a soft stack ecology π±Β (what is that?)
soft stack ecology (sse) is a name for the way i want to make things. not just techy things, or things on the web ... but projects, systems, rituals, workflows, spaces, collaborations, friendships, and whatever else iβm building life with and out of. i donβt believe tools are neutral, or that our tools or technology are separate from everything else. making is always a social practice. such creativity has an energy bill, hidden labour costs, and reshapes attention and relationships.
sse treats any creative βstackβ as a habitat. the tools, materials, people, places, maintenance, and power that make a thing possible. sse is a design-and-making framework that treats systems as social and technical ecologies intertwined with human relationships, labour, our attention, culture, and material realities. it builds for care, reciprocity, and adaptability over scale, speed, and purity. so the goal isnβt perfect optimisation. itβs making things we can live with. real things that stay understated (humble), understandable, repairable, iterative, and that can evolve and adapt over time.
sse is also not a politics of purity. it is not exactly utopian. iβm not interested in pretending any sort of tool-use is always clean, low-impact, or consistent with the current paradigm of ecological, sustainable, or environmental thought. sometimes the most βecologicalβ choice is the one that keeps a project alive, keeps a community connected, keeps work possible, keeps someone safe, keeps us from burning out before the work is done. contradiction is just a part of the sse topology.
thereβs a simple rule in sse: contradictions are allowed, unexamined defaults are not.
sse wants tradeoffs to be visible and bounded. to name what weβre doing, why weβre doing it, what it costs, and where the exit ramps are. we need to build with care, admit our mess, and keep renegotiating the stack as our lives, cultures, tools, and technologies shift.
sse is also local-first. i want things that work close to where theyβre used. data i can hold and manage. tools i can run and use without asking for permission. systems and knowledge bases that are accessible and function offline. small surfaces, clear exits, portable formats, fewer dependencies, more options for repair, more reciprocity, and far less extraction.
sse is also a way of designing systems of care. care is not a vibe, it is a lifeway. it is the celebration of the daily defaults we fall to that reduce harm (social and environmental friction). it is the archival practices of documentation that let someone else take over. itβs the the permission to rest, the ability to say no, and the way that when a tool fails, it fails without punishing you. it is about building in a way so the work can be held by more than one person, so knowledge can move freely, so a project can survive illness, travel, grief, outgrowth, and even death. sse treats maintenance as love, and makes room for mutual aid inside the stack. it is not just making things that look good or ship fast, but making things that keep people safe, supported, and able to continue on their own creative paths.
sse is an approach to making and creativity that respects the tension between the possibility of both future dystopias and utopias. it has a thread of technological optimism, but it is grounded in a luddite-like practice that keeps asking why we would create and adopt technologies that oppress, extract, or put people at a disadvantage. sse pushes against inevitability. it treats every tool as a choice, every workflow as a politics, every system as a redistribution of time, power, and risk.
sse celebrates cultures of making that widen peopleβs options. tools that improve livelihoods. systems that support care, access, and dignity. technologies that people can understand, refuse, repair, and carry forward together. it aims for sustainability without purity, and conviviality without naΓ―vetΓ©. build what helps, donβt build what harms ... and when the line is blurry, we need to slow down, name the tradeoff, and (re)design for the most vulnerable first.
soft stack ecology is how i want to build things: not as products or pipelines, but as little ecosystems that swirl with potential and foster care and reciprocity. it is just an idea and the philsophical approach i take as a maker, but hopefully it can help to set a standard that is always grounded in systems of care ... systems that question, support, and help to make positive and sustainable change in the ways we make, consume, and relate to things.