The Gathering

[Nathan Cravens]

was: The notion of a gift economy

http://groups.google.com/group/postscarcity/browse_thread/thread/1a0ecba8bc044b22

Hi Doug,

I read your book. Thanks for writing it. Its a very important work. It makes the history of corporations and money, and other various tools of alienation grossly apparent, if not already, and interesting enough for the only people we can expect to want alternatives, the over-working class, a group that is mostly everyone in the Industrial world. In the book you conclude with going local, but also commercial. A price on anything renders an item scarce whether it is or not. This likens to a diminished form of corporatism, the seed if you like. If you agree with that view, this means you have grounds to write another book called post-scarcity. ;)

Hackerspaces are rapidly forming. The folks gathering in these spaces champion personal fabrication and discourage purchasing. That's a vital step in post-scarcity thinking in my view. Its in the various activities of the hackerspaces I've seen the most promising face-to-face synergy toward abundance in all areas that matter, even if they are abundantly silly. I see a tremendous amount of potential in this area. See: hackerspaces.org

Have you read Lewis Hyde's 'Gift'? This is a good place to begin studying pre-agrarian economics and gift economies generally, if you've not begun this path already. It describes elegantly throughout the differences between gift economies and exchange value economies. In short, gift economies encourage personal bonds, enrich the commons (a place of abundance), collaboration, and continued gift giving; while exchange value economies enclose the commons, isolating resources, reinforcing competition and individualism. I'm having a careful read of 'Gift' and will post to this list and others a wiki of highlights with some reflections.

So Doug, you've done a fine job at elaborating the pitfalls of exchange value systems, but leave wanting that gift economy alternative. We have some work to do here!

I like the idea of a barcamp. We can contact hackerspaces that throw events and plan a gathering on concepts in post-scarcity, invite the folk creating autonomous (off-grid) infrastructures like energy, communications, agriculture, ect, and see about coming to some kind of consensus on a collaberative design interface to observe and design these local structures, globally from our modest laptops; and finally (unless you have more to add ;) the political economies needed for capital conversion into public domain, from land use to product design where appropriate.

We can begin the talk by asking, "What is abundance?" I'd love to have a discussion/debate on "the path to post-scarcity" in particular. See: http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Events

You guys up for Burningman? Or is that too commercial for us? ;p How about a nice chat over coffee? I like my coffee, free...

We can coordinate from here:
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Abundance_Meetup_Planner

This document, in outline form presently, can provide grounds for a post-scarcity roadmap:

Open Systems Design for Peer Producing Anything
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Open_Systems_Design_for_Peer_Producing_Anything


Nathan

[Douglas Rushkoff]

My problem with going through Burning Man is that it's just as mired in the crusty aspects of New Age as most of the Reality Sandwich crowd I've spoken with so far. 

I love what the Evolver.net people are doing, don't get me wrong; I just see the "flavor" of that cultural thread as being so specific and strong that it turns off so very many other potential participants, and it colors post-scarcity and sustainability in psychedelia and apocalyptic thinking. 

A barcamp sounds smart. I think we could even get the founder of barcamps, http://barcamp.org/TaraHunt , to come or organize as she is quite interested in all this. 

I spoke at the Personal Democracy Forum this week, and there was also tremendous interest in followup. I've got dozens of hackers willing to start a non-local, local currency with me - as far up the ladder as Philip Rosedale of Second Life, who has a lot of experience with experimental currency. 

And I'm not really in a position to organize all this. I'm just a writer. But maybe it's a calling and I should go for it. My real work wasn't about currency (it was just one example of what went wrong and how to make it right).  I'm more qualified and interested in cultural narrative, the way that certain narrative structures are biased towards certain ways of interacting, and our reluctance to see ourselves as participants in the creation and sustenance of these narratives. 

Now that I've written my book, I (of course) want to sell a bunch and feed my family. But I also want to push these ideas through to culture at large, and have good experience getting my ideas out there (even if I don't end up associated with them) - such as viral media, digital natives, social currency...

[Joseph Jackson]

This sounds good but what is our timetable? I agree that Burning Man
is not a good venue to do this, too much chaos and nobody would be
coherent enough to produce much, or even if creative juices were
flowing in a drug fueled frenzy, probably nobody would remember it so
we'd need to video it all, lol!

I'm juggling multiple projects at the moment or I would jump in here
and try to organize it. I know there are several events coming up;
almost everything is on the West Coast/Bay Area which can be annoying
but how does that suit people? Eg, October 28-31 there is TED:MED
happening in San Diego and piggybacking on top of that is BIL, the
free unconference version. Then I have the "inside" heads up notice
that the H+ summit is something like Dec 6 out in Irvine CA.

Foresight will probably have its annual event in Nov again; last year
they merged in with the other futurist groups for "Convergence." We
can try to run a barcamp around one of these dates when like-minded
people will be in the area.

The currency issue is something I'm tremendously interested in but I
can't delve into that movement at the moment. One off the wall idea I
had was to organize a global Religion + Money Summit for 2012 or
whenever we can put it together (2012 is my earliest estimate). I
have been reading extensively about the history of money as debt
during the past 6 months. I think it could be possible to engineer a
public relations coup to finally break the "Money Trance" if we could
ride such a powerful meme as religion. Here's how it would work. We
get Rick Warren (the heir apparent to the evangelist tradition of
Billy Graham, etc), the Dali Lama, the Pope, whoever is equivalent for
Islam... Judiasm, Mormonism, Quakers.... every sect we can find.
Then bring in the alt currency crusaders, Thomas Greco, Bernard
Leitar... all the activists. We play the big 3 religions off of one
another. Islamic banking can be held up as a model; then of course
the Christians won't want to be outdone. We work especially to
highlight the Distributist movement in Catholicism--see GK Chesterton,
Hilaire Belloc..... they pretty much said everything we're talking
about already. There is a very interesting argument in the book
Web of Debt, that the Jews have historically been used as convenient
scapegoats for the invisible money power. So of course there is a lot
to tap into on that side of things.

We generate educational material excerpting relevant lessons from
scripture alongside modern day local currency projects. Then we can
distribute via churches.... worldwide. Probably we commission a book
compendium in conjunction with the Summit; try to get this featured on
Opra, everywhere..... etc.

If we time this right, it could be a real breakthrough. I personally
think we could be in a global depression by 2012-2014. Looking at
history, it was only 100 yrs ago that currency formed the basis of an
entire political platform--remember William Jennings Bryan and the
populists, Silver party, Greenbacks party, etc. A true currency
crisis in the US could blow the door wide open.

Right now this is a fantasy, but the key is reaching somebody like Rev
Warren and with only a few degrees of separation between anyone on the
planet, I feel such an event could be set by 2012 if we start soon.

[Nathan Cravens]

Doug writes:

A barcamp sounds smart. I think we could even get the founder of barcamps, http://barcamp.org/TaraHunt , to come or organize as she is quite interested in all this.

Great! Give Tara a ring and see if, when and where, she'd like to set something up.

My problem with going through Burning Man is that it's just as mired in the crusty aspects of New Age as most of the Reality Sandwich crowd I've spoken with so far.

Lots of beautiful artwork and drugs come of this despair... I do see the main event as rather paradoxical. Everyone is gathered around a broadcast medium, THE MAN, to destroy that medium itself. As rebellious as that may seem to the attendees, they are still participating in the praise of a single object in mass!

Joe writes:

 I agree that Burning Man
is not a good venue to do this, too much chaos and nobody would be
coherent enough to produce much, or even if creative juices were
flowing in a drug fueled frenzy, probably nobody would remember it so
we'd need to video it all, lol!

ROFL ;P Its best we have several people video record the event just in case a few plunge into one random entertainment or another. I can easily imagine a tragedy of the commons scenario here where nothing gets recorded because everyone thinks someone else is recording.

Doug writes:

I'm more qualified and interested in cultural narrative, the way that certain narrative structures are biased towards certain ways of interacting, and our reluctance to see ourselves as participants in the creation and sustenance of these narratives.

That sounds lovely. I too am a misfit. See, that used fewer words.

Money inhibits our ability to modify our own narratives. Local currency, even barter, may diminish alienation and exploitation, but it will still remain a compromising way of managing resources. Local currency can rebuild local material autonomies in the short term, yet, web integrated AI/robotics will soon replace labor to the extent local currency will become impractical as even those in the community are unable to work to "earn" a living. Surely you do not see local currency as a permanent solution? 

Here's one way this community can view material relations centered around a market, like a spectrum, as a compromise between gift and theft:

<<< Gift | The Market Compromise | Theft >>>
Barter Local Global  

Cynicism is rampant today in our Industrial societies because the market compromise leans further toward the theft side of the spectrum, reducing our ability to live as we wish and discouraging personal relationships further within that highly competitive system. When things get bad enough, we must resort to alternatives, as we're seeing. Local currency and barter lean closer to the gift side of the spectrum, but the taste of theft remains. A gift in most cases is not without obligation. We might consider this type of gift trending closer to the market compromise. A gift given without return reciprocation we might consider a true gift. Our social infrastructures presently do not encourage true gifts or open materials.

Present technologies make gift economies using principles of open source and public domain are more efficient than market economies. We just need ways to manage these resources for the scarcity minded. Our kids will wonder why we're so obsessed with fabricating Ferraris out our garage (equivalent) as, I hope, they create more meaningful artifacts in response to our cultural market-compromise hangover.

Joe wrote:

Right now this is a fantasy, but the key is reaching somebody like Rev
Warren and with only a few degrees of separation between anyone on the
planet, I feel such an event could be set by 2012 if we start soon.

That would be a bunch of silliness to end an era of religious backed economism. It would be fun to throw in self proclaimed atheists into the mix as well, like Joel Grus and Russell Blackford.

This is a fantastic presentation by Joel just loaded with hard data my hightened positivist mind can appreciate: http://bilconference.com/videos/your-religion-is-false-joel-grus/


Nathan

[Joseph Jackson]

Yes I think the atheists would need to be represented at this event
also, in the interest of fairness. I don't know how long money
rationing will persist. It really depends on what you think the time
frame is to a Singularity. I've adjusted my estimates upwards in the
past few years. I think we've got to be prepared for a bit of a
longer haul and not fall into the trap that so many utopian groups and
forecasters have before.

The switch to local currency could be a very important evolutionary
step in the transition to post monetary modes of interaction.