Whereas the environment of our planet is increasingly polluted, and
Whereas we can each do something about it via our purchasing habits and
Whereas modern technology continues to dematerialize our stuff,
We declare that the dematerialization of obsolete analog forms of all types via digitization wherever possible is imperative and is a primary goal for humanity.
We only buy digital books, newspapers and magazines. Paper products are purchased only for their aesthetic and artistic value and are kept and cherished and never thrown away.
We shun the purchase of physical digital fetish items like CDs and DVDs. The proper place for digital information is in the cloud and streamed or stored locally only as needed to view or listen. Digital fetish items are transitory at best and will eventually fill countless metric tons of landfill.
To that end, we prefer services which stream music and video without attempting to force us into paying for a “license” (sold fraudulently by attempting to make us think we’re “buying” it).
In addition, we advocate for the expansion of video services beyond their insufficient status today and into a solution where we pay a monthly fee for a true all-you-can watch buffet that includes all digitally available video and music.
We also demand that video game companies cease production of physical fetish versions of their games. Games should be streamed or downloaded from the internet. There should be no physical remnants of a finished and unwanted game.
Further, we actively promote entertainment which is created first and foremost for the internet audience. We demand this entertainment content be available to all netizens worldwide, and we agree to pay for access (either in currency or ad watching) to such content as long it’s more convenient to access than via the Pirate Bay.
We each resolve to either sell or give away our digital gadgets as we upgrade to newer ones. Older smartphones are magical and empowering devices for people who have never had one at all.
Just as important as dematerialization is the recycling of non-digitizable devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Older phones and tablets should be resold or shared and used until they no longer function or everyone has something better.
Eventually, our smart gadgets must become disposable and completely recyclable or perhaps biodegradable. We ask device manufacturers to spend money in research and development to reach this goal. The tools we use to enhance ourselves should never spend time in a landfill.
We must accelerate these efforts since the personal enhancement technologies are accelerating at an exponential rate. Once current devices have propagated to the bulk of humanity, our gadgets and tools will begin to accumulate as waste. We must limit this waste as quickly as possible since we anticipate that future generations of these devices will become available in much shorter time spans than they are today.
Our ultimate goal is the dematerialization of every thing which isn’t absolutely required to have a physical representation. Just as desktop computers are currently being dematerialized by laptops, so shall laptops be dematerialized by smartphones and tablets. Eventually video screens of all sorts will be dematerialized by mature Augmented Reality technology. Every step we take down in size reduces the amount of clutter we hand off to future generations.
Definitions: YouTube | Wikipedia | Explaining the Future
Techstropia 
Now you have me reading Karl Marx! http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4 “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof”
Fetish is just the word I’ve started using to refer to digital things that have unnecessary physical form. There’s no reason at all to have a CD or DVD. Those fetishes don’t even give you ownership of what’s contained on them! You can’t buy an album or movie – you just purchase a license which can be revoked at any time. Instead of “buying” any of that, we should just view or listen to them via a streaming service.
While `phantoms’ are no doubt wasteful, they are not even on the radar screen compared to hugely wasteful items ranging from fashion accessories to armies and navies. Urging people online on such a slim basis makes no sense whatsoever as long as DRM is rampant and even basic rights (e.g. the first sale doctrine remain unsecured). You go ahead, and have your cloud access revoked once the work is declared copyrighted or who knows, subversive. I stick to these slightly wasteful physical tokens to be secure in my possessions, thank you.
Ak, thank you for your reply. I completely agree with you that there’s plenty of other wasteful spending in the world. My manifest is, however, not concerned with anything other than the imperative need humanity has to digitize what can be digitized – to dematerialized physical things which are replaceable. I agree that defense spending in the United States is an obscenity, but that’s a political matter for the most part, and not necessarily addressed by this manifesto. The same goes for fashion accessories, etc.
I do think, though, that you have raised a valid point about digital content control and ownership and my manifesto will be revised to reflect those concerns. I hope the changes I make in the next week or so will be a bit more satisfactory for you. I originally left that out of the manifesto because I honestly don’t think they will be concerns in 30 or 40 years, but they certainly are now.
Thank you.