If the US falls apart, it will be a bloody civil war. The only winner will be competing world powers. Of which, only the EU is really a beacon of light of enlightened values. In no way is that a good outcome for US citizens or the world. What is needed is a concerted effort to evolve the US from where it is. Two parties is not really a functional democracy. Law is bought and sold, and there is massive inequality.

Right to repair, and openness, is absolute must for devices being put into peoples bodies. The fight seams to not even started yet. Most people are completely asleep to issues right now.

Karen Sandler did a great talk on closed source software medical devices many years ago.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qW1h1s_ojpM

This even more the case if it’s your brain! It probably won’t work for decades, but we should get house in order long before it does.

The point is that they are malleable.

They don’t care about being bad or good. They just care about money. Change what makes money and they change. There is no resolve. Along with changes happening I listed before, one big thing we need do is bring environmental cost on to the balancesheet. At the moment it’s all external costs. Move the costs of items disposal on to the up front cost. Scale it by item’s life time. Incentivize better behavior.

Suits aren’t evil. I mean I’m they aren’t good either, but all they care about is money. They push for closed because that is where the money is, but they have no resolve on anything. Law makers either try and follow experts or money.

To the extent either believe anything, they believe the IP lie and thus don’t see the tragedy of the commons they advocate.

Open however has passion, and is technically correct. (The best kind of correct.)

Little by little, we’ll keep winning out. Right to repair is an important front, but so is digital rights, privacy and competition.

I see right to repair as the thin edge of the wedge, and it is being driven into cracks. The is good movement for this in the US and the EU. France has a repairability index. It will take time, but in the end openness will win out because it is just better. Part of the way of forcing the issue is copyleft. So much out there is already built on open and closed the last mile. Good example of copyleft doing it’s thing is in 3D printers, for example : https://github.com/SoftFever/OrcaSlicer

Right to repair laws, and the open hardware, and open source movements, are our best hope.

Yep. It’s a terrible state of affairs from some many angles. Law makes need to wake up and see how badly the market is failing and then regulated.

Not made to be reused, not made to be repaired and not made to be recycled.