Convening a Meeting - Redesigning the World

[Curtis Faith]

As Contact approaches, my sense of the possible has expanded, so I wanted to see if this topic resonates: 

Redesigning the World

What if we could take a clean-slate approach to the world, how would things be different?

What can people do? What do that want to do? How can we arrange society so that people get to do what they love?

What resources do we have? How do we use them more effectively and efficiently?

How do we redesign a world for thriving healthy life? Everything. Energy. Transportation. Government. Everything.

How do we get from where we are today to that better design? How do we embed experimentation into the new design?

Who might be interested in helping to redesign the world?

Peace

Curtis

[Douglas Rushkoff]

Well, it's pretty broad. The whole conference agenda is even smaller than redesigning the world. 

In order to maximize the followthrough and actionability of what we produce together in ten hours, I will be framing the 45-minute sessions with a fairly grounded question, currently worded as: 

"What concrete step can we take to release a true potential of the networked era?"

The idea would be that since we're having twenty meetings at a time over three slots (and then picking three or for of those meetings topics for immediate followthrough) we would have participants propose specific, actionable, concrete steps or projects.  Like "develop a complementary currency for OSW" or "write a encryption protocol for Mesh networks" or "gamify carbon offsets." 

Then, people interested or qualified in that particular project or topic can come and contribute. This would maximize our effectiveness. 

That said, I think it's okay if people want to use their time to get inspired or have fun or dream. To make your "redesign the world" a bit more concrete and actionable, maybe you'd want to think of just what the very first baby step would towards realizing the planetary reboot. Do you want to promote a conversation? What can the dozen people who gather to help you accomplish with you? What follow through do you want to see happen? Do you want to start by designing a game? Writing a white paper? Writing an OpEd as a group? Starting a bbs? 

---

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[Michael Grube]

"What if we could take a clean-slate approach to the world, how would things be different?"

 

This really depends on what you mean by "clean-slate". You mean with no money, no technology...?

 

IMHO Man's well being and behavior are determined more by the technology he is using than anything else. Man's consciousness is directly related to the technology he is using. Starting from a clean slate is hard for me to imagine because the current conditions are a result of the tech man has built in the past. Examples being using fire to cook, sewer systems, the telegraph, the automobile...

"What resources do we have? How do we use them more effectively and efficiently?"

 

What do you consider as having a resource? That resource being on earth? Being conveniently available? There is a certain degree to which answering the question of what resources we have is its own challenge.

 

"How do we get from where we are today to that better design? How do we embed experimentation into the new design?"

Step 1) Identify Problem

Step 2) ???

Step 3) Profit!

 

"How do we redesign a world for thriving healthy life? Everything. Energy. Transportation. Government. Everything."

This changes with time. What we think nourishes us today may kill us tomorrow(cell phones being an example)

 

"Who might be interested in helping to redesign the world?"

Every single person.

 

My point with this is that rather than trying to make one focused effort to redesign the world, what is needed is a way in which everyone can play this kind of game all the time. I think this will come in its own time through the development of the appropriate technologies.

[Patrick Anderson]

Michael Grube wrote:
> Step 3) Profit!

Profit measures the User's dependence upon the current Owners.

Profit is 0 (actually undefined) when the Users are the Owners.

Treating Profit as a Reward for the current Owners incents scarcity
and destruction.

Profit can safely be eliminated when Users are the Owners and the
Product is their ROI.

[Michael Grube]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:14 AM, Patrick Anderson <agnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Michael Grube wrote:
> Step 3) Profit!

Profit measures the User's dependence upon the current Owners.

 

This is a very interesting defintion.

 

Profit is 0 (actually undefined) when the Users are the Owners.

Treating Profit as a Reward for the current Owners incents scarcity
and destruction.

 

Okay, so then allow me to naively ask what an Owner would be in this case.

[Michael Grube]

Sorry for the extra message, but let me clarify my question:

 

In the current way of things, there is private property. People use this property or asset to provide a good or service in exchange for materials and services they need.

 

So how do you eliminate the private property thing and what determines who has control of a resource?

[Patrick Anderson]

Michael Grube wrote:
>> Profit measures the User's dependence upon the current Owners.
> This is a very interesting defintion.

Notice, when 1 person owns an Apple tree, he must pay all the Costs
of that production, including any Wages to any Workers he might hire.

But, at the end of the season, he does not BUY the Product (Apples)
from himself - he owns them already, as a side-effect of his owning
the Sources (the tree, land, water rights, tools, etc.).

Because the final transaction does not occur, Profit does not exist.

This may seem to obvious to consider, but watch what happens
when there are 1,000 co-owners of an Apple orchard that invested
Sources or Skills and receive Product as ROI...

The result is the same: There is no sale because each User/Owner
ALREADY OWNS the same % of that Product as their % of
co-ownership in the Sources of that Product.

>> Profit is 0 (actually undefined) when the Users are the Owners.
>>
>> Treating Profit as a Reward for the current Owners incents
>> scarcity and destruction.
>
> Okay, so then allow me to naively ask what an Owner would be in this case.

Owners are the people who have Property Title to Physical Sources.

For example, if I (co-)own an Apple tree, and you do not, then I can
usually sell an Apple to you for Price above Costs (I receive Profit)
because you are not yet 'protected' (actually insured) by sufficient
(co-)ownership in the Sources of that Product.

If you were to gain (co-)ownership in another Apple tree (and all the
supporting Sources such as land, water rights, tools, etc.), then
you move away from needing to BUY Apples in the future - for you
do not need to BUY what you already OWN.

That is why we should treat Profit as Payer Investment - for then
the very person who paid for the growth of that organization
becomes the person who has control and dominion over that
small amount of production.

[Patrick Anderson]

Michael Grube wrote:
> In the current way of things, there is private property. People use this
> property or asset to provide a good or service in exchange for materials and
> services they need.

The approach I describe uses Property Rights to enforce
http://ShareWiki.org/en/PropertyLeft analogous to how the GNU GPL
uses Copyright to enforce Copyleft.

> So how do you eliminate the private property thing and what determines who
> has control of a resource?

Both PropertyLeft and CopyLeft solve this issue by requiring Users gain
at-cost access to the Sources of production.

PropertyLeft achieves this by requiring Profit be treated as Payer Investment
so that private property ownership is continuously distributed to those
who are willing to pay for that growth.

[Travis]

Excerpts from Douglas Rushkoff's message of Tue Oct 18 07:19:21 -0600 2011:

> "What concrete step can we take to release a true potential of the networked era?"
>

Could I get a little feedback on:
"Build an information management commons that works on sporadically connected (often disconnected) darknets."

Travis
spaciousness.org

[Douglas Rushkoff]

Well, to make it completely comprehensible to the group (many of whom may only understand certain aspects of technology and/or economics), you might make it clear whether you're building a piece of technology or creating a community. I guess I'm asking, what is an information management commons? Is it a bunch of IP that we can all utilize to make our darknets work, or is it people working on something?

[recon...@gmail.com]

FYI: If those here are not aware, the OWS calendar could be a good
resource to connect with others on related subjects of
interest/concern - http://nycga.cc/calendar/

{ Jason }

[Patrick Anderson]

Douglas Rushkoff wrote:
> what is an information management commons?
> Is it a bunch of IP that we can all utilize to make our
> darknets work, or is it people working on something?

I think it must also include co-ownership of the Physical.

[Douglas Rushkoff]

I am just trying to understand the main idea.

[Charles N Wyble]

Fund the free network foundation. Without the network it all falls apart.

Curtis Faith <cur...@worldhouse.org> wrote:

--
Charles N Wyble @charlesnw cha...@knownelement.com

Building a cost effective, open, secure bit moving platform for tomorrows default free zone.

[Patrick Anderson]

Charles N Wyble wrote:
> Fund the free network foundation. Without the network it all falls apart.

I have $50,000 right now, and can invest IMMEDIATELY
if and only if you will treat Profit as Payer Investment and
Product as Investor's Return.

[Patrick Anderson]

Douglas Rushkoff wrote:
> what is an information management commons?

> I am just trying to understand the main idea.

People tend to disregard the Physical layer required
to *host* such production.

It is as if they believe we can replace Facebook,
Gmail, Amazon, etc. with Software alone - as though
Software doesn't require Hardware.

Co-Ownership of the Hardware is more important
than any other problem.

We have plenty of Software. We could replace
all proprietary hosting IMMEDIATELY if we could
only agree on how to share the Hardware for our
own, mutual benefit.

Is nobody concerned that the Investors and Owners
intend to subjugate the Users in their quest to keep
Price above Cost?

Can we really afford to not reconsider our Investors
intentions?

Will we always seek scarcity and destruction because
we have been fooled into believing Production is for
Profit instead of realizing Production is for Product?

When Product is the Investors Return, then there is
no Profit, except when Surplus is sold to non-owners.

When Profit is the Payer Investment, then there is
no incentive to scarcify or destroy, so abundance
and permanent solutions will finally be allowed.

[Charles N Wyble]

Write up specifics of what that would look like and lets talk. You asked great questions in another thread and I haven't had time to address them. Use those as a framework for the details?

Patrick Anderson <agnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Douglas Rushkoff]

So are you saying you want to convene a meeting about developing a new approach to shared hardware ownership for mesh-type networks?

[Michael Grube]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Douglas Rushkoff <rush...@gmail.com> wrote:

So are you saying you want to convene a meeting about developing a new approach to shared hardware ownership for mesh-type networks?

I'm pretty lost. If the software necessary for operation of this kind of network is open source and the price of a node on this kind of network is low(it is), what is wrong with assuming everyone can just have their own node? Isn't that shared hardware ownership?

[Douglas Rushkoff]

I am not trying to debate or discuss the issue. I am just trying to help figure out the project being proposed. So that it can be stated in a way that is coherent to the most people. 

[Travis]

Thanks very much for the feedback.

It's technology for communication within communities. I want to help
people who are working on stuff to avoid data loss and technical debt,
and to have all shared and private information in disparate formats
available at their fingertips.

The person who seems to understand most easily and most completely is
actually in library science. The best analogy may be that Spaciousness
is like a distributed library. All the same reasons why we have public
libraries are the reasons I'm writing code.

If a library were something generic and simple where one could manage
actions, data, and friends all together -- if a library were a
platform for /patterns/ -- it would be a lot more like Spaciousness.

Travis

Excerpts from Douglas Rushkoff's message of Tue Oct 18 10:12:21 -0600 2011:

[Isaac Wilder]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Patrick,

We would very much like to use the Profit as Payer Investment model to
make The Free Network a global, cooperative network. It is the only
way for this to work. I think you and I have both known this since
early spring.

Now, perhaps we should take this conversation off list, so that we can
nail down exactly what we'll have to do, to do this right from the get-go.

imw

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[Travis]

Yes but a network needs both nodes and edges.

I want Spaciousness to work on "sporadically connected darknets"
meaning you can have just a mobile device and transfer stuff via
bluetooth sometimes.

But to get halfway around the world you might need better shared
ownership of big bundles of fiber optics. To have reliable, fast
communication for large groups you'll also need managed clusters.

I think that's what Patrick is saying, though these are not issues
Spaciousness addresses.

Excerpts from Michael Grube's message of Tue Oct 18 13:17:56 -0600 2011:

[richard adler]

Travis,

I might be able to offer some feedback on this.

I'm an electronic records archivist, with a particular interest in the long-term preservation of records for future historical research (as well as for other legal and regulatory concerns). Librarians and archivists don't seem to be quite as well represented at ContactCon as other professions, so if I can offer some helpful thoughts for your project, I would be happy to do that.

Richard

[Patrick Anderson]

Douglas Rushkoff wrote:
> So are you saying you want to convene a meeting about developing a new approach to shared hardware ownership for mesh-type networks?

There is no need to resort to mesh-type networking if we are able to
co-own hardware.

We, the Users, already pay all the Costs the ISPs must pay **AND** we
pay Profit.

If we, the Users, were to co-own the physical infrastructure of an
ISP, then we would
still need to pay all the Costs, but would not BUY the bandwidth back
from ourselves,
but would already OWN it in the same % as each of our co-ownership in that net.

We can never be a serious competitor to the big carriers if we do not
gather together
to co-own the Physical Sources.

Once we understand how to cooperate for our own, mutual benefit, we will easily
undercut the Capitalists, since a business where "Product is Investor's Return"
can operate at-cost (never collecting Profit) without any trouble.

Capitalists cannot operate at-cost except for brief periods, since
their entire goal
is to keep Price above Cost to pay Investors expecting Profit as a Return.

[Patrick Anderson]

> Once we understand how to cooperate for our own, mutual benefit, we will easily
> undercut the Capitalists, since a business  where "Product is Investor's Return"
> can operate at-cost (never collecting Profit) without any trouble.

I should clarify: we would collect Profit when selling Surplus to
non-owners, but
that would only happen during growth, and is not required to sustain operations
at any given size.

And any Profit collected from selling Surplus must be treated as Payer
Investment.

[Travis]

Richard,

It would be good to talk to you. I have a little experience in digital
preservation also.

Travis

Excerpts from richard adler's message of Tue Oct 18 13:44:00 -0600 2011:

[Douglas Rushkoff]

These are great considerations - but I wouldn't want them to dissuade anyone from convening a session about this project possibility. 

The great thing about Contact is that none of the dozens ideas or projects that are conceived and launched have to address the entire global conundrum. What helps keep projects concrete and actionable is that they are specific. 

So while the Commons may ultimately require a currency, an electric grid, a better education system, a new post-modern ethical structure, and even food for the people working on it, each of those needs might be addressed by a different player in the ecosystem. 

There are many many big and true things we can say about any of these ideas. The object of the game in *formulating* a topic for discussion is simply to be able to communicate the goal or vision. Some ideas will be easy to express in a sentence "I want to develop a local currency for OWS." Others might be a little harder. But any of them can be picked apart prematurely, too. "I want to develop a local currency for OWS" can be attacked with the idea that a true collaborative community might better have no currency at all, since we need to trust one another and stop measuring contributions in numeric metrics.  But that will really only be received as an attack. Better to start another project idea for how to move the OWS community to the next phase of post-economic collaboration, or something like that. 

[Douglas Rushkoff]

Excellent.

You'll hear him announce this meeting at the first morning "town hall." 

[richard adler]

Douglas:

Good to know, thanks. Making a note of it for the morning.

Richard

[Isaac Wilder]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Patrick,

Understand that the ISP do use mesh networks. The internet is a mesh
network.
It's not an option of last resort. It's by far the best architecture
for packet-switched networks.

imw

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[Patrick Anderson]

Isaac Wilder wrote:
> Understand that the ISP do use mesh networks.
> The internet is a mesh network.

Sorry, I thought he was meaning Individually-Owned, wireless nodes
that are far cry from the high-speed connectivity of regular ISPs.

[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]

Curtis Faith, this is the message I would like to take to Wall Street during the weekend. I agree with Douglas, this meeting must remain technical and focused if we want to achieve something. But the Occupation camp is a space where a big vision is being crafted. 

I propose to distill the Contact event, after it happens, into what is possible, to can it and to bring that on Wall Street, to let those people there digest it, and eventually they'll put it into a vision of the future (they is also us...).     

I'll be in the park till Sunday. Who else is cumming? 

[Suresh Fernando]

After having spent the last three days immersed in occupation activity (I was both active in the planning and execution of 5 general assemblies at OccupyVancouver since Saturday AM), I think I have at least some sense on what the practical challenges that can be supported by the development of the technology infrastructure layer...

Logistics (coordination of resources and infrastructure), collaboration (both within movements and across) and decision making (better large group decision making models) present opportunities...

Hopefully we can remain focused on specific solutions to a pressing challenge (and therefore opportunity) and we remember that a strong belief in the power of technology (and therefore the Internet) is the what is most common amongst those that are attending Contact.

Hence I will speak to the merit of developing specific technology solutions...

--
Suresh Fernando
BLOG, YOUTUBE, OK WEBSITE, OK FAN PAGE, OK GROUP, OK-WE, PHILOSOPHY,  TWITTER,  FACEBOOK, WOTW FAN PAGE LINKEDIN, SLIDESHARE

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[Tiberius Brastaviceanu]

Suresh, you hit it right on the head. 

I think I have at least some sense on what the practical challenges that can be supported by the development of the technology infrastructure layer... 
Logistics (coordination of resources and infrastructure), collaboration (both within movements and across) and decision making (better large group decision making models) present opportunities...

I see occupation camps as emergent cities. As an active participant in Occupy Montreal I already proposed to form a group to start implementing new economy concepts/principles within this space. These camps are embryos of the new world, and everything will emanate/spread from there. The Consensus video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dtD8RnGaRQ  is an example of how a new governance system that is taking shape get's packaged and distributed throughout the world. I will propose to test different ideas I am working on related to the SENSORICA project and to Greener Acres project (more focused on local food systems). I also want to see how the economical system of the camp in NYC operates.   

--
t!b! 

co-founder of SENSORICA, 

an open, decentralized and self-organizing

value network (an open enterprise)

founder of Multitude Project

Google Profile

Facebook Tiberius Brastaviceanu

Twitter  @TiberiusB

[Douglas Rushkoff]

I don't think "technical." Just concrete.

[Douglas Rushkoff]

This is what I am writing about too. OWS as prototype more than it is protest. I have a tweet somewhere I was supposed to send. I will dig it up. 

[Suresh Fernando]

Yes, it is a prototype of many things... community formation, direct democracy, cooperation, emergent organizational structure...etc etc.. and the relative importance of prototyping, and making prototypes visible, in the media driven world we live in, should be pretty apparent to all of us!

You can export the model and the meme very rapidly. This makes it possible to bring about a shift in perspective on a broader level in a more accelerated fashion IMHO...

[teleb...@gmail.com]

Amen!!

I am so ready for this. If feel like a collective consciousness wormhole has opened up and it is providing a pathway to the future we are all imagining. I've been experiencing "close encounters" (tm) moments almost every day.

I will bet my life (seriously) that millions of people at Occupy Everywhere have thoughts and feelings inside them that have been repressed by the drudgery and scarcity of daily life, but it is awakening due to the hardship imposed by this Great Depression.

From the day we start school we are trained to compete and cheat to claw our way to the top of what? Well it seems to me the top would be the Aynrandistan that is Wall Street and the global empire. Some of the very same people that I went to school with at Wharton.

The world is being run by (I am extrapolating) maybe 1/2 million sociopaths and psychopaths that use the levers of the corporate and government control (especially the legal system at all levels) to crush dissent.

Remember "Question Authority"?

So on the flipside, humanity is broken and nature is broken. We are the living system. Corporations are not a living system. Governments are not a living system. Corporations and governments have evolved into parasitic force that is draining the life out of the world.

Local indigenous ecosystems and economies have been systematically destroyed over the last 700 years. Primarily by breaking up cooperative groups of people that are in harmony with nature. By destroying the ecosystem and/or destroying indigenous culture.

This is our final wakeup call. This is not a drill. I have been rehearsing (not consciously) for this moment my entire life. These Occupy Sites are our sandbox to play and learn how to be human beings again and not some mechanistic part of the corporate/government complex.

These are Intentional Communities!! They are by the People and for the People!! We must stop being individuals and start beings communities by sharing and caring and collaborating and creating living economies. Economies that are based on People and friendly to Nature.

The open source social contract is part of the model along with the the intellectual commons that is rightly ours. We need a new social contract that includes People and Nature and that's it.

Corporations are not People! Governments are not People!
And People are part of Nature.

As we learn to replicate Intentional Communities, we can turn homeless camps into ecovillages, we can learn to built resilient communities, we can share in a way that let's us pursue the things we love as long as we are in balance with nature and our self reliant communities.

I could go on and on, but in concrete terms: What Suresh said!!

We need teach-ins, we need Occupied U, we need to spread the word with a message of liberation and empowerment. Just do it!

In terms of powerful images from American culture I am thinking of (1) Bug's life (What if they all stand up to us)

(2) Forrest Gump (The slow motion scene where Forrest breaks away from his leg braces)m

(3) It's a Wonderful Life (All of it)

I am so looking forward to Thursday and beyond!

-Jeff

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

---

From: Suresh Fernando <sures...@gmail.com>

Sender: contac...@googlegroups.com

Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:24:07 -0700

To: <contac...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: contac...@googlegroups.com

Cc: <openk...@googlegroups.com>; <par...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: Convening a Meeting - Redesigning the World

[Suresh Fernando]

Amen ;-)

I hope this theme is pervasive at Contact... print out a few copies of your email!

[teleb...@gmail.com]

You got it!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

---

From: Suresh Fernando <sures...@gmail.com>

Sender: contac...@googlegroups.com

Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:41:24 -0700

[Marcos]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Douglas Rushkoff <rush...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, to make it completely comprehensible to the group (many of whom may only understand certain aspects of technology and/or economics), you might make it clear whether you're building a piece of technology or creating a community.  I guess I'm asking, what is an information management commons? Is it a bunch of IP that we can all utilize to make our darknets work, or is it people working on something?

I have concrete answers to all these questions, but I'm too pressed
for time in order to get everything together to get to the
Conference!!!

I guess it'll have to wait,

marcos
Santa Fe, NM

[cjen...@googlemail.com]

Patrick

It's not so much co-ownership as no-ownership: I came up with the word
'Nondominium' to describe the necessary 'common source' framework for
the property relationship.

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/resilience/

What we can do is create a collective/joint agreement and entity as a
'Custodian' of commons such as land and knowledge, and for the various
stakeholders to have a negative right of veto - not the dominant
positive rights of a (divine right of capital) owner, or the positive
control exercised by a Trustee on behalf of a beneficiary.

We can then also create an associative/several agreement between the
same stakeholders individually. ie the 'User' group and the 'Manager'
group.

Investment will come from selling forward the use value simply by
creating credits redeemable in payment for it.

This recent presentation is relevant

http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/keith-community-partnership

The point is that the future 'Society 3.0' does not involve
intermediary organisations extracting profit or rent in one from or
another, but with collective and associative agreements for self-
organisation,and the creation, sharing and exchange of surplus value
in all its forms, of which our existing currency is not one.

Best Regards

Chris Cook

[Curtis Faith]

Douglas,

Yes, it is broad. Nevertheless, I think you could come up with some pretty concrete ideas for the big pieces that we'd make different in 45 minutes.

The basic idea is to highlight the specific ways in which the whole system we have is suboptimal. There are likely many different systemic changes that we could make that would create better outcomes than optimizing or improving components.

The concrete work that could be accomplished in the 45 minutes might be two or three sentences describing each of the pieces of the global redesign with perhaps 10 to 12 pieces in total. This might provide the concrete basis for some projects that could be developed afterward in more detail. Along with a rough estimate of the improvement such a systemic change might represent in quantitative terms where appropriate.

One example might be transportation. Improving cars by making electric or hybrid ones is optimizing our existing systems and infrastructure. Coming up with new types of transportation systems that don't require cars for most people is a systemic replacement. Something like PRT (personal rapid transit) also presents the opportunity to greatly reduce the need for cars and more expensive transit solutions.

I'm afraid that if we don't stop to think first about where we'd really like to go we might never get there.

- Curtis

On Oct 18, 2011, at 9:19 AM, Douglas Rushkoff wrote:

Well, it's pretty broad. The whole conference agenda is even smaller than redesigning the world. 

In order to maximize the followthrough and actionability of what we produce together in ten hours, I will be framing the 45-minute sessions with a fairly grounded question, currently worded as: 

"What concrete step can we take to release a true potential of the networked era?"

The idea would be that since we're having twenty meetings at a time over three slots (and then picking three or for of those meetings topics for immediate followthrough) we would have participants propose specific, actionable, concrete steps or projects.  Like "develop a complementary currency for OSW" or "write a encryption protocol for Mesh networks" or "gamify carbon offsets." 

Then, people interested or qualified in that particular project or topic can come and contribute. This would maximize our effectiveness. 

That said, I think it's okay if people want to use their time to get inspired or have fun or dream. To make your "redesign the world" a bit more concrete and actionable, maybe you'd want to think of just what the very first baby step would towards realizing the planetary reboot. Do you want to promote a conversation? What can the dozen people who gather to help you accomplish with you? What follow through do you want to see happen? Do you want to start by designing a game? Writing a white paper? Writing an OpEd as a group? Starting a bbs? 

On Oct 18, 2011, at 9:07 AM, Curtis Faith wrote:

As Contact approaches, my sense of the possible has expanded, so I wanted to see if this topic resonates: 

Redesigning the World

What if we could take a clean-slate approach to the world, how would things be different?

What can people do? What do that want to do? How can we arrange society so that people get to do what they love?

What resources do we have? How do we use them more effectively and efficiently?

How do we redesign a world for thriving healthy life? Everything. Energy. Transportation. Government. Everything.

How do we get from where we are today to that better design? How do we embed experimentation into the new design?

Who might be interested in helping to redesign the world?

Peace

Curtis

[monika hardy]

we're hoping some might consider redefining school as a means for opening up all of these options. imagine if we change up the way we spend 7 hours a day for 12+ years. not to mention the mindset that follows way past the schooling years.

--




monika
cell: 970.988.1730
twitter: monk51295
skype: monk51295
the lab: connection site, on facebook
be you (beta stand alone lab)
my blog
soul peace

[Douglas Rushkoff]

Well, convene a meeting for people to work on a global redesign, and see who comes! 

I'll be interested to see what you consider to be the immediate "next steps." 

[Ale Fernandez]

This conversation reminds me of:

1) the Great Reskilling - a concept put forward by Rob Hopkins of the
transition network - and explained here:
http://www.energybulletin.net/51210

2) This post from the other day by Lorea developer Hellekin Wolf:
"ELITES IN THE WEST�who rely more heavily on technology than anyone else
on the planet�insist that development and technology are the causes of
ecological problems but not their solution."
https://plus.google.com/u/0/116069455891181229072/posts/MjG3atABWU9

3) Existing schools or groups providing courses or resources for
building things like http://theurbanfarmingguys.com/ or Gever Tulley's
tinkering school www.tinkeringschool.com/

With all the cuts being made in education, it's a critical time to
redefine what school should do! Hope these links and concepts can help.

All the best for contactcon - will it be livestreamed?!

Ale

>>>> *Redesigning the World*

>>>> What if we could take a clean-slate approach to the world, how
>>>> would things be different?
>>>>
>>>> What can people do? What do that want to do? How can we arrange
>>>> society so that people get to do what they love?
>>>>
>>>> What resources do we have? How do we use them more effectively
>>>> and efficiently?
>>>>
>>>> How do we redesign a world for thriving healthy life?
>>>> Everything. Energy. Transportation. Government. Everything.
>>>>
>>>> How do we get from where we are today to that better design? How
>>>> do we embed experimentation into the new design?
>>>>
>>>> Who might be interested in helping to redesign the world?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Peace
>>>>
>>>> Curtis
>>>>
>>>
>>> ---

>>> http://rushkoff.com <http://rushkoff.com/>

>>> http://twitter.com/rushkoff
>>> http://facebook.com/DouglasRushkoff
>>> http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/program/
>>> http://www.rushkoff.com/lifeincorporated
>>>

>>> Come to Contact! http://contactcon.com <http://contactcon.com/>

>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> monika
>> cell: 970.988.1730
>> twitter: monk51295
>> skype: monk51295
>> the lab: connection site

>> <http://labconnections.blogspot.com/>,<http://www.slideshare.net/monk51295/innovationlab>
>> on facebook <http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133593943352884>
>> be you <http://redefineschool.wordpress.com/> (beta stand alone lab)
>> my blog <http://www.monkblogs.blogspot.com/>
>> soul peace
>
> ---
> http://rushkoff.com <http://rushkoff.com/>

> http://twitter.com/rushkoff
> http://facebook.com/DouglasRushkoff
> http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/program/
> http://www.rushkoff.com/lifeincorporated
>
> Come to Contact! http://contactcon.com
>
>
>

* English - detected
* English

* English

<javascript:void(0);>

[CulturalEngineer]

Many great ideas and inspired people here... but a word of caution.

As a little bit older attendee (61) its worthwhile remembering some
experiences from the last 'uprising' in the 60's...

As Mark Twain said... this movement 'rhymes with' but does not repeat
the past.

A great fault (I believe) of the earlier movement was its ultimate
failure to make any significant and pragmatic changes to the public
landscape of which it was a part... NO reformation of political
processes, NO alteration of the duopoly political structure, NO
increased availability of media access to non-corporate interests, NO
localization of political participation, NO reigning in of the
increasing financialization of both local and global economies, NO
effort to advance a population's civic consciousness or
participation... and most importantly an acquiescence to a Madison
Ave. approach to the emotional manipulation of political decision (and
often its diversion into irrelevancies) rather than the encouragement
of the rational skepticism necessary for independent decision
makers... which is what citizen's must become.

My own innovation is very concrete:

A method for making viable a secure, simple Internet micro-transaction
in established currencies via what must ultimately be a User-owned
network.
I believe this is much more important than may at first be apparent...
paradoxically perhaps including the advancement of alternative
currencies.

A programmer friend of mine (quite senior and quite experienced in
very large database, security and other systems involving literally
millions of accounts and billions of transactions) reminds me of a
well-known acronym to programmers...

K.I.S.S. : KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!

P.S. My suggestion for the first (if any) concrete goals for this
movement is that they be META-political rather than political... In
other words concrete developments to address methods and mechanisms of
representation and feedback. My own development being one of them.

Another rather ancient neglected 'technology' in governance is the
potentials inherent in 'sortition'... (Google it... Wikipedia has a
good article. However this must be addressed via another type of
software: law.

> > *Redesigning the World*

> > What if we could take a clean-slate approach to the world, how would things
> > be different?
>
> > What can people do? What do that want to do? How can we arrange society so
> > that people get to do what they love?
>
> > What resources do we have? How do we use them more effectively and
> > efficiently?
>
> > How do we redesign a world for thriving healthy life? Everything. Energy.
> > Transportation. Government. Everything.
>
> > How do we get from where we are today to that better design? How do we
> > embed experimentation into the new design?
>
> > Who might be interested in helping to redesign the world?
>
> > Peace
>
> > Curtis
>
> > ---
> >http://rushkoff.com
> >http://twitter.com/rushkoff
> >http://facebook.com/DouglasRushkoff
> >http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/program/
> >http://www.rushkoff.com/lifeincorporated
>

> > Come to Contact!http://contactcon.com

>
> --
>
> monika
> cell: 970.988.1730
> twitter: monk51295
> skype: monk51295

> the lab: connection site
> <http://labconnections.blogspot.com/>,<http://www.slideshare.net/monk51295/innovationlab>on
> facebook <http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133593943352884>

> be you <http://redefineschool.wordpress.com/> (beta stand alone lab)
> my blog <http://www.monkblogs.blogspot.com/>
> soul peace

[Fabio Barone]

Thanks Ale, 

great comments.

 

All the best for contactcon - will it be livestreamed?!

I also asked this question, and apparently there is no livestream.

Afterwards a whole bunch of people said they're goign to film the event,

so I wonder if nothing can be made?

giss.tv would be an idea...

[Douglas Rushkoff]

Luckily, lots of people are coming. Some of the approaches will be meta, some will not. The "meta" ones can help take care of some of the non-meta ones, while the non-meta ones can help provide immediate tools for the realization of meta ones. 

There's space for all approaches. 

Some people may convene a meeting to develop a school textbook, even though they have no plans for distributing it through post-corporate, distributed means. But someone else may be convening a meeting about a new publishing model.  Each one could be criticized on the grounds that it doesn't do the other. But luckily there's more than one meeting, many people, and multiple efforts. 

[Douglas Rushkoff]

Right. This conversation is already in progress. 

Many people are shooting. Venessa is working out a platform through gliss or an equivalent. 

Someone else is shooting and hopefully preparing a single video of all the morning 'provocations' so that Meetups in Europe can see that part. 

---

http://rushkoff.com

http://twitter.com/rushkoff
http://facebook.com/DouglasRushkoff
http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/program/

[Fabio Barone]

Great, thanks Doug.

Is there also some agreed hashtag?

Finally, a little contribution from my side along Tom's comment.

I endorse KISS (Keep it simple and stupid) - think how

Twitter went viral.

Instead of thinking of some mammoth complex platform for collaboration,

I feel inspired by cells sending signals which are interpreted 

by some intelligence through mash-ups...

Wishing you all a great event and looking forward

to read the follow-ups and watch some videos!

Thanks to Venessa and Doug for setting all up and moderating this list.

Love to you all

2011/10/19 Douglas Rushkoff <rush...@gmail.com>

[Isaac Wilder]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Now you're getting it.
It's not about what we're tearing down. It's about what we're building up.


imw

On 10/18/2011 07:24 PM, Suresh Fernando wrote:

> Yes, it is a prototype of many things... community formation,
> direct democracy, cooperation, emergent organizational
> structure...etc etc.. and the relative importance of prototyping,
> and making prototypes visible, in the media driven world we live
> in, should be pretty apparent to all of us!
>
> You can export the model and the meme very rapidly. This makes it
> possible to bring about a shift in perspective on a broader level
> in a more accelerated fashion IMHO...
>
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Douglas Rushkoff
> <rush...@gmail.com <mailto:rush...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> This is what I am writing about too. OWS as prototype more than it
> is protest. I have a tweet somewhere I was supposed to send. I will
> dig it up.
>
>
>
> On Oct 18, 2011, at 5:42 PM, Tiberius Brastaviceanu
> <tiberius.br...@gmail.com

> <mailto:tiberius.br...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> *Suresh*, you hit it right on the head.

>>
>> I think I have at least some sense on what the practical
>> challenges that can be supported by the development of the

>> technology infrastructure layer... /*Logistics (coordination of

>> resources and infrastructure), collaboration (both within
>> movements and across) and decision making (better large group

>> decision making models) present opportunities...*/
>>
>> /* */ *I see occupation camps as emergent cities. *As an active

>> participant in Occupy Montreal I already proposed to form a group

>> to start implementing /*new economy*/ concepts/principles within
>> this space. *These camps are embryos of the new world, and
>> everything will emanate/spread from there. *The Consensus video

>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dtD8RnGaRQ is an example of how
>> a new governance system that is taking shape get's packaged and
>> distributed throughout the world. I will propose to test
>> different ideas I am working on related to the SENSORICA project
>> and to Greener Acres project (more focused on local food
>> systems). I also want to see how the economical system of the
>> camp in NYC operates.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 5:29 PM, Suresh Fernando
>> <sures...@gmail.com <mailto:sures...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> After having spent the last three days immersed in occupation
>> activity (I was both active in the planning and execution of 5
>> general assemblies at OccupyVancouver since Saturday AM), I think
>> I have at least some sense on what the practical challenges that
>> can be supported by the development of the technology

>> infrastructure layer... /* Logistics (coordination of resources

>> and infrastructure), collaboration (both within movements and
>> across) and decision making (better large group decision making

>> models) present opportunities...*/

>>
>> Hopefully we can remain focused on specific solutions to a
>> pressing challenge (and therefore opportunity) and we remember
>> that a strong belief in the power of technology (and therefore
>> the Internet) is the what is most common amongst those that are
>> attending Contact.
>>
>> Hence I will speak to the merit of developing specific technology
>> solutions...
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Tiberius Brastaviceanu
>> <tiberius.br...@gmail.com

>> <mailto:tiberius.br...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> *Curtis Faith*, this is the message I would like to take to Wall

>> Street during the weekend. I agree with Douglas, this meeting
>> must remain technical and focused if we want to achieve
>> something. But the Occupation camp is a space where a big vision
>> is being crafted.
>>
>> I propose to distill the Contact event, after it happens, into

>> *what is possible*, to can it and to bring that on Wall Street,

>> to let those people there digest it, and eventually they'll put
>> it into a vision of the future (they is also us...).
>>
>> I'll be in the park till Sunday. Who else is cumming?
>>
>>
>>
>>

>> -- *Suresh Fernando * BLOG <http://sureshf.posterous.com/>,
>> YOUTUBE <http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum>, OK
>> WEBSITE, <http://openkollab.com>OK FAN PAG
>> <http://www.facebook.com/aprilrinne#%21/openkollab>E
>> <http://goog_1610308617>,OK GROUP
>> <http://groups.google.ca/group/openkollab>, OK-WE
>> <http://www.wiserearth.org/group/openkollab>, PHILOSOPHY,
>> <http://sureshfernando.wordpress.com> TWITTER,
>> <http://twitter.com/sureshf> FACEBOOK,
>> <http://facebook.com/suresh.fernando>WOTW FAN PAGE
>> <http://www.facebook.com/tedxvancouver?v=wall#%21/pages/The-Way-Of-The-Warrior/156574347703364>
>>
>>
LINKEDIN
>> <http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=412718&authType=name&authToken=GrUl&locale=en_US&pvs=pp&trk=ppro_viewmore>,
>>
>>
SLIDESHARE <http://www.slideshare.net/sureshf>
>> / /-------*ProM: Climate Change Project Matching System------*

>> Project Description: http://cotw.cc/wiki/Project_Matching To

>> Join://https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/cc-pms
>> <https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#%21forum/cc-pms>/
>> /Workstreams: http://cotw.cc/wiki/CC-PMS_etherpad_index
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- t!b! <http://www.google.com/profiles/tiberius.brastaviceanu>
>> co-founder of SENSORICA <http://www.sensorica.co>, an open,

>> decentralized and self-organizing value network (an open
>> enterprise)
>>
>> founder of Multitude Project

>> <https://sites.google.com/site/multitude2008/>
>>
>> Google Profile
>> <https://plus.google.com/117593809719446924575/about> Facebook
>> Tiberius Brastaviceanu
>> <http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000279944184> Twitter
>> @TiberiusB <http://twitter.com/TiberiusB>
>>
>
>
>
> -- *Suresh Fernando * BLOG <http://sureshf.posterous.com/>,
> YOUTUBE <http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum>, OK
> WEBSITE, <http://openkollab.com>OK FAN PAG
> <http://www.facebook.com/aprilrinne#%21/openkollab>E
> <http://goog_1610308617>,OK GROUP
> <http://groups.google.ca/group/openkollab>, OK-WE
> <http://www.wiserearth.org/group/openkollab>, PHILOSOPHY,
> <http://sureshfernando.wordpress.com> TWITTER,
> <http://twitter.com/sureshf> FACEBOOK,
> <http://facebook.com/suresh.fernando>WOTW FAN PAGE
> <http://www.facebook.com/tedxvancouver?v=wall#%21/pages/The-Way-Of-The-Warrior/156574347703364>
>
>
LINKEDIN
> <http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=412718&authType=name&authToken=GrUl&locale=en_US&pvs=pp&trk=ppro_viewmore>,
>
>
SLIDESHARE <http://www.slideshare.net/sureshf>
> / /-------*ProM: Climate Change Project Matching System------*

> Project Description: http://cotw.cc/wiki/Project_Matching To

> Join://https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/cc-pms
> <https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#%21forum/cc-pms>/
> /Workstreams: http://cotw.cc/wiki/CC-PMS_etherpad_index
>

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[Paul Hughes]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:07 AM, Charles N Wyble
<cha...@knownelement.com> wrote:
> Fund the free network foundation. Without the network it all falls apart.

That's it. This is the most *important* thing we can do right now.
With a fully open, decentralized, p2p global network, it makes all the
other things we talk about possible.

-Paul

[Paul Hughes]

Immediate next steps in my opinion would be to create the basic core
technologies (software and hardware) for a global peer-to-peer,
device-to-device "mesh" network. The biggest limits seem to be the
range of existing devices. Laptops range are about 15 feet, and
routers about 300 feet. So is it possible to create a set of
technologies both for small hand-held devices, laptops, and routers
that extend this range to several miles? Can this technology be
created using totally open-source methods like the Arduino? Can this
long-range wireless technology switch frequencies (i.e. cognitive
radio), so that it frees up spectrum and eliminates interference? I
don't concrete answers to these questions. But to me, their answers
will be the single biggest thing we can do right now to create the
radically democratic, prosperous, post-scarcity and ecologically
friendly society we envision.

-Paul

[Paul Hughes]

Chris,

How do you propose this transtion will happen from private property to
commons in regard to land ownership? I surely hope you're advocating
taking by force?

I continue to come back to basic "big" ideas:

1) Full-blown global peer-to-peer network for all of our
communications - no centralization, means no centralized control
structures of any kind (ultimately). So no way to mass enforce any
particular rule sets, as it's just another form of tyranny, and it
becomes far less likely in a decentralized world.

2) Metacurrencies - where we have open-rules as a given. This way
people decide in a participatory way how to live, share, own or co-own
land. The net result of this over the long haul is probably a lot more
commons-sharing, as most people would want to participate in the
commons-sharing you describe, but at least it won't be "forced" on
people.

Your thoughts?

-Paul

[Douglas Rushkoff]

This is a great meeting to convene. At meeting people can outline what needs to be done. Then at last town hall in afternoon, vote for this project to get immediate support from Indiegogo and followup from group.

[Paul Hughes]

I meant to say, "not advocating taking by force".

[Paul Hughes]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 6:27 AM, CulturalEngineer
<cultural...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Another rather ancient neglected 'technology' in governance is the
> potentials inherent in 'sortition'... (Google it... Wikipedia has a
> good article. However this must be addressed via another type of
> software: law.

I think sortition is one the very best ways to run a "representative"
form of government, whether locally or globally. The problem with
representation is it no longer is needed in our information economy
where everyone can make decisions from the bottoms-up in a
peer-to-peer fashion. I'm not sure if there any current formulation of
governance that describes what's possible here - Openarchy?
Openacracy? The closest thing I can think of is panarchy. Where power
is completely decentralized, and networks of cooperation and
collaboration in a participatory fashion give rise to consensus,
bottoms-up type rule sets that promote the common good of all
participants.

-Paul

[Jon Lebkowsky]

I've been scrolling through this long thread, pleased to see this point. If we want the world to change, we have to change the way we think. We didn't really do that in the 60s; though we talked about it, it was just talk. We need more than conversation, we need a practice. (Buddhists and 4th Way practitioners get this).

Re the KISS prescription, I would note Bucky Fuller's emphasis on the "trim tab." Grabbed his explanation from Wikipedia:

"Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary—the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.

"It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.

"So I said, call me Trim Tab."

I think the concept of the trim tab is more relevant than a boil the ocean change the world discussion. What small forces can we generate that will have big effects?

~ Jon

--
Jon Lebkowsky (@jonl)

Polycot Associates: Advanced Internet Solutions Twitter | Facebook

Weblogsky.com: Smart Thinking About Culture, Media, and the Internet 

Jon at Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Wikipedia | EFF-Austin | Society for Participatory Medicine

[Paul B. Hartzog]

a lot of people generating small forces almost took the Millenium
bridge down and that was without intent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Bridge_%28London%29

what might we do if want to, and can coordinate?

-p

--
--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.PaulBHartzog.org
PaulBH...@PaulBHartzog.org
--------------------------------------------------------
The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
               ~ Muriel Rukeyser

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
               ~ William James

Perceive differently, then you will act differently.
               ~ Paul B. Hartzog
--------------------------------------------------------

[Douglas Rushkoff]

Beautiful, Jon. Asymetrical warfare. 

[Charles N Wyble]

On 10/19/2011 12:45 PM, Paul Hughes wrote:
> Immediate next steps in my opinion would be to create the basic core
> technologies (software and hardware) for a global peer-to-peer,
> device-to-device "mesh" network.

Already in progress. thefnf.org. It's being done. Right this second. All
across the USA. Soon globally.

> The biggest limits seem to be the
> range of existing devices. Laptops range are about 15 feet, and
> routers about 300 feet.

Typical consumer routers do 300 feet. Check out ubnt.com for the gear
being used by thefnf.org in our towers. The range is several miles.

> So is it possible to create a set of
> technologies both for small hand-held devices, laptops, and routers
> that extend this range to several miles? Can this technology be
> created using totally open-source methods like the Arduino?

olsr.org is ported to Android/iOs/Windows/Linux/Mac. That is what we are
targeting for the network. Right now we are in infrastructure mode, but
I've built multiple mesh networks and it works very well. We will be
rolling out mesh very soon.

> Can this
> long-range wireless technology switch frequencies (i.e. cognitive
> radio), so that it frees up spectrum and eliminates interference? I
> don't concrete answers to these questions. But to me, their answers
> will be the single biggest thing we can do right now to create the
> radically democratic, prosperous, post-scarcity and ecologically
> friendly society we envision.

Already being done. Cognitive is still a bit of a ways away in terms of
actual chip sets, software etc. It also has a number of significant
challenges for network operators and as such won't be very well adopted.

wispa.org open mailing list archives have more on the operational
implementation issues. cognitive radio sounds really nice in theory. I
know we won't be deploying it on thefnf.org network for quite some time.
However we are actively exploring TDMA implementations (all vendors are
using TDMA between radios. Ubnt, M, C, A, B all have TDMA solutions.)
This is the way the operations community is going. Open source
implementations exist , but most of the magic is in hardware (at least
on Ubnt gear). Such that open source software works just fine without
needing to know the proprietary details.

At last years ubnt conference the engineering group went into exhaustive
detail about the product internals. They did keep certain things
proprietary (as is expected) but were quite open about the workings. I
was quite impressed with the level of detail provided in answer to some
very expert operators questions.

That is all. Back to building the network now.

[CulturalEngineer]

Its early morning and I only have time for a quick note before getting
ready for event but feel this needs to be added:

Regarding what I understand is the OWS proposal to ban all private
political contribution:

I believe this, while well intended is a very, VERY dangerous
proposition and hope to have an opportunity to explore why this is so
with any interested. Briefly here...

I fear a total ban will do as much good as Prohibition and the Drug
Wars... it will fuel corruption in other ways... and drive it
underground. There's much more to be said on this...

Other campaign reforms have great potential and should be pursued....
but be very careful of jumping into blanket bans on citizen input.

The better solution is to make contribution easier... and/or a
possible requirement that all citizens have an equal capacity to
participate in "money speech"...

E.g. if public finance is advanced... the devil will be in the
details... but it could be very viable if administered directly to
citizens individually and equally via the system I've developed and
thus giving citizens themselves the opportunity and capability to self-
organize and direct it to candidates of THEIR choosing.

I'd add that such a system can drastically reduce campaign costs and
increase citizen participation... (that may take some 'splainin'...)

(A fault with traditional means of public finance is that before a
candidate can ever reach the stage of eligibility for its receipt, he/
she has had to form accommodations with the institutional powers
administering it. If any other contribution were to be banned...
corruption in this process... which will develop... will make
combating it almost impossible)

This is just a quick response so I hope to have the chance to expand
on this before mass stupidity sets in with hasty blanket
'solutions'....

Somebody has got to get this across to Dylan Ratigan... I love the guy
but he's wrong on this one!

[cjen...@googlemail.com]

Paul

No force is necessary.

Simply an offer that land owners - particularly distressed land owners
- cannot refuse, since the a financing and funding model which bases
credit directly on the use value of land wipes the floor with
conventional equity and debt financing and funding.

This UCL seminar I gave covered it.

http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/flight-to-simplicity

http://blip.tv/the-hexayurt-project/episode-5254175

I have a slightly different perspective to 'metacurrency'.

http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/economic-systems-thinking230710

For me, the starting point are the new generation of agreements/
protocols within which value is created, exchanged and shared.

Best Regards

Chris

On Oct 19, 6:55 pm, Paul Hughes <psi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> How do you propose this transtion will happen from private property to
> commons in regard to land ownership? I surely hope you're advocating
> taking by force?
>
> I continue to come back to basic "big" ideas:
>
> 1) Full-blown global peer-to-peer network for all of our
> communications - no centralization, means no centralized control
> structures of any kind (ultimately). So no way to mass enforce any
> particular rule sets, as it's just another form of tyranny, and it
> becomes far less likely in a decentralized world.
>
> 2) Metacurrencies - where we have open-rules as a given. This way
> people decide in a participatory way how to live, share, own or co-own
> land. The net result of this over the long haul is probably a lot more
> commons-sharing, as most people would want to participate in the
> commons-sharing you describe, but at least it won't be "forced" on
> people.
>
> Your thoughts?
>
> -Paul
>

[Curtis Faith]

Yes, I think integrating school with life/work is really a much more natural way to go. Better in almost every way.

That's one of the things that I think of when I think of "redesigning the world."

- Curtis

On Oct 19, 2011, at 8:32 AM, monika hardy wrote:

[Patrick Anderson]

Chris Cook wrote:
> Simply an offer that land owners - particularly distressed land owners
> - cannot refuse, since the a financing and funding model which bases
> credit directly on the use value of land wipes the floor with
> conventional equity and debt financing and funding.

Yes, many people who are upset have a little bit of money
(say less that $1,000), that, when combined with so many
others, could be sufficient to buy a small farm.

Those people could then be housed there (tents initially),
and could provide their labor "for free" in return for having
their basic needs (only food at first).

There would be no need to pass tokens (except during the
initial purchase) if the commitments to work can be secured
before production begins (predictive barter).

[Ale Fernandez]

That's exactly what is happening at the post industrial eco colony of Ca
la Fou close to Barcelona. They are planning a hackspace and small scale
eco-brewery, as well as to work on some Open Source Ecology tools, and
to use this abandoned ex live-in textile factory as a sustainable
factory for light industry, as well as farming the area around it. And
although some residences are slowly being cleared up and fixed for
people to live in, people are also in tents there for now. The land was
bought collectively, via the Cooperativa Integral Catalana(CIC), which
means residents can choose wether to pay rent, buy a living space, or
just go for periods and work there. Their plan is to network with the
local area and with alternative industries in this area. You can already
go and do work days or work weeks there, be fed and have a place to
sleep in return. I hope to help out with the hackerspace and with the
recently refurbished ovens, for making some bread :)

The 15-m movement has helped a lot with this, as work on the building
started at the same time as our occupied square, so the CIC held
meetings there, and had a stall too, as well a helping build the
permaculture garden there. So now, there is a local assembly in a nearby
village that they are in touch with, lots of catalan assemblies are
holding a large meeting there in a couple of weeks, and many eco/urban
garden commissions from other assemblies have visited and they have a
lot of links with local alternative groups and trade with them. Their
bar and cafeteria accepts Ecos - our local barcelona alternative
currency, and they plan to go towards pure alternative and barter trade,
as soon as possible.

http://ecolonia.cooperativaintegral.cat/?p=1&lang=en

Ale

[Charles N Wyble]

User owned network is key. We would love to get your innovation on freedom net. At the moment its an intranet between occupy encampments. Soon it will become a general access network.

Let me know how thefnf.org can be of service. We would love to support an alternative currency system in a secure manner.

CulturalEngineer <cultural...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Charles N Wyble @charlesnw cha...@knownelement.com

Building a cost effective, open, secure bit moving platform for tomorrows default free zone.

[Fabio Barone]

Ale, this sounds like a fantastic eco-systems of projects!

I will try to follow it :)

Thanks for letting us now.

2011/10/20 Ale Fernandez <sko...@gmail.com>