We often build technology like we’re clearing land—strip it down, pave it over, install something that does one job and expects the world to adjust around it. That might make sense for servers and networks. But if we take ecology seriously, maybe it’s time to ask: What would it mean to build tech that behaves more like a forest?
Software That Decomposes
In nature, everything breaks down eventually. There’s no such thing as “end-of-life,” only transformation. Fallen trees become habitat. Rot feeds roots. Even waste has a role.
In tech, we mostly produce dead ends: obsolete protocols, orphaned dependencies, unsupported hardware. Systems are built to accumulate, not compost.
What would it look like to write code that gracefully degrades? That flags its own obsolescence? That invites being replaced, not hoarded or endlessly patched?
Software could rot well, if we let it.
Autonomy Without Domination
A healthy ecosystem is full of autonomous agents such as birds, fungi, bacteria, plants; all interacting without central control, yet forming stability through feedback.
Compare that with most digital infrastructure: centralised, monitored, rigid, and allergic to uncertainty. Autonomy in tech often just means localised control within a narrow sandbox, not the messy, adaptive independence of a living system.
Could we design software that adapts instead of dictates? That listens before logging? That stops when it’s not needed anymore?
Autonomy, in ecological terms, is less about power and more about belonging to a context.
Building Lightly
In nature, organisms don’t extract energy endlessly. They work with constraints. Growth slows. Resources cycle. Nothing scales forever.
We tend to build as if the stack should be permanent, always growing, always on. But what if impermanence was a design goal? What if we saw downtime, sunset cycles, and decommissioning not as failures—but as ethical responsibilities?
A tool that disappears when its job is done isn’t broken. It’s graceful.
Toward an Ecological Mindset
To rewild the stack isn’t to throw tech away. It’s to reshape how we think about its role in larger systems, social, environmental, human. It’s to design for decay, diversity, and decentralisation. To treat systems like habitats, not machines.
And like any habitat, the goal isn’t control. The goal is care.
“Rewilding the Stack” — Because good systems should grow, shed, adapt, and leave behind more life than they consume.