Website Mission Statement

The Stone Age Electronic Calculator

The Stone Age Electronic Calculator (SAEC) is a working title which allows participants work toward a common goal that may shift; this keeps the task open-ended and allows for it to develop through participation.

The project questions the perceptions of modern computational instruments and information based societies, by providing an instructional manual that restricts the building of an electronic calculator to the modes of physical production that were available during prehistoric times. An electronic calculator has become the focus of this initiative because it is comprised of several technologies that form the foundation of a computer based society and questions the need as well as the possibility of developing computational electronics in hunting and gathering societies. Thus the production of the manual must abide by the following guidelines.

1. The calculator must have a readout screen, the ability to calculate, switches and electricity.
2. The calculator must be made by one person.
3. The manual must take into account the environmental restraints of a wilderness situation.
4. We assume the participant enters into the woods only the clothes on his/her back. ie. no man made tools.
5. We must also assume that the participant is living a nomadic lifestyle. For example agricultural
development or the creation of large objects that requires the participant to live a stationary lifestyle
will be edited to suit a nomadic situation.

Ted Kazinscky aka. The Unabomber and The Stone Age Electronic Calculator

SAEC positions itself with in a central argument developed by Ted Kazinscky (Unabomber) in his essay “Industrial Society and Its Future” (also called the "Unabomber Manifesto"). In his paper he advocates for a revolution against technology because of the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization. Furthermore he states that you cannot remove the “good” qualities of technology from the “bad.”

SAEC attempts to move the electronic calculator (the foundation of all computer technology) from a “large-scale organization-dependent technology” to a “do it yourself technology”. It does this through providing a forum where interested “participants” can reinvent the electronic calculator so it can be made by one person in the woods with no tools.

Please feel free to add new insights or critiques of the mission statement in the concept discussion area of the forum.

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