It is good practice to design systems that are resilient and tolerant to interruptions and even if you do not personally believe such scenarios are imminent. This principle invites reflection: why prioritize resilience? Rather than being a defeatist mindset, it is a practical exercise.

By imagining a world shaped by scarcity, you sharpen your creativity and adaptability. Acknowledging breakages happen and taking into account the possibility of collapse can inspire self-imposed limitations that lead to resourceful solutions—often uncovering societal scenarios previously unexplored, while also acknowledging that less privileged groups are already experiencing harm and damage.

What can YOU do?

With or without a computer

• Learn how to make, fix, and repurpose things yourself—and share equipment and skills within your community (e.g., participate in repair cafés).
• Build local relationships: get to know your neighbors and their (technical) skills. Collaborate, exchange, and build for mutual resilience.
• Favor local storage (personal file collections, offline archives) rather than depending solely on online content services.

When creating and maintaining software, digital tools or infrastructure

• Build systems that are resilient to intermittent energy supply and network connectivity.
• Distributed computing approaches could offer greater resilience. However, their overall environmental footprint needs careful evaluation—distributed systems may be robust but not always energy-efficient.
• Take inspiration from operating systems that can be installed on old or salvaged hardware, enabling continued computation even under conditions of technological scarcity. (lightweight Linux distributions, Collapse OS, Rockbox, etc).

Principle in action & examples

• For more ideas and interesting articles see: Low-tech Magazine
• Join or start a local repair cafe, pmc meetup, or neighbourhood tool swap.