Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer (1987) [pdf]

Reception of Berry’s stance

• Several commenters see Berry as a serious, long-running critic of technology whose work is worth engaging even if one disagrees.
• Others are skeptical, noting his ideas resemble older anti‑industrial or Luddite positions and are enabled by a larger technological society keeping “the lights on” around him.
• Some argue his pastoral lifestyle is not scalable, but that scalability is not his goal; the value is in the ethos and the challenge to defaults.

Criteria for Adopting Technology

• Berry’s nine rules (cheaper, smaller, better, lower‑energy, solar, repairable, local, small‑shop, non‑disruptive of community) are widely discussed.
• Some find them an excellent checklist, especially when extended to IoT appliances, smart thermostats, phones in schools, etc.
• Others treat the list as a basis for counterarguments: many beneficial technologies need scale, are not easily repairable, and yet are clearly transformative (public sanitation, printing, computers, networks).
• A recurring theme: be mindful about new tools, not reflexively accepting or rejecting them.

The “Wife as Word Processor” Controversy

• Berry’s reliance on his wife to type and edit his manuscripts is a major flashpoint.
• Some say those five words undermine his critique: he is rejecting a tool he doesn’t personally use in favor of labor he doesn’t personally perform.
• Others argue the framing of the wife as exploited or servile is patronizing; they see a collaborative intellectual partnership and valuable editorial labor.
• The original magazine letters, which satirized this (“Wife – a low‑tech energy‑saving device”), are noted as both funny and biting.

Medium, Writing, and Organization

• Multiple commenters share experiences that tools don’t fix underlying disorganization: a messy person gets a messy computer.
• Others counter that search (grep, Gmail, note apps) and metadata (photo apps with facial recognition and maps) fundamentally change what “messy” means and can outperform any paper system.
• There is a side debate over whether handwriting/typewriters foster denser, better prose through friction, versus this being nostalgia; examples are given of word processors enabling overlong, thin writing.

Computers Then, Phones Now, and Convenience

• Historical context: 1987 PCs were expensive, limited, and offline, making Berry’s skepticism more understandable.
• Some lament that today many people don’t use general‑purpose computers at all, only phones running constrained, surveilled apps.
• Others stress that phones provide huge practical benefits (maps, camera, communication), and experiments with giving them up yield mixed experiences.

Energy and Carbon Digression

• Berry’s “solar energy, such as that of the body” line triggers a long tangent on whether human‑powered work is carbon‑neutral.
• Consensus in the thread: respiration itself is neutral in principle (plants fix the carbon first), but modern food systems are heavily fossil‑fuel‑dependent, so the real picture is more complex.