes place before or after it ever gets paid for.
Then you can more accurately decide the degree of balance you are going to try and maintain, between consumption and conservation.
It's all so personal so you shouldn't let it bug you, just do the math for yourself and take action accordingly.
Most people can easily find some low-hanging room for improvement, sometimes really obvious stuff but it's nothing to get embarassed about.
Don't get me started on the way different currencies have different degrees of toxicity, and not only dependent on their current relative exchange rates.
But you can only imagine that for two workers doing identical work, each earning "equivalent value" but in different denominations, when there is any difference in their environmental impact it could only be due to the difference in impact between the currencies themselves. Naturally including bitcoin and things like that along with "regular" money.
> Well, it's your environment, you would probably have to figure that out for yourself.
No. Actually. It's not my environment at all. I could just leave and go somewhere else. Like Mars, Heaven, or somewhere else.
And I'll be taking three gigajoules per second of power production with me.
> It's good to minimize consumption of Earth's resources to maximize the displacement of the need for extraterrestrial raw materials and ingredients for the manufacture of new things.
What you're trying to sell me is something that is physically impossible. Entropy will still eventually—literally kill you if you actually did what you're advocating for (which is degrowth and primitivism). So, you don't actually believe what you're trying to sell to people as an "environmental conservative." Unless you're a zealous fanatic or something.
Unfortunately, Earth was meant to be used up into a big void of nothingness with this exploitation of a planet followed by the next complete consumption of a giant world. Mars is in our sights. As is the rest of the Solar system.
And we may as well go to infinity and beyond.
After all, time and entropy aren't really on our side. Solving the problem of our scheduled annihilation is the real action to think about as a responsible person who isn't afraid of objective mathematics and analysis that doesn't miss crucial variables in global dynamics.
Well when I try to be as zealous a fanatic as possible it still isn't working, so it must be something else;) Good catch.
Sorry about having nothing to sell, it was all sold out by more well-informed and more persuasive geeks than me, way before I had a chance to get near any soapboxes.
Nothing wrong with a little reminder that some people's fruit hangs a lot lower than others.
The universe and unfriendly monsters are eating up all your accessible apples.
And that pleases me.
Because you're forced to turn into a monster yourself. If you don't want to starve and die.
So a little skilled zealotry is kinda essential. ;) So is probably persuading and selling others to your side. So that you can form a competent party of universe survival enthusiasts.
People are way ahead of me on that, with skills that may only be valuable on my home planet, I'm sure to be left behind in the dust :(
Some things stand the test of time better than others.
And some ideas are not that new but maybe the earlier the concept the better. Not that long ago back at the beginning of 1970 Neil Young had something to say about how things might work out in the decade to come, from "After the Gold Rush":
"Look at Mother Nature on the run in the nineteen seventies."
"Well I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships . . ."
"The loading had begun, flying Mother Nature's silver seed to a new home in the sun."