Did you know that most of the time when you delete something on a computer, it doesn’t just vanish? You might know you can retrieve it, sometimes, if you’re lucky. You might know that the US government now claims authority to seize laptops at airports and take all over your data - without recompense (what if you have really valuable data?). But what you might not realize is that by deleting a file (a unit of currency information), you’re just re-assigning it to another value. It’s getting called something else, as opposed to getting erased. That’s why, if you know how, you can retrieve deleted information.

This connects to my thing about garbage cans versus free boxes. Both ritual containers enable us to psychologically reassign the value of something. In this case, its similar to a deletion. You’re “throwing it out” but it doesn’t just vanish. It goes to the junkyard, the compost heap. It becomes raw materials somebody else might need or reuse. A free box, on the other hand, is a bit more direct: immediately saying, “Take and reuse my leavings.”

Recycle bin as compost head in future software metaphors based on green, ecological systems thinking. Each element of your computer, both hardware and software, will have some ecological function, name, label or metaphor. Holons.