:Title: The Story of How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:46:23 PST :URL: http://www.ned.com/group/community-general/news/175/ This is an invitation to help me tell the story of how humans came to live in peace and plenty. It starts with one community figuring out how to obtain all that they needed to thrive while healing their local environment. What does it mean to "thrive" as a community? Can we merge human and natural systems so that we live in healthy ecosystems rather than preserve them elsewhere? Can we recreate the garden of eden? There are parameters to the story. It is about discovering what is missing in the "typical" community - what do we need so that people here can live a decent life? How do we make more places for more people to fit in? We can only supply what is missing by employing members of the community to realize unused human and biological potential that already exist in the community. In the story everyone gets to make their own choices. The future is the cumulative result of all the choices each of us make - but we each choose based on what is best for us and our families. We cannot force what we think are better choices for the community - we can only create options that work better for the members of the community - otherwise they will not choose them. In the story there is no one else to blame. Our community is the result of our choices and only we can choose to make it different. And the story goes on with another community around the world hearing about what that first community did - and they improved how it was done. How to we make this a story with more and more people helping to write it? And then more communities heard about it and tried their own methods - until everyone in the world had the opportunity to contribute value to the system and lived in a healthy diverse environment. That is the story of How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty. The beginning of the story is at `Understanding System Function`_. I hope you will find it interesting. .. _`Understanding System Function`: http://www.aboutus.org/USF_Understanding ---- **Comments** :Author: Christina Jordan :Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:58:43 PST I went to Thailand and saw the Asoke communities that our friend Linda had tried to tell me about. One of the most interesting philosophies I viewed in practice there was that earning personal (spiritual) merit by doing good things in the community and in the world is more valuable to each individual than earning profit. After all, it's the personal merit we earn - the good spirit in which we lived and how we are remembered by others - that lingers in the community (and possibly stays with us) after we are physically gone. When we limit our personal motives to earning profit, we leave too much out of the equation that can lead to happiness in life. I don't think this means that profit needs to be completely driven out of the equation, but we need to readjust our perceptions of what we need, what is enough, and what is too much. In Thailand, Linda also shared a video with me that another of our friends, Gayle had posted somewhere here but that I'd not been able to see on my Ugandan bandwidth. http://www.storyofstuff.com/ really drives it all home for me, in terms of rethinking our world and our individual roles in it. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:07:22 PST In the `Open Money discussion`_ a commenter brought up the communities advocated by Vladimir Megre. .. _`Open Money discussion`: http://openmoney.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1180168%3ATopic%3A5965 I am not familiar with Megre's work but these are intentional communities experimenting with different ways to share value. I particularly like the Asoke model because it demonstrates that we can produce abundance. Every community on earth is looking for ways to start an upward spiral in their community whether they call it that or not. Every community has unused human potential and unused biological potential. We call those poverty and environmental degradation and treat them as a problem instead of an asset. When something is abundant, like labor in Africa, it has no market value. Does that mean that people who are surplus to the market have no gift – in terms of the story? Of course not, it means that we cannot value that gift in market money. What is it that we would like to be abundant? Food, clothing, shelter, education and health care. If those things are abundant do they then have no value? Of course not, but we will need a different way to measure contributions to the production of that abundance. And if one community – some where – can figure that out, then other communities can start working on their own version – and humans will be writing the story of how we came to live in peace and plenty. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:02:34 PST In the `Global Mind Shift discussion`_, a commenter asked: .. _`Global Mind Shift discussion`: http://www.global-mindshift.org/converse/conversation_details.asp?convInstID=256 I totally like the idea of the story, but I don't quite get what this conversation is trying to do. Is this a place to respond to and build on the ideas in the story? Is it a place to continue building a story like the one you have written so far? Is it a place to build a story with characters and plot that explores some of the concepts that you are trying to get at? I think we could approach it from any of the three directions you suggest. I am certain that there are better story tellers than I am. I have been thinking about the world as a pattern of flows for some 25 years and I need readers to question the way I describe those patterns so as to reach a common language about them. I am thinking about another of couple of chapters along the lines of what is already there - about limitations of the market - and another on the fact that no one else is going to do it for us. More importantly, I am looking for a way that people begin to act on our power to create a future of peace and plenty. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:13:30 PST :Modified: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:14:51 PST A commenter in the `Open Money discussion`_ said: .. _`Open Money discussion`: http://openmoney.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1180168%3ATopic%3A5965 We have the problem and a vision of the antidote. Now we need some experimental verification... Yes, we can design solutions here in cyberspace - but implementation will be groups of people agreeing to participate locally. I'm hoping we can spread the story far enough that people who are already doing the local organizing become involved - and maybe we can set up a competition of sorts to be the first to solve the problem. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:34:49 PST In the `Open Money Discussion`_ a commenter said: .. _`Open Money Discussion`: [http://openmoney.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1180168%3ATopic%3A5965] "I read part of the 'Understanding System function' and enjoy the simplicity on how it is presented. The short pieces of dialogue are very easy read and easy to understand. I loved the part of the gift and the bridges." and gave me some pointers on making a good story. I responded: I also hope that you and others will feel free to suggest or make changes - or republish the story in your own words. It is my hope that this story is told and retold until it becomes Our story. I think it would be a good idea to give the teacher and the student names - preferably names that evoke a tradition of inclusiveness or community pulling together for mutual benefit. I added some notes for what I think goes into chapters 5 and 6. I see chapter 7 as: And so the student went forth into her community, armed with the knowledge of how the system functions, in search of wisdom . . . ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:42:44 PST A commenter in the `Global Mind Shift discussion`_ said: .. _`Global Mind Shift discussion`: [http://www.global-mindshift.org/converse/conversation_details.asp?convInstID=256] I feel that I disagree with you to the extent that you try and incorporate the conventional monetary economy into a vision of the future. I feel that it is too destructive, on the planet and on people. It dehumanizes trade, making it anonymous, removing soul or responsibility to another person - as something becomes more anonymous it becomes more dangerous." and my initial response was: Yes, I understand the sentiment - but focusing on what is bad about the way money works only increases the resistance to change from the majority in the world who see only the objects of their desire and believe that money is the only way to obtain what they desire. but after thinking about that I wrote: I have been thinking about my last response - and find that I have adjusted it in the way that I often do because I know that my correspondent does not know the whole story . Since you do know the `whole story`_ - I should have responded in its terms: .. _`whole story`: http://www.aboutus.org/USF_Understanding All that we know is a set of bridges over which we exchange gifts. It does no good to try to decide what bridges are good and what bridges are bad - each bridge exists because of the choice of the parties to the exchange and every one gets to make their own choices. So, there is no good or bad - only choices and consequences. One of the benefits of the financial system has to do with the availability of all those source materials - allowing us many more options in how we choose to share our gift. Without the existence of financial resources we would be severely restricted in the type of living resources we could create for our communities. It is not necessary to end the financial system to build better communities. Each of us maintains lots of bridges to businesses - as owners, employees and customers - to our religious organizations - to our countries - to our clubs and social organizations - it will be no big deal to extend a few more bridges to our neighbors. Perhaps some of the old bridges will fall away - but remember, there is more in the world with each new bridge we create and there is less in the world with each bridge that is lost. See `Systems to Complement the Market`_ . .. _`Systems to Complement the Market`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Systems_to_Complement_the_Market ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:51:16 PDT In another discussion the following issues were raised and addressed: *I read David's dialectic on bridges and the value of labor. It very much reminds me of bartering.* by using the words dialectic and bartering you categorize what I am saying into that which you already know. I am not offended by that - but the reason that I used the name Self-help corporation is to try to get people to think outside the box. The purpose of an SHC is not an alternative currency supplement to the existing market economy - which is designed to maximize the efficiency of financial resources. It is a different kind of organization designed to maximize the utilization of labor - and as such, it has the capacity to produce an abundance of basic goods and services - and anyone in the community could earn a share of that abundance - and still hold a job in the market economy. That is converting financial resources back into living resources - in an organization owned by all those in the community that contribute to the organization. *The sticky part in all of this is power. Even now there is a tension between proponents of different organizational or economic models. Resolving this tension is a very important and challenging task. Where does the buck stop on a global level?* This type of community organization can bring the power of choice back to the community level. Humans will still need a mechanism to make choices on a planetary level - but, if every community were self-sufficient in food, clothing, shelter, education and health care, there are fewer choices that need to be made at that level and more choices that will be made at the community level. At the community level, I would think that we would want to use the best information -> knowledge -> wisdom available. I do not like consensus models or extreme democracy for the reason that it produces decisions from the lowest common knowledge - and because most people cannot be troubled to educate themselves about the issues involved in a decision. For that reason, I like the corporate model, in which the community - based on the number of shares that they own - elects a board of directors - to oversee the best talent that can be found - to oversee the operation for the purpose of: **The more favors you give and receive, the more you get to know your neighbors and the higher your quality of life. We only need a way to keeps track of those favors, creating an incentive to do more of them, and accumulate tools and assets to make those favors easy to perform (convert financial resources into living resources).** ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:53:55 PDT *“. . . I must totally and completely reject your case against "consensus models or extreme democracy". These things, to me, are vital to have a vibrant community that is responsible and moral.”* *“I can see the point to your argument, David, but the truth is no matter how clear these ideas and concepts are to you and a handful of other thinkers, they will remain marginalized until they can be expressed in even plainer, simpler language. Could you sum up your whole idea in twenty eight ordinary words or less?”* 28 ordinary words or less . . . perhaps the key to this controversy is in a different way of looking at the forces at work in the world. We already have extreme democracy in the sense that all political and economic power already resides in the individual. The most powerful organizations in the world only exist because people choose to interact with them . . . and I am already past 30 . . . See `Business as Bridges`_ .. _`Business as Bridges`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Business_as_Bridges but the solution is not to take power away from someone else and the problem is not that someone else has power . . . the solution is to give less power away and exercise more power for ourselves . . . and that includes being smart about how we organize ourselves . . . have you ever been to a Homeowners Association Meeting? . . . why do I care who they hire to mow the lawn? . . . and can the lawn wait to be mowed until we reach consensus . . . all I need is the power to vote the board members off if they do something wrong . . . ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:56:58 PDT *“David, what exactly do you mean by "what holds us back is the belief that someone else is responsible"?”* *“How can we view poverty and environmental degradation as assets?”* This is the part of the story where we are all richer if each of us can express our gift and we are all poorer when any of us cannot express our gift . . . The market cannot produce an abundance of basic goods and services because - as a thing becomes abundant - its market price drops below the cost of production . . . But if you and I join forces to produce an abundance of something, we can do that without regard to the market price. The right to use something that is abundant has "value" independent of the market price . . . The unused human potential and the unused biological potential of any given locality - if organized in a way that entitled contributors to a share of what was produced - could produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and preventive health care . . . and the right to partake of abundance would have value independent of the market price of the goods and services produced. See `Economics of Integrated Production`_. .. _`Economics of Integrated Production`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Economics_of_Integrated_Production The part about unused biological potential has to do with this part of the story: **What would happen if agriculture was something we did where we lived involving many creatures - and those who do not fit elsewhere – instead of monocultures done somewhere else. What if we honored the gift of the smallest of creatures and treated ecosystems as something that is a part of us – instead of something to be preserved someplace else? What did you learn about upward spirals? Do we have any idea how productive we could be if we added bridges for all the poor people and all the creatures?** ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:58:10 PDT *“Okay, David. I know you're trying hard to answer my short question, but I still don't get it. Please give it another stab and force yourself to say it with a maximum of fifty words. If you are passionate about your position, you will accomplish this Olympian feat.”* Try looking at it this way: Think of any group of people as a family. As a family, we can go out to eat, or we can have a member of the family cook dinner for us, we can hire the house cleaned, or we can have a family member clean the house, we can send the kids to day care, or we can have a family member watch and educate the kids, we can buy all of our own food at the market, or we can have a family member grow some of our own food. The value of those services to the family is independent of the money cost for those services - and independent of the market value of the family member performing the services. If any of us can always provide that kind of value there is no reason that anyone should be without that kind of value - or without something to do so long as someone else is in need of that kind of value. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:29:52 PDT In the Global Mind Shift discussion, it was suggested that a different approach might work better, and a group there is helping me with this version: Imagine living a good life where you are actively involved with your neighbors and you all live in prosperous harmony. You all have comfortable houses, plenty to eat, ample leisure time, and the air and water are fresh and clean. There is very little strife in the world and the top stories in the media are about great achievements, inventions, and key social projects. All of this can become real by deploying integrated production systems, producing an abundance of basic goods and services, and providing a place to fit for anyone in the community that wants to participate. Our communities would still trade in the global marketplace but we would have an option to work at a slower pace while we are going to school, or retraining after a downsizing, or while our children are too young for school, or after a disability, and for those who cannot or choose not to seek a career in business or government. There would be a flowering of human creativity and certainly less stress in our lives. Integrated systems of production use assets to support as many different processes as possible. The different processes are arranged so that the production of one process becomes the feed stock of the next process – creating internal production and consumption cycles. In the case of food production this means including as many different species as possible. It is difficult to make a monetary profit from integrated systems to produce basic goods and services because, as they become productive, the market value of the production is reduced. As a community owned production system, the system can be tuned to produce goods and services sufficient to meet the needs of the community, and members of the community can earn a share of production, creating the incentive to contribute. examples: `Grass Powered Greenhouse`_ .. _`Grass Powered Greenhouse`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Grass_Powered_Greenhouse `The Upward Spiral`_ .. _`The Upward Spiral`: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-frWkYg2-Ew] `Bill Mollison`_ .. _`Bill Mollison`: [http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-6370279933612522952&hl=en] `Greening the Desert`_ .. _`Greening the Desert`: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk] `Michael Pollan`_ .. _`Michael Pollan`: [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/214] ---- :Author: Perry Gruber :Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:55:50 PDT Christina Jordan said: I went to Thailand and saw the Asoke communities that our friend Linda had tried to tell me about. One of the most interesting philosophies I viewed in practice there was that earning personal (spiritual) merit by doing good things in the community and in the world is more valuable to each individual than earning profit. After all, it's the personal merit we earn - the good spirit in which we lived and how we are remembered by others - that lingers in the community (and possibly stays with us) after we are physically gone. When we limit our personal motives to earning profit, we leave too much out of the equation that can lead to happiness in life. I don't think this means that profit needs to be completely driven out of the equation, but we need to readjust our perceptions of what we need, what is enough, and what is too much. In Thailand, Linda also shared a video with me that another of our friends, Gayle had posted somewhere here but that I'd not been able to see on my Ugandan bandwidth. http://www.storyofstuff.com/ really drives it all home for me, in terms of rethinking our world and our individual roles in it. I may appear to be a zealot when I say this, and please not that the opinions herein are mine alone and do noe reflect official Intel opinions..... I think the path to humans living in peace is heavily dependent on personal merit. There already are examples of this in the technology world: wikipedia is a perfect example of people contributing to the common welfare of humanity with no compensation other than the acknowledgement of sharing their knowledge. Open source software is another example. Where I disagree with you Christina (and humbly so) is that I believe the profit motive DOES need to go away in order for humanity to get to a "garden of Eden." I'm currently writing a work of fiction that details a possible scenario for how this can happen. For years I've been thinking about the economic models modern societies (especially the US society) have supported. In most cases, the ideas of economic scarcity and that people are fundamentally motivated by personal gain are fallacies the educated elite have accepted as truths. The question is how do we get to a point where society is operating free of these heretofore convenient (for who?) truths? I strongly believe we can get to a place where there is no need for currency-based transactions. Technology has a real chance of ushering in such a reality. I can support this assertion, but it would take a lot of words to do so. But it will take bold, brave moves to break through the inertia behind thoughts and beliefs that support the profit motive and other long-held economic theories that are turning out to be bankrupt. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:48:08 PDT I am going to try to walk a tight rope here between Christina and Perry. I think the key here is MOTIVE. Profit is not an evil word but when it becomes the primary MOTIVE and drive for our actions it starts to rot. Profit needs to be seen as an intermediate goal. I have no real desire to become an organic farmer. I do however enjoy the products. So, if I want them, I need to have cash to trade for the products. My particular gift (I think) is teaching. The only way I can do that and get my organic produce is to teach and make a profit that I can then turn around and use for my produce. This generates a profit for the organic farmer who can then use his profit to either give away to the community (as in the case of the Asoke communities) or to purchase things that they can not make themselves (also like the Asoke communities.) In my little scenario, there is no situation that makes profit the driving end goal. No need to maximize profit. It is an intermediate goal that allows me to earn a fair profit and convert it into things I can not (or choose not to) make myself. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:48:22 PDT I am going to try to walk a tight rope here between Christina and Perry. I think the key here is MOTIVE. Profit is not an evil word but when it becomes the primary MOTIVE and drive for our actions it starts to rot. Profit needs to be seen as an intermediate goal. I have no real desire to become an organic farmer. I do however enjoy the products. So, if I want them, I need to have cash to trade for the products. My particular gift (I think) is teaching. The only way I can do that and get my organic produce is to teach and make a profit that I can then turn around and use for my produce. This generates a profit for the organic farmer who can then use his profit to either give away to the community (as in the case of the Asoke communities) or to purchase things that I can not make myself (also like the Asoke communities.) In my little scenario, there is no situation that makes profit the driving end goal. No need to maximize profit. It is an intermediate goal that allows me to earn a fair profit and convert it into things I can not (or choose not to) make myself. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:27:12 PDT Perry and Linda, Thank you for contributing. When I talk about: As a community owned production system, the system can be tuned to produce goods and services sufficient to meet the needs of the community, and members of the community can earn a share of production, creating the incentive to contribute. it is a reversal of, and complement to the capitalist model. In this design, labor is treated as the contribution that creates ownership - that ownership is represented by shares - and the shares can be traded for things the system produces. So Linda, you would earn shares by teaching - and trade the shares for organic produce - and you and the farmer both own the facilities used for teaching and growing organic produce. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:17:15 PDT I would add to the story: *This is not impractical or a communist plot. In the same way that the stock market allows you to invest your money in publicly traded companies, a community investment enterprise allows you to invest your time in the wellbeing of yourself, your family, your community and the local environment.* But this next part is tricky. Most of us have to specialize in order to be marketable. That means we have in depth knowledge of a tiny fraction of human knowledge. For the rest of our understanding of the world we rely on something like a “common knowledge” that we pick up as sort of a faith from the people around us. These beliefs about the world can be hard to challenge because they are not based on an independent analysis of the information. There two such beliefs that I would specifically like to challenge in order to free us up to deploy these systems. The first one has to do with big government or big business being responsible. The people who make up big business and big government are just like you and me – and they are doing the best they can in the circumstances in which they find themselves. From `essential unity`_: .. _`essential unity`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_essential_unity *There is not a corporate conspiracy to oppress the poor and destroy nature. Rather, in the market, that which cannot be exploited for a profit and those who do not have "marketable skills" simply have no use. Those things are in danger of losing (or have lost) their connections/relationships/bridges to "the system".* If we believe that government or business is responsible it relieves us of our responsibility for our choices. See: `A Future Conducive to Human Life`_ .. _`A Future Conducive to Human Life`: http://www.aboutus.org/A_Future_Conducive_to_Human_Life The other is the belief that resources are scarce and that human beings will have to live a diminished life style or perish. That belief prevents us for looking at all the ways we can change how we interact with nature that I would consider enhancement of our life style. And in fact those resources needed for humans to thrive on this planet are `not scarce`_. .. _`not scarce`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Resources_are_not_Scarce Any ideas on how I might address those issues – or should I? And the response form the Global Mind Shift discussion: I think we are all ignorant of our complicity in what amounts to a conspiracy, and should make it our work to dissect each of our choices in search of laziness or casual abandonment of responsibility. also - speaking of skills and even people as "marketable" treads across the line toward human commodification... it makes my skin crawl. *We need not think in terms of what is wrong with the existing system. We can think in terms of what additional connection/relationships/bridges are needed to create an increasingly inclusive economy and an increasingly healthy ecosystem.* what's wrong with pointing out a system's flaws and calling them what they are? we can probably get where we want to go easier if we're not carrying around bags full of stuff that we won't be using when we get there. In a way the global community movement (I'm not actually sure what to call it) is to corporate capitalism what the protestant movement was to the Roman Catholic church: e.g. "We shouldn't have to go through the Man to find fulfillment!" And I responded: These are two very excellent points that illustrate precisely what I am trying to say. In the current state of the world a person has to have marketable skills to "fit" in the system. Hence I wrote this in the original version of the story: *If something is abundant, like labor in a town where the local factory work was outsourced, it has no "market value". Does that mean that people without marketable skills have no gift? Of course not. It only means that we cannot value that gift in "market money". What is it that we want to be abundant? Food, clothing, shelter, education and health care. If those things were abundant would they have no value? Of course not, but we would need a different way to measure contributions to that abundance. Is it possible that people without marketable skills could use their gift to produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care?* The point about believing that the "corporations and their government lapdogs" are "responsible" for people needing to be marketable means that people go out protesting at WTO meetings and don't stay home building community investment enterprises. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:30:01 PDT :Modified: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:31:32 PDT How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty – Version 3.0 There came a time in our community when we grew tired of arguing over who was right and who was wrong. Despite all the arguing there were still hungry people and the environment kept declining. What we needed was more places for people and creatures to fit. Then we came to realize that the market could not solve all our problems. The market is wonderful for what it does – a spur to innovation – producing better and better goods and services – more and more efficiently. But the market did not provide a place for everyone to fit. When there was more of us than the market needed we were laid off – the market did not value clean air and clean water and the diversity of ecosystems. Anything that is abundant has no value to the market. Then we came to realize. If people are abundant in the eyes of the market does that mean we have nothing to contribute? And if clean air and water and plants and animals, fish and fungi are abundant does that mean that they have nothing to contribute? What else would we like to be abundant? What if food, clothing, shelter, education and health care were abundant? Would they then have no value? Then we came to realize. If we cannot rely on the market for those things we want in abundance, we can create new ways of doing things for those things that do not fit in the market. We can design a way to recognize the value in people and creatures that the market does not value. We can find a way for those people and creatures to contribute their gifts to the flow of value and receive value in return. And we called out to government to help us find the way – and government said, “We are not elected to interfere with business.” And we called out to the captains of industry to help us find a way – and industry said, “Our only mission is to make a profit.” And we called out to the foundations and the universities that they support to help us find a way – and academia said, “We do science and education – we do not design the world”. And we came to realize that we would have to find the way ourselves. And so, our community came together – people from government – people from industry – people of charity and seekers of knowledge – we came together to discover what we could do to make our community a better place to live. And we found that we could produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care, by creating integrated systems of production. Those who did not fit in the market and those who wanted to work at a slower pace, and those who had retired from the market, began to contribute their skills in exchange for shares in the community investment enterprise. And the enterprise produced abundance by finding a place for many different creatures. And we became whole, our economy and our lives in balance, and we live together in peace and plenty. examples: A Community Investment Enterprise in a `US City`_ .. _`US City`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_in_a_US_city Economics of `Integrated Production`_ .. _`Integrated Production`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Economics_of_Integrated_Production Grass Powered Greenhouse_ .. _Greenhouse: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Grass_Powered_Greenhouse The `Upward Spiral`_ .. _`Upward Spiral`: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-frWkYg2-Ew `Bill Mollison`_ .. _`Bill Mollison`: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-6370279933612522952&hl=en `Greening the Desert`_ .. _`Greening the Desert`: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk `Michael Pollan`_ .. _`Michael Pollan`: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/214 ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:35:32 PDT I think that all of this is a re-visioning of Economics. I have had a problem with Gross National Happiness ever since I first heard of it. The problem is not with the original premise: that GNP does not measure the well-being of a society. The problem I had with it was that rather than tackle the problem head on and ask "What *does* measure the development of a community?", they took the stance that happiness is what we were really striving for. Economics likewise seems to have lost track of what we are striving for. Early statements by Aristotle would have you believe that we were looking for maximizing well-being where well-being included an ethical/moral factor. God knows a (pseudo) (Social) **SCIENCE** could not consider ethics or morals (they are like *subjective*) so we switched to utility and kind of somewhere along the line slipped into evaluating well-being by how much you consumed. ($) I think I can speak for most folks here in saying that we have figured out that $ is not all it is cut out to be and certainly doesn't measure well-being or even happiness. I just finished my 4th reading of `Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Marketplace`_ by Ven. Phra Payutto. There was a clarity that came to me this time. I am working on how to best tell that and am thinking the person to share it with is you, David. In anticipation of that, you might be interested in the original. I think it has help for you with your story too. In all aspects of my readings in Buddhism, the philosophy attempts to strike a balance between the individual, society and the environment. One of my problems with classic and neo-classical economics and with your presentations has always been the denial of scarcity. To deny scarcity in a bounded environment seems to me to be at best delaying realization of the reality of the situation. The limits may be far greater than I have reason to believe but, there is only one earth. I think the problem is in looking at always trying to maximize *the wrong thing*. Aren't we all really looking to maximize personal development? It's not clear to me that the maximization of personal development means the maximization of consumption. It means having enough: not too little, not too much - THE MIDDLE WAY. One phrase that I am meditating on for a last teaser - "And with the clarity of inner calm comes an insight into one of life's profound ironies: striving for happiness, we create suffering; understanding suffering, we find peace." .. _`Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Marketplace` : http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/9280/econ.htm ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:12:10 PDT Thank you for your comments Linda. I look forward to exploring Buddhist economics with you. I hear your point about scarcity. There are two aspects of that belief that, I think, hold us back, and that I challenge. One is what I was talking about above where "deep ecologists" take an anti-human stance. They advocate drastic reductions in the number of humans - humans prohibited from doing more and more things - and I don't think that approach is going to become a "popular" view. I find that confrontational, counterproductive, and inconsistent with what we know about all those things that we could produce in abundance (including food, clothing, shelter, education and health care). Further, when we start talking about "systems of production that cooperate with nature's processes" those look, to me, a lot like the garden of eden. The other one is what I was talking about in `Using a Better Map`_. So long as we believe that resources are scarce, we believe that life is about the struggle to get our share of those scarce resources. .. _`Using a Better Map`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Using_a_Better_Map In that respect I think I can characterize my view as "the middle way" and look forward to your thoughts. There is a third point that you raise that I am unsure of how to approach. That is the beliefs we hold about human nature and the future. There is the one view that we can never improve humans so then we can never have a better world and the opposite of that - which is a belief that we can have a better world as soon as we produce better humans. I think there is a middle way there as well. That has to do with building a set of institutions that give every child the advantages that my family gave me - and I think the research shows that middle class kids have many fewer problems than other kids. The concepts underlying Spiral Dynamics support the idea that we will produce better humans when we create a better world. I look forward to your thoughts on that as well. To me, limitations in both respects are best understood in terms of `complexity spirals`_. We are at this current level of complexity - and at this level there is only so much we can produce. I agree with the analysis of the ecologist that we are currently decreasing complexity - and reducing our capacity to produce that which we need for humans to thrive. But, if we add elements to the system to utilize what we now waste in human and biological potential, we increase complexity and our capacity to produce that which we need for humans to thrive. .. _`complexity spirals`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Complexity_spirals ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:12:04 PDT I would appreciate it if you would comment on the other side of this "scarcity" coin. If there is a limited amount of anything (and I think that we would agree that at the moment, there is a scarcity) There are two options 1) produce more 2) reduce consumption. There are also the myriad combinations of the two. In modern times, we have focused on the former - producing more - and in the process raised the concept of unlimited wants and desires to a sacred position. The thought of suggesting that people do with less is not even considered and when it is proposed is attacked. I think (remember, this is my opinion) that the point we are missing is that often times (usually) more of things (food, clothing, medicine, shelter, just to look at the 4 basic necessities) is detrimental. Food, beyond the amount that is sufficient to sustain us, leads to obesity, disease and actual deterioration of the body. Clothing when it is treated as something more than protection for the body becomes a drain on financial resources, a battleground of competition, and a waste of time (in obtaining it and maintaining it). Medicine almost deserves a book of its own. We have all seen the abuse of medicines. Medicine in the West and particularly in the US has developed into an altar of illness rather than a source of wellness. People are encouraged to spend money, resources and time making themselves into something they are not so that they can fit the model of the day. People want to be trim and healthy looking but rather than get that naturally, they fall into a battle between satisfying the pleasure of eating all of that food that is not good for them and looking like the model on the front of the magazine and we develop new diseases of anorexia and bulimia. Plastic surgery. Extending life at all costs regardless of the quality. Then there is shelter. Huge homes to house ever smaller families. The expenses wasted. The time that is consumed in making the money to afford them and maintain them. And where in any of this is the development of the individual or the society? We do all of these things to the detriment of our bodies, our lives, our society, our environment and ourselves. Only when you understand how much something hurts you, do you have a chance of stopping it and changing your behavior. What do we do to get people to the point where they see the dangers and want to change? I have no desire or ability to make someone change. But what does it take from each of us to make the real choices more real? ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:15:04 PDT Great question, Do you think excess consumption is the biggest problem facing us as a species? The excesses you describe seem to me to be a crises of meaning in our lives – when the purpose of life becomes making money life suffers. I might agree with you if I thought the “market” would bring all six billion of us up to a financial status equivalent to the US and Europe. I don't think that will happen because a system based on economies of scale tends toward fewer and fewer people controlling more and more of the production capacity. That process is reducing complexity in the system, eroding its stability in the face of change in the environment, reducing its productivity in absolute terms and reducing the number of ways that people and creatures can fit in the system. Michael Pollan's “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, which I am just reading now, is, in part, about how corn has become the single most successful species in the system. We spend five billion dollars a year paying farmers to grow corn at a loss and then, because corn is the cheapest commodity available, the entire rest of the food chain is based on how we can use corn. If every community had local integrated food production, the environment and we humans would all be better off, and there would be many more places where any of us could contribute value to the system. Here is another example. Compare the tomato you buy in a US grocery store with the one you grow in the backyard. If you count the value of your labor and only measure value in dollars, it is better to buy the cardboard tasting orb - grown with toxic chemicals and picked green so that it can be shipped all over the world - than it is to eat the good tasting tomato - that actually has some nutrition and cost no money if you saved the seed from last years crop. If you still have to earn a living in the market, as an individual or a family, you can only go so far with that premise. But, if you and I, as a community, own the green house, and produce the tomatoes with time we would not be making money anyway, we will grow exactly the number of tomatoes we expect to eat, because we need the rest of the greenhouse space to grow other things we like. And we can employ economies of integration were one process supports the next process. All of this productivity is in addition to what is now produced by the market – and what we get out of participating is a share of what has been produced. In that system I don't see people working extra hard so they can consume conspicuously. Adding this additional element to the system changes the flows from more and more concentration to more and more diffusion, increases diversity -> leading to more complex interactions -> leading to stability in the face of changes in the environment -> and increased productivity. It reduces the demand for industrial foods, and other products we can produce ourselves, and re-balances the system at a point that includes a greater number of humans. I don't think we can accurately predict what that new balance will look like – and it will be in a constant state of flux as the market adjusts to this new aspect in the system – but, on the whole, it is better to have more diversity than to have less diversity. ---- :Author: Perry Gruber :Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:55:34 PDT David Braden said: it is a reversal of, and complement to the capitalist model. In this design, labor is treated as the contribution that creates ownership - that ownership is represented by shares - and the shares can be traded for things the system produces. So Linda, you would earn shares by teaching - and trade the shares for organic produce - and you and the farmer both own the facilities used for teaching and growing organic produce. Hi David, thanks for this thread. It seems as though you intend "shares" to replace cash as legal tender. I speculate whether legal tender and the profit motive are parts of what we must be let go if we're going to achieve peace. The shares model you recommend might alleviate the challenges profit motive generates, because a single person, I guess, could only exert so much effort to earn shares - seems unlikely one could amass an overabundance of shares, but I may be wrong ... so in the shares model would greed that comes with the profit motive be eliminated? Could one seek a profit in shares? Could there be a wealth gap based on this shares model? I have a sneaking suspicion we are coming upon the edge of a technology explosion that will allow hyper efficient, hyper distributed (as in in the home) production of most goods using the most minimal resources. Under our current economic model, society, government and those seeking profit motive will want to subordinate these technologies to our current (scarcity based) economic model and thereby limit access to such technologies to those who could afford them... But what would happen if such technology were instead used to usher in a cashless, barterless national model, where everyone had ready access to abundance (careful on interpreting abundance...I'm not referring to gluttonous abundance, but a level of abundance that allows one to have the food, shelter, clothing provided - all those needs that some people work for to have - thereby allowing a person to focus on higher pursuits such as education, personal growth and willful contribution to society for contributions' sake in a field they enjoy rather than one that pays them the most money)? There are powerful vested interests in maintaining the economic status quo. It will take a tipping point of people recognizing that efforts to amass material wealth of any quantity, while strongly encouraged and supported by many facets of our US society, are, in the end of little value in this experience on the planet. In fact, it is this pursuit of amassing material wealth that is creating our environmental and some social problems. What matters, I think, is the experience and development of life itself - amassing spiritual wealth through an introspective-oriented experience of upwardly evolving life on earth (and beyond). Profit motive is a distraction. Combined with relatively unbridled capitalism, it becomes something much more destructive. Ok, I'm going to get off my soap box... ---- :Author: Perry Gruber :Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:03:50 PDT Linda Nowakowski said: Aren't we all really looking to maximize personal development? It's not clear to me that the maximization of personal development means the maximization of consumption. It means having enough: not too little, not too much - THE MIDDLE WAY. One phrase that I am meditating on for a last teaser - "And with the clarity of inner calm comes an insight into one of life's profound ironies: striving for happiness, we create suffering; understanding suffering, we find peace." .. _`Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Marketplace` : http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/9280/econ.htm Here here Linda!!!!!! ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:57:31 PDT David Braden said: Great question, Do you think excess consumption is the biggest problem facing us as a species? The excesses you describe seem to me to be a crises of meaning in our lives – when the purpose of life becomes making money life suffers. I do not think that excess consumption is the biggest problem facing us. I think that excess consumption is a symptom of the crisis that can be caused by misplaced values or lack of conscious choice making. I think that Neo-classical economics has done an incredible job of smoke and mirrors that with the assistance of advertising has diverted people's attention from real values to artificial values. It has succeeded in shifting our focus to what really matters in life to thinking that all things can be measured by money and who has the most stuff. I might agree with you if I thought the “market” would bring all six billion of us up to a financial status equivalent to the US and Europe. I don't think that will happen because a system based on economies of scale tends toward fewer and fewer people controlling more and more of the production capacity. That process is reducing complexity in the system, eroding its stability in the face of change in the environment, reducing its productivity in absolute terms and reducing the number of ways that people and creatures can fit in the system. I don't want to see the entire world with life styles equivalent to the US and Western Europe. If I believe that that life style reflects a misplaced sense of priorities, why would I wish to enable things so that everyone could miss the point? Michael Pollan's “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, which I am just reading now, is, in part, about how corn has become the single most successful species in the system. We spend five billion dollars a year paying farmers to grow corn at a loss and then, because corn is the cheapest commodity available, the entire rest of the food chain is based on how we can use corn. If every community had local integrated food production, the environment and we humans would all be better off, and there would be many more places where any of us could contribute value to the system. What sane system defines success in the terms you have (Pollan has) used? Again it is measuring success by quantity rather than quality. Here is another example. Compare the tomato you buy in a US grocery store with the one you grow in the backyard. If you count the value of your labor and only measure value in dollars, it is better to buy the cardboard tasting orb - grown with toxic chemicals and picked green so that it can be shipped all over the world - than it is to eat the good tasting tomato - that actually has some nutrition and cost no money if you saved the seed from last years crop. If you still have to earn a living in the market, as an individual or a family, you can only go so far with that premise. I don't think I have ever really argued for the success of the marketplace although I think there is a place for it in the whole system. Not everything can be cooperatively produced in a community. There has to be a system that allows for the interaction of individual communities. The marketplace is a time honored method of doing that particularly when it is not taken advantage of. But, if you and I, as a community, own the green house, and produce the tomatoes with time we would not be making money anyway, we will grow exactly the number of tomatoes we expect to eat, because we need the rest of the greenhouse space to grow other things we like. And we can employ economies of integration were one process supports the next process. All of this productivity is in addition to what is now produced by the market – and what we get out of participating is a share of what has been produced. In that system I don't see people working extra hard so they can consume conspicuously. Adding this additional element to the system changes the flows from more and more concentration to more and more diffusion, increases diversity -> leading to more complex interactions -> leading to stability in the face of changes in the environment -> and increased productivity. It reduces the demand for industrial foods, and other products we can produce ourselves, and re-balances the system at a point that includes a greater number of humans. I don't think we can accurately predict what that new balance will look like – and it will be in a constant state of flux as the market adjusts to this new aspect in the system – but, on the whole, it is better to have more diversity than to have less diversity. We agree on this. We agree on many things. I think the place we might be hanging up is that I believe that there is a personal spiritual dimension that needs to be addressed in order for it all to work. We need to straighten out out flawed thinking and get back on the right track. Ultimately I think that the key is realizing that it is we, us and our not I, me and mine. I have to think about that some more. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:55:46 PDT Perry said: What matters, I think, is the experience and development of life itself - amassing spiritual wealth through an introspective-oriented experience of upwardly evolving life on earth (and beyond). and Linda said: I think the place we might be hanging up is that I believe that there is a personal spiritual dimension that needs to be addressed in order for it all to work. I do not dispute the need for personal spiritual development. I just don't feel qualified to tell anyone else what that is. The closest I have come is my statement above that: *The excesses you describe seem to me to be a crises of meaning in our lives – when the purpose of life becomes making money life suffers.* When I drafted `essential unity`_ I left out any reference to a universal soul or mind or creator, because **that** can distract us from the fact that we are all in this together. .. _`essential unity`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_essential_unity ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:01:15 PDT Perry said: But what would happen if such technology were instead used to usher in a cashless, barterless national model, where everyone had ready access to abundance (careful on interpreting abundance...I'm not referring to gluttonous abundance, but a level of abundance that allows one to have the food, shelter, clothing provided . . . As soon as you start talking about "national model" we change the subject from "What can we do as a community?" to convincing a majority of voters in a given jurisdiction that this is the way we **should** do things. I am not opposed to politics - it is necessary to prevent to worst abuses - but we are not going to change people's lifestyles from the top down - we have to give them real choices where they live. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:46:44 PDT From the Strategic Network Weaving discussion: Chris, I am sorry to let my frustration show. I did not mean to take it out on you. Poverty and environmental degradation are symptoms of a pattern of flows out of balance. We are not going to balance the flows by adding more of the same - more business and more computer/communications technology. Those do not create the systems of production in which everyone can participate and that cooperate with nature's process. People who understand environmental principles - and usually not business, finance and technology - can talk about systems of production that cooperate with nature's processes but they have their own silo with this antisocial belief about how humans can only destroy nature and the answer is to have fewer of us. So here we sit with the potential contribution of billions of people and uncountable numbers of creatures simply going unused. I will keep trying to find new ways to say it . . . we could employ anyone who wanted to participate in the most necessary task of healing nature, and produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care in the process. designing those systems will require people from lots of different silos - if I could do it myself I would. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:48:04 PDT OK... "Chris"? I am lost. Not an unusual state of affairs but it's still dark (the sun isn't up yet) and I have lost my way! ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:48:50 PDT Sorry Linda, I am trying to stimulate a conversation across interest and expertise - to get people to peek outside their silos - Chris Macrae and I were talking about that here_. .. _here: http://www.ned.com/group/networkweavers/news/14/ ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:56:37 PDT From a conversation with Kimberly Smith at the Global Mind Shift site regarding the Story `Version 3.0`_: .. _`Version 3.0`: http://www.aboutus.org/USF_Understanding KS: Wow, David. Your story just keeps getting clearer and clearer. I think you would be wise to drop the past tense and put it all in the affirmative now. Something like this: *Abundant biodiversity, peace, joy and prosperity is ours now as we choose to help each other embrace unlimited supply and creativity and let go of those things that hold us back....* Say that affirmation so often that it becomes your mantra and you will see the power of you creative mind in action. All of this is manifest as your thought clarifies and intensifies like a laser. DB: What do you think of this version?: *we could employ anyone who wanted to participate in the most necessary task of healing nature, and produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care in the process.* KS: Its still pretty obscure. Version 3.0 was the clearest so far. Listen to Barak Obama. He does this brilliantly. Read the text to his speeches. Same with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, JFK... Its all rhetoric. Harry Braun's Phoenix Project is an example of a brilliant, practical strategy that died on the vine because only literate readers with a special interest could understand. He lacked the common touch. In a nation of television addicts where over fifty percent of the population has serious difficulty with reading, writing, and arithmetic, you have to respect the common way. There is no other choice. Look at `Harry Braun's plan`_ . It is brilliant and useless until he or someone else figures out how to frame it in 28 words or less. Not easy! That's why so few succeed. Obama's speech writer might be able to. .. _`Harry Braun's plan`: http://www.braunforpresident.us/index2.htm DB: So, *we can employ anyone who wants to participate in the necessary task of healing nature, and produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care* sounds a lot like Braun's *we can be energy independent by 2010.* There is a difference in that I do not expect to get elected president. All I am looking for right now is a group of people somewhere who are willing to try this approach. My thought had been to enlist those organizations already interested in saving the world - any suggestions? I'm not sure I can pull off "I have a dream". KS: Well of course, David. My point is this guy had a presidential campaign and still the mass media marginalized his ideas. Human politics and power are part of any equation that involves mobilizing people to heal the earth. Naturally you can start in your own community and begin, like Bill Mollison, to renew your patch of land. It's flowering will attract attention from neighbors. Maybe they will be inspired and do the same. All that said, you still need to be able to speak to power either directly or indirectly. Write your representative. Tell them about your ideas. Maybe they can help. Tell them, "We can employ anyone who wants to participate in the necessary task of healing nature, and produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care." They will ask, "How?" Your answer must be crystal clear and in plain language. Something like, "Employ ten million people to build forty million solar electric generating stations and deploy them all over the United States." DB: I'm not sure about the power thing - at least not in the way you pose it as going through your representative, I think of it more as an alternative business model - like a group of people coming together to create a new google - and locating the resources to fund the business plan - except in this case, every community needs one. *We will come together as a community and find new and better ways to help all of our members to help us thrive. (22 words).* Not poetic enough - new and better ways not specific enough - not clear who is thriving. I understand what I am saying when I talk about "implement integrated systems of production" but no one else does and apparently the examples I attached to Version 3.0 do not have the same impact on others as they do on me. KS: **Community 2.0** is a term that comes to mind. Your Google analogy inspired that. Perhaps this is the language. Not sure... Whatever it is the thing has to be physical - not virtual. DB: How about: *We will come together as a community to implement integrated production systems to heal nature and help more and more of us work to help our community thrive. (28 words)* No one will initially understand “implement integrated production systems” but we cannot make a clear statement about something with which the reader has no experience. I was thinking of another analogy this morning. It would be like every community having its own, modern day, Swiss Family Robinson and any of us could be a part of the family by contributing our labor, our knowledge, or our money. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:22:57 PDT From the Open Money discussion, thanks Sepp: David - have you seen this post on the P2Pfoundation's blog? `Collaboration Around Local Food Systems`_ Sam Rose, who wrote it, is a member here. .. _`Collaboration Around Local Food Systems`: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/collaboration-around-local-food-systems/2008/04/21 *We will form new communities, integrating production in harmony with nature, where all participants contribute and thrive.* KS: I think I have it! Extended Family 2.0! What you describe is the way of life families used to take for granted. My guess is many people are unhappy with the disintegration of the extended family. Now many youth are growing up in single parent situations. Chances are a large number of these people are yearning for something present, authentic, inclusive and responsible. Extended Family used to be this way. Old, middle aged, child bearing, adolescent, little kids, babies all under one roof in a rural farm setting. The cohousing movement shows a possible direction for you to explore. If you found enough people willing to liquidate their assets and build a cohousing development, you might be able to implement some of your integrated systems. If the experiment flourishes, people will want to duplicate your model community. Check out cohousing_. .. _cohousing: http://www.cohousing.org From the `Global Mind Shift Discussion`_, thank you Matt: .. _`Global Mind Shift Discussion`: http://www.global-mindshift.org/converse/conversation_forum.asp#18236 Such a long post to get something so small - so it goes :). The idea of a twenty eight word vision is kind of cool though. I really like yours, through I might say: *We come together as a deep community to build integrated production systems to heal nature and help more and more of us work together, helping our community thrive.* It just sounds better to me, but I wouldn't make any significant changes. I actually really liked your one from the silo peice, maybe even liked it better than this one - it was clearer I think, less cluttered. My twenty eight word vision would be something like: *We are just another wondrous animal that can create true community, get what we need from directly around us, share for what we can’t get ourselves, and give ourselves freedom* It's thirty words, but oh well. I will come back to this, I think I need to make it better. and Jeremy: I'm thinking the business-ese might only resonate with people who are not interested in unsettling the status quo, while people like me and Matt who are chomping at the bit can only really understand the language of TV nation (which is sad, because I don't even have one). I heard an interesting program sunday morning. a phrase leapt out at me: to "re-embed" commerce into community - `Walden Bello`_ - near the end of the 30 minutes he gets to the guts. maybe it'll spark something. .. _`Walden Bello`: http://www.tucradio.org/2008_04_16george_bello.mp3 DB: Thank you all. I found it extremely interesting to compare Sam Rose's community consensus development approach to Susan George's Kensyan War Economy to save the environment. As I have said before, I am not opposed to politics, it is necessary to prevent the worst abuses, but it will not create leading edge solutions because it is based on the “common knowledge” of the majority. Sam Rose's approach is the “re-embedding” of commerce into community that Bello talks about – though I think we need more organization and less belief in development by community consensus. Both Kimberly and Sepp like the idea of “new communities”. I don't think we can expect success if we are asking people to leave what they know, or “liquidate” their assets. I think of it as adding additional choices to the existing community that are open to anyone residing in the locality. So, when you get laid off, you might want to spend full time working at the Community Investment Enterprise. If you are working a low paying job, you might want to put in another 10 or 20 hours at the CIE to earn those goods and services you otherwise can't afford. And, if you were working 60-80 hours a week at a high paying job, you still might want to partake in the abundance, by spending some of your dollars to buy shares in the CIE. How about: *Extended Family 2.0: We come together as a community to build integrated production systems to heal nature and help more and more of us work together, helping our community thrive. Like the Swiss Family Robinson, we will find ways to provide for ourselves as a community.* ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:02:08 PDT Matt said: *I don't think we can expect success if we are asking people to leave what they know* I think there is actually an appetite for change and to find something new for a large part of the population. More and more people are tired with the rat race and are becoming depressed with all the environmental degradation. However, whether or not it will be successful isn't really the point. It has to happen, and it can happen slowly, but we have to leave our destructive ways and mindsets behind. I totally agree with the whole family idea. We need the kind of support that it provides. The same sort of idea also fits in with the idea of tribe. Those kind of close bonds that can only develop through spending lots of time together and working together to survive. DB: Matt, you raise an interesting point. Family -> tribe -> nation are forms of separateness based on a need to cooperate against the "others" in the competition for scarce resources. If we accept that all humans are in this together, and in this as a part of a living system that includes all other species, then we must rethink the attributes of those subdivisions that compose the whole. I would attribute to Extended Family 2.0 a local system of production in which anyone in the locality can participate - regardless of their origins. We could build a world where any of us could take off on foot with nothing to our name - and where ever we stopped - we could contribute our labor or knowledge in exchange for food and shelter - realizing the dream of the "human family". Jeremy said: *So, when you get laid off, you might want to spend full time . . .* This really makes it click for me. - I sometimes try to think of better ways to reorganize the kind of production I do at work. there are many open source and low cost options_ for building the kinds of equipment I use. .. _options: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ymcVTnVy1o ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:55:20 PDT Sepp from the Open Money discussion: The conversation goes on. I think we have some good concepts to start. I like the idea of the self-help corporation, especially if it can be combined with a permaculture/organic gardening type venture. That would even bring exchangeable produce and help heal a larger circle... Made reference to this conversation on a blog post yesterday: `The Story of How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty`_ .. _`The Story of How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty`: http://blog.hasslberger.com/2008/04/the_story_of_how_humans_came_t.html DB: I liked your blog a lot. Hopefully more and more of us will start thinking along these lines. The description of the self-help corporation that you reference is called the SHC short form outline. There is an earlier, more detailed version starting at `SHC home page`_ or the original `web site`_. .. _`SHC home page`: http://www.aboutus.org/SHC_Home_Page .. _`web site`: http://www.selfhelpcorp.com You might be interested in the ideas in the `Biological Potential Project`_ in regard to integrating human and natural systems. .. _`Biological Potential Project`: http://www.aboutus.org/SHC_BIOLOGICAL_POTENTIAL_PROJECT ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:21:38 PDT From the Global Mind Shift discussion: Matt said: I totally agree with the whole family idea. We need the kind of support that it provides. The same sort of idea also fits in with the idea of tribe. Those kind of close bonds that can only develop through spending lots of time together and working together to survive. DB: This is an interesting point that we need to think through clearly. Family -> tribe -> nation are forms of separateness based on a need to cooperate against the "others" in the competition for scarce resources. If we accept that all humans are in this together, and in this as a part of a living system that includes all other species, then we must rethink the attributes of those subdivisions that compose the whole. I would attribute to Extended Family 2.0 a local system of production in which anyone in the locality can participate - regardless of their origins. We could build a world where any of us could take off on foot with nothing to our name - and where ever we stopped - we could contribute our labor or knowledge in exchange for food and shelter - realizing the dream of the "human family". Matt: I totally agree, this would be a wicked awesome place to live in most respects. People need to be able to vote with their feet and find the way to live that suits them the best. This is important, no doubt, but there is also something to be said for having a group of people that offers you true support, and that kind of thing can only happen with life-long connections or in a very special environment(you don't necessarily need a life-long connection, but it helps - camps are the other place that I've heard of). Open hospitality doesn't give you that kind of support, how ever much it tries. I've thought a lot about this topic, about the need for strong links and tradition verses the need for mobility and openness, and how to balance them. In some ways, its all I think about. I still don't have an answer, and I think, in some ways, it is a question that everyone has to answer personally. The tribe also just works for socio-ecological reasons. More diversity is better, in cultures as in everything else. Cultures with strong cultural boundaries and traditions help to preserve that cultural diversity in ways that a really open society just can't. The word tribe has negative connotations and sometimes for good reason. When you give a set of tribes with a long running division modern viewpoints and weapons, very bad things can happen. However, tribes evolved for a reason, because they worked. They provided stability, something that would never change for people to rely on, close nit relationships, diverse cultures, effective hunting groups. From Kimberly Smith: As you read this text, a series of chain events unfolds including decoding, interpreting, re-framing, assessing, concluding, etc. Everything is unfolding now. As you read this text, I am somewhere else doing other things and thi8nking about other things. Creativity and action always happen in this very moment which is moving with me and you all the time. This is important information for you and me because we share a desire for goodness and we are working to perpetuate goodness at this very moment. As you breathe and your heart beats, the world turns. Look at these vision statements: "**We can** employ anyone who wants to participate in the necessary task of healing nature, and produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care." sounds a lot like Braun's "**we can** be energy independent by 2010." "**We could** build a world where any of us could take off on foot with nothing to our name - and where ever we stopped - we could contribute our labor or knowledge in exchange for food and shelter - realizing the dream of the "human family". I ask, "What if "We can" really is "We are"? I am writing these words at this very moment and the irony is you are reading it now, but your now is different from my now. Text allows us to time bend now - to actively create the future and remember the past as I write and you read. Clarity of vision happens right now as you read these words. What you see and feel at this moment is your contact with the emerging community we are collaborating on now - not eventually, not some day, but now. So we are creating goodness for each other now. We are encouraging each other now. We are thinking and building now. The power of words is unlocked now. DB: And Kimberly said: *We are forming new communities in harmony with natural environmental and ecological relationships, where human participants contribute and thrive by acting present, authentic, inclusive and responsible like extended families.* And this is the way I see my life as well. For 28 years I have tended my half acre without toxins - welcoming all species. I worked in the market until I understood it well enough that I could sell my law practice and live on the proceeds while I pursued this "view of the world" with which I am either blessed or cursed. I am urging people to come out of their silos, to see that with three dimensional networking we have the power to rearrange the world so that it works better for everyone. We are creating the future with every choice we make - so lets make choices that lead to the kind of future we want. KS: This mantra is manifesting physical results now. We are forming new communities in harmony with natural environmental and ecological relationships, where human participants contribute and thrive by acting present, authentic, inclusive and responsible like extended families. Blessed be. Matt: Nice mantra Kimberly, I really get this point, we have to talk about what we do in our every day lives, not what some distant utopia is. However, I also see that that doesn't mean that we have to stop talking about "utopias" (good places, not perfect places) because we can have them now. I think I tried to do that in mine and the one I brought in about families. KS: Right on, Matt. This moment has no beginning and no end. Everything is happening right now. Thought is traveling billions and billions of times the speed of light. Einstein is tickling my left ear while Stephen Hawking does push ups on my studio floor. All the creative power of the universe is flowing through us right now reducing the idea of market economics and scarcity to a joke. Mass incredulity is a large obstacle, but we are shifting our minds now and goodness is happening now. A psychic snowball of creative love is forming all over our world for the benefit of all and growing at an exponential rate... ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:23:55 PDT We are coming together in community to create systems of production that heal nature and produce abundance. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:36:41 PDT How about "We are coming together in community to create systems of production that value nature and produce abundance." ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:17:32 PDT Linda said . . . *that value nature* . . . instead of . . . *that heal nature* . . . in 17 words, there will be different impressions based on the experience and world view of the reader. When I hear *value nature* I think of something that we protect separate and apart from that with which we are intimate in our daily lives. I am looking for systems that actively incorporate natural systems into the systems we use to produce what humans need and desire. In any case, this "mantra" as Kimberly calls it, should operate to get more and more people taking the next step of looking further into the potential for systemic solutions based on integrated systems of production. I wonder if there is a way we could do a focus group survey type of thing? - say several of us e-mail a version of the statement to a diverse group of friends and acquaintances and ask what impressions people have of the various terms? Would we also link to `Version 3.0`_ and ask what they thought of that? .. _`Version 3.0`: http://www.aboutus.org/USF_Understanding ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:03:31 PDT From the Global Mind Shift discussion: DB: We are coming together in community to create systems of production that heal nature and produce abundance. KS: Yay David! Now you're getting it! We are working together in community to create systems of production that heal nature and produce abundance. DB: 15 words - We are working in community to create production systems to heal nature and produce abundance. Thank you Kimberly - now let us see if this new mantra attracts more attention then all those words I was in love with :) ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:37:19 PDT From the Global Mind Shift discussion: JH: I keep seeing scarcity come up as the deep source of problems as they relate to economics, so this thread occurred to me... Let's make it real-scale and try to chop it up. Question: what am I running short on? what would a traditional economic strategy be to obtain it? and how do I use integrated production/CIEs to obtain it? my (short) list: time to goof off with friends, knowledge of how to use computers and technology better, cooking skills, design taste, connection to people. okay, most of this requires time and/or education. Traditional: sell my house (hahaha), quit my job, move in with parents, get loans to go to U of XYZ, get crappy job to pay off loans for half a decade, ... figure out what to do from there. now, I imagine a group of close knit friends who all understand the problems sequenced above and have each committed themselves to each other for the constant purpose of helping each other avoid these problems and realize their deepest hopes. the limiting factors? I have a mortgage. that would pretty much restrict me to the roll of venue holder in this situation. and I'm kind of out in the boonies, so it would take serious time and effort to assemble a group of people that trust each other, are passionate about community living, have their heads on (reasonably) straight, and don't mind driving a fair amount. of course, once we manage to integrate, some of these issues will disappear. carpooling would be the first thing that would happen, and then we could put our heads together and come up with ways to work less, grow more food, and free up more time for goofing off OR putting our heads together to come up with even better ways to live. it sounds like a family, which should make it seem easy. - but we tried, and many of us couldn't hold it together. this is where I need a new story. So, I'll ask y'all: what are you running short on? what are the traditional economic strategies for getting it? how does it look when you're getting it in a more human/life-centered economy? (Gaianomics?) DB: Ownership, Organization and Exchange of Value. In market economics we are conditioned to earn money that we can then spend to obtain what we want. In family economics (for lack of a better term) we have the option of creating what we want for ourselves so we don't have to earn the money. Creating what we want will require tools, land, facilities, plans, skills . . . and those things are going to be used by the family - to create enough (a sufficiency) for everyone in the family - of those things we elect to create for ourselves. This right to use the assets is a form of co-ownership (not unlike owning shares in a company that owns assets it uses to produce products that are sold in the market). Legally, we will need a container for those assets, and a way to decide who gets to use which assets when. Since we do not have a patriarch to manage the family consensus on these matters - I think we want a way to attract the best knowledge available to help the family make these decisions. Then we need a way to reward contributions to the family wealth - be that time, skill, knowledge or money. We need to measure the relative value of each contribution and tie that back to the right to consume what the family created. The simplest way is to use the evidence of ownership as the medium of exchange. That way, those who have put in the most and taken out the least have the most say. These are the three aspects that distinguish the SHC/CIE from any other organization. People usually think this is a cooperative - and it has certain aspects in common with some of the different types of cooperative organizations. But, a typical business cooperative has only the worker ownership of assets in common because, those cooperatives are producing products for sale in the market to earn money that they can use to buy what they want. They are not creating things that they want so they don't have to earn the money. JH: David, you mention attracting the best knowledge available. and the more I read and think, it starts to seem like my "...serious time and effort to assemble a group of people..." that can live/work/learn/play together is going to be the kind of work that is most valuable going into the future, not the punch-a-clock-get-a-paycheck kind of system to which I and so many others see few alternatives. I have been trying to connect more with my family (1.0) in this way, but it's hard work - building rapport and trust, finding where everyone is on their journeys, bridging gaps (physical and intellectual), getting people to have lively conversations about things that excite them without worrying about sounding overbearing, but try to avoid too much soapboxing, but still have enough excitement to keep things flowing. DB: Yes, this start up question is difficult. The SHC materials assume a group of people, who are without regular work, who "boot strap" the whole thing. That is a tall order for a group of disadvantaged people (considering the number of highly educated people who have trouble with the concept - my fault for lack of language skills - thanks again Kimberly). Ideally, the participants would not have to understand any more than "If you do A, B or C you can get X, Y or Z" - and they can do A, B or C in addition to what ever work for which they are punching a clock. Since these systems have the potential to heal nature and employ all those who do experience scarcity, I had thought that those who are trying to save nature and help the poor would be interested. My experience with people running those organizations is that they have no time to even consider a different approach because the second dimensional networking to keep their organization alive is all consuming. The restaurant/laundry/day care start up is designed to meet the needs of the urban poor served by such organizations. If I were going to focus on building one - instead of promoting the idea - I think I would start with an organic landscaping service - planting other people's property with species that can be harvested and fed to animals . . . and then expand from the base of trading meat for services . . . I have also considered the possibility of starting with a food coop that is buying and distributing organic produce from local farmers . . . However it starts, I think it needs to be open to anyone who has time to contribute and needs the organization can serve . . . we are looking for systems to balance the power of the market - so they must be just as powerful. I would not focus on assembling a compatible group - I would focus on explaining how the whole community benefits when more people and more species can contribute value to the flows through our community - it is in everyone's interest to support these systems because there will be more to go around and a flowering_ of civilization. .. _flowering: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Greatest_Difference ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:53:59 PDT David, I think it would be valuable for you to talk with Peter Hurst. He is retired from Naropa University in Boulder but his wife is still there so you should be able to track him down there or, I know he is on Facebook. I am not so sure how often he checks in there. You are so close that a cup of coffee might really work. (I am envious!) I met him last year when he was here in Thailand. He had come here to spend 6 months working with Mahidol University on setting up a contemplative education program. The core of the contemplative education program (which is in practice at Naropa) is deep community where you work to build a community that supports people on 2 levels, one is task oriented and the other is support for personal growth. I think this "mind-set" is the core of where you are headed, where I am headed, where the Asoke Communities here are at. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:56:10 PDT :Modified: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:58:19 PDT From the Wiser Earth discussion: JP: There are close to THREE BILLION people in the world who live on less than a few dollars a day. Many of these are people who lived in harmony with the natural world as best they could. While I agree that it's nice to envision a different world -- and I too am fond of idealism and brainstorming -- I also feel that people who want to see a change should try living with people who are victimized by the status quo, and try helping them free themselves from their master-slave relationships. To do otherwise is simply victimizing victims. Re-thinking systems that are designed to exploit is a worthwhile activity; however, implementing those changes is a whole different ballgame, and I would enjoy hearing from the people who have been quoted or participated in this dialogue just how they plan on implementing their ideas. We all could benefit from learning about realistic ways to get from where we are to where we like to be, and I hope that this dialogue will offer up ways that have worked to make lasting, sustainable changes possible! JP said: *try helping them free themselves from their master-slave relationships* The problem I have with this statement is that it assumes an intentional oppression of the poor. There is still slavery and debt bondage in the world – see `Using a Better Map`_ – but that is not the cause of most poverty. The predominant system is the market and the market `simply has no use`_ for people without marketable skills. Stated another way, where the supply of labor exceeds the demand for labor the value of labor drops below the cost of living – resulting in people living in poverty. .. _`Using a Better Map`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Using_a_Better_Map .. _`simply has no use`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_essential_unity I don't mean to be crass or unfeeling – but let me be blunt – the belief that someone else is responsible for our plight – the culture of victimization – prevents people from doing what they need to do to improve their lives. If our only choice is the market - what people need to do is obtain marketable skills – or we could figure out this option to work in community to create production systems to heal nature and produce abundance. ---- :Author: Mark Grimes :Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:16:41 PDT >>If our only choice is the market - what people need to do is obtain marketable skills – or we could figure out this option to work in community<< Let's say that *the market* isn't the only choice, but one that could be used for many people. To me, here is one of the huge challenges. When editing a document, the hardest mistake to catch, is the thing that is *not* there. Leaving out a phone number or important information is always the hardest thing to find. Because you are reading it and looking for errors in what *is* there. I suspect the same holds true in finding opportunity for the 3 billion people on the planet that would like to increase their income. Work harder. Crush more rocks. Create crafts. Work with well funded NGO's in the area. Do anything. It may well be the answers are in the things not easily seen. They are in the invisible of the creative. The invisible of sales and marketing. The untried and new. What is the new and unknown thing that can bring a person, region or entire country into abundance? ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:09:03 PDT KS: Okay, David. Now you have the idea, lets get down to figuring out exactly what physical tasks people are doing day by day... Take this vague, general statement, "create an abundance in food by instituting production systems that align with biological processes - increasing biological diversity", and turn it into clear, specific directions. The phrase "instituting production systems" means nothing. Dead in the water. You are already close to solving this puzzle with this statement: "If you do A, B or C you can get X, Y or Z" What specific tasks are you delegating? DB: Kimberly said: *What specific tasks are you delegating?* It depends on who is available and what are the goods and services they can supply. The `restaurant/laundry/day care`_ is one scenario as a starting "set of transactions" that feed back into themselves so the organization can accumulate cash for growth. I would love your help in explaining the `internal value exchange`_ in a way that "non-math people" follow. .. _`restaurant/laundry/day care`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_in_a_US_city .. _`internal value exchange`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Economics_of_Integrated_Production In that case, A, B or C is (A) cook in the restaurant, (B) do laundry, (C) watch the kids, or (D) clean up around the place. The organization will issue an acknowledgment of your effort - that you can exchange for (X) a meal, (Y) your laundry done for you, or (Z) someone to watch your kids. We could then add to that the other goods and services I was talking about, such as a buyer's club where we purchase in bulk wholesale or a landscaping service combined with the gathering of animal feed. You could spend some time helping with the planting and harvest and earn enough to get free chickens throughout the year. Then, that can tie back into the restaurant - as described in the `Grass Powered Greenhouse`_. At that point the organization has an internal production and consumption cycle completely independent of the market economy - there being no cash transactions involved in that particular cycle. .. _`Grass Powered Greenhouse`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Grass_Powered_Greenhouse What I am describing are integrated systems of production - where each facility/tool/property is used for as many different purposes as possible - and the product of one process becomes the feedstock of the next process - in order to complete as many internal production and consumption cycles as possible. The more we can do for ourselves the less cash we need - or, the more cash we have to increase our capacity to provide for ourselves. These integrated systems of production achieve economies of integration that can be as powerful as the market's economies of scale - and have the capacity to produce an abundance of those things we provide for the "owners" of the organization. See ZERI_ .. _ZERI: http://www.zeri.org What set of family transactions would you like to observe from your rocking chair in 2038? Let's see if we can integrate a system of production to accomplish that. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Fri, 02 May 2008 11:44:31 PDT Sepp shared this story with me: Heaven & Hell, a Parable - Author unknown - A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said. "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like. The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, "You have seen Hell. They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, "I don't understand. It is simple," said the Lord. "It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves." This story makes the point that we choose how we interact in the world. I don't think the market is Hell – rather, I think of the market as a challenge and those who can find a niche in the market that suits them live an honorable life, contributing value to us all and reaping the rewards of their effort. And I don't think what I am proposing is Heaven – rather, I think of a community investment enterprise as an alternative way for people to contribute value when, for whatever reason, they are unable to compete in the market. I see it as balancing market forces – I see it as converting the financial resources generated in the market back into living resources for the benefit of the community. ---- :Author: Liam Cullen :Date: Sat, 03 May 2008 06:24:17 PDT Hi David, Hard to get a word in edgewise... 32 of these posts belong to you.. and very long most of em are too!!! It seems like this is your space and contributions are for you to critique according to your own sense of expertise. An interesting parable but the psychology of greed is never one dimensional and even the best people are greedy for something.... the simplicity of heaven and hell is often used to thwart thinking on the transactional nature of us humans... we all want to trade something. regards, Liam ---- :Author: Mark Grimes :Date: Sat, 03 May 2008 07:38:15 PDT >>Hard to get a word in edgewise... 32 of these posts belong to you..<< Seems to me like David is taking the time to have this conversation between multiple online platforms which I've never really seen done before. Anyway, it's interesting to watch from my POV. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sat, 03 May 2008 09:43:24 PDT DB: Thank you Mark. There are `four online forums`_ represented here and that is about getting us out of our silos to hold a discussion `across interest and expertise`_. .. _`four online forums`: http://www.aboutus.org/USF_Discussions .. _`across interest and expertise`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_across_interest_and_expertise. Liam, can we explore further what you mean when you say “according to my own sense of expertise”? Is that not the point of any conversation – and if you think another point of view is needed I hope you feel free to share it. This conversation is about telling the story of `How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty`_. Where most people see a world full of groups of people in conflict with one another, I see a world composed of a single pattern of flows. From that point of view, it appears that we are failing to utilize the potential contribution of some 3 billion people, that JP talks about, that don't currently “fit” in the market, and failing to use the potential contribution of uncountable numbers of plants and animals, that do not currently “fit” in our food production systems. I am proposing community ownership of integrated production systems that are designed to provide a “fit” for those people and those creatures. There are links to some examples of these types of systems following the story linked above. I will sincerely appreciate your critique according to your sense of expertise. .. _`How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty`: http://www.aboutus.org/USF_Understanding I was also thinking more about the parable. In `Matrix or Star Wars`_, I wrote about how capitalism is a force and it has a dark side – and what we are looking to do is bring balance to the force. :) .. _`Matrix or Star Wars`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Matrix_or_Star_Wars ---- :Author: chris macrae :Date: Sat, 03 May 2008 17:26:19 PDT Historically, is there a case of a community working through what you suggest - if so could we learn from how it did this? ---- :Author: Liam Cullen :Date: Sat, 03 May 2008 18:13:30 PDT David Braden said: DB: Thank you Mark. There are `four online forums`_ represented here and that is about getting us out of our silos to hold a discussion `across interest and expertise`_. .. _`four online forums`: http://www.aboutus.org/USF_Discussions .. _`across interest and expertise`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_across_interest_and_expertise. Liam, can we explore further what you mean when you say “according to my own sense of expertise”? Is that not the point of any conversation – and if you think another point of view is needed I hope you feel free to share it. This conversation is about telling the story of `How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty`_. Where most people see a world full of groups of people in conflict with one another, I see a world composed of a single pattern of flows. From that point of view, it appears that we are failing to utilize the potential contribution of some 3 billion people, that JP talks about, that don't currently “fit” in the market, and failing to use the potential contribution of uncountable numbers of plants and animals, that do not currently “fit” in our food production systems. I am proposing community ownership of integrated production systems that are designed to provide a “fit” for those people and those creatures. There are links to some examples of these types of systems following the story linked above. I will sincerely appreciate your critique according to your sense of expertise. .. _`How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty`: http://www.aboutus.org/USF_Understanding I was also thinking more about the parable. In `Matrix or Star Wars`_, I wrote about how capitalism is a force and it has a dark side – and what we are looking to do is bring balance to the force. :) .. _`Matrix or Star Wars`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Matrix_or_Star_Wars Exactly which animals are you referring to that do not currently fit into our food production systems? Capitalism is a term often loosely used to define the right to accumulate gains. Many of the posters here are able to reflect on their ability to travel world wide, take footage of people in African countries, complain about the poor speed of internet connections and agree to meet half way around the world for a reunion......but so long as it's all for a good cause..... its all ok. If a bunch of socialites hold a big charity ball where only the illuminati can attend and then hand over a big cheque to a worthwhile cause... what't the difference besides the scale and a different sense of social justice? The problem is we can't all do the same thing and that's where the ideals of utopia seen through a dreamy haze don't reflect reality and the harsh lessons of history. I mean hey the Russian Constitution was long recognized as one of the most signficant national documentations enshrining the rights of all people, and in a equalitarian society that should count for something... didn't stop millions being killed and even more being persecuted. If we all march to the same beat and trade in trinkets well who is going to find the next new internet speed and the next break through in online cheaper telephone calls... or moreso, who is going to forego access for the better of all? Heaven and hell? Good and bad? Well if everyone does something and that moves the world towards an ideal improvement that's good. If everyone does the same thing and it goes the otherway, that's bad. So given we all have to pick our way through the labryinth of choices as there are very few absolutes, lets hope more of us make the right ones than the wrong ones, according to our own areas of expertise.. so on the point of balancing the forces I agree with you... but remember in Starwars the right to fight your enemy with deadly force, to kill masses of badies and preserve your land were never in question. I know one thing for sure, there is often a lot of links, references to documents etc posted which is not so much the information highway but more trophy hunting of what can be found. To possibly absorb all of this, you would need to dedicate all your time and energy in its intellectual digestion. Then again.. I could be completely wrong. cheers, Liam ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 04 May 2008 14:42:14 PDT chris macrae said: Historically, is there a case of a community working through what you suggest - if so could we learn from how it did this? There are two primary differences between a community investment enterprise and any business organization. The first is to treat the contribution of labor as earning ownership of the organization (issue stock for labor) the second is to use the assets of the organization to produce goods and services that will be consumed by the owners. I do not know of a historical case that operated precisely this way - although I imagine that early agricultural societies could have had similar structures. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 04 May 2008 14:55:16 PDT Liam said: Exactly which animals are you referring to that do not currently fit into our food production systems? To possibly absorb all of this, you would need to dedicate all your time and energy in its intellectual digestion. I could not tell from your post whether you disagree with any particular point - but let me give you a firm place to start - if you are interested in spending some time and energy to understand what I am saying. Every thing is connected to everything else and nothing exists unless it fits in the pattern of flows. You talk about each of us making the best choice we can above - and I agree - we make the pattern more complex or less complex with every choice each of us makes. I call this a `complexity spiral`_ The way the system is currently structured has tended to reduce the number of ways people and creatures can "fit" in the system. What I am proposing is to increase complexity by designing new ways for people and creatures to "fit" in the system. .. _`complexity spiral`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Complexity_spirals ---- :Author: Liam Cullen :Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 00:20:07 PDT David Braden said: chris macrae said: Historically, is there a case of a community working through what you suggest - if so could we learn from how it did this? There are two primary differences between a community investment enterprise and any business organization. The first is to treat the contribution of labor as earning ownership of the organization (issue stock for labor) the second is to use the assets of the organization to produce goods and services that will be consumed by the owners. I do not know of a historical case that operated precisely this way - although I imagine that early agricultural societies could have had similar structures. You are right Chris, there is not one case of a community, outside of religous enclaves,let alone a society that have been able to operate this way in the history of the world for an extended period of time. You need a leader, you need a power base, you need to accumulate for the good of all and that's the basis for a fundamental shift. Personal choice has always meant people will move in different directions and that's where the appeal of fables and homilies comes from; because you can strip away the complexity and need for higher thought processes to try and indoctrinate in people a fudamental sameness to questions of morality... and the question remains in my mind... which animals in the foodchain are we talking about? ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 06:18:23 PDT Liam said: there is not one case of a community . . . that have been able to operate this way in the history of the world for an extended period of time. Ah!! here is a challenge. I am not sure what you imagine when you say *operate in this way*. Just because a thing has not been done does not mean it cannot be done - otherwise we would never make any progress as a species. Let me ask you some questions about a community investment enterprise in light of personal choice: 1 - What is the difference between choosing to work for the CIE, as opposed to taking any other job, that makes a CIE impossible? 2 - Why would you choose to do work for a wage if you could do the same work for the CIE and own what you produced? 3 - Why wouldn't you choose to work for the CIE when that was your only choice - because there were no jobs for you in the market. As to the question about the animals, if you only have time for one video watch the `Greening the Desert`_ one. There is unknown untapped potential to be realized from learning to honor the gift of the least among us. .. _`Greening the Desert`: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk ---- :Author: Liam Cullen :Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 02:11:33 PDT David, The answer to all three is found in that nothing remains the same forever. That's why kids don't stay in the family home, let alone the family farm. People will do jobs when there is no choice and often move out of them when there is choice. Any model that is successful will grow and that brings opportunity for personal growth, expansion etc. Most people don't stay in the same job forever and therefore the prospect of what is essentially an agricultural existence is limited to developing communities and those who are affluent enough to do it with something to fall back on... generally speaking. cheers, Liam ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 05:27:47 PDT Liam, Yes, I see your point. Intentional communities are limited in size by the number of people they can find who are willing to make a life time commitment to a particular model. I don't think the Self-help Corporation/Community Investment Enterprise has that problem. The organization itself, like any business corporation, government agency, or academic institution, can continue to exist despite the fact that the individual people participating is constantly changing. In `Systems to Complement the Market`_ I expressed it this way: .. _`Systems to Complement the Market`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Systems_to_Complement_the_Market I do not think that the highest use of human potential is working 40 years (60-80 hours a week) in business and retiring to Florida. If each of us had the opportunity to work at a slower pace, producing an abundance of basic goods and services for ourselves and our neighbors, while we are going to school, or retraining after a downsizing, or while our children are too young for school, or after a disability, and for those who cannot or choose not to seek a career in business or government, there might be a flowering of human creativity and certainly less stress in our lives. In other words, the SHC/CIE **organization** can continue producing abundance so long as there is a critical mass of people in the categories listed - and each of them is free, at any time, to take a job in the market, if that job can deliver more value than they can obtain working for the SHC/CIE. Does that explanation address your objection? ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 06:31:50 PDT From the Global Mind Shift discussion: MH: I've said this before, but you never responded, even though it seemed to go against everything you've said. I just want to understand your definition of complexity, which I think is different than mine. David, I think that life doesn't actually try to make complexity - in fact, life tries to find the simplest way to do something - that's why bacteria are the single most prevalent life form, and then insects. Complexity only evolves when there is no other option, when it is the only choice, when all other niches have been filled. I think that our society often leaves the most simple niches unfilled because they don't fit the paradigm that agriculture requires. I think that complexity spirals makes sense, but only so long as you don't go beyond the point of diminishing returns, and there is a lot of evidence_ that we are on the far side of that point. On the far side of diminishing returns, you can only survive by continually finding new resources, oil is our current one. .. _evidence: http://anthropik.com/2005/11/thesis-15-we-have-passed-the-point-of-diminishing-returns/ DB: Yes, I remember your statement about complexity and that I did not respond. I did not quite follow your argument and I'm not sure that I am following now. I think you are wrong when you say nature only creates complexity as a last resort - but, when you talk about diminishing returns, you are talking about reducing complexity. True, we cannot create complexity for the sake of complexity. Each new element has to "fit" in the system - we can think of "fit" as the ability to participate in the flows_ through the system. The history of the universe is about the increase in complexity - beginning with the big bang's seamless field of energy - leading to the congealing of matter into gravitational systems - leading to life and living ecosystems - and now the conscious systems we are talking about adjusting. We may have already passed some thresholds where we will be unable to recover certain elements. That does not change the urgent need to create more places for more people and more creatures to "fit" in the system - which is what I mean by an upward complexity spiral. .. _flows: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Human_Needs MH: LC said: *but remember in Star Wars the right to fight your enemy with deadly force, to kill masses of badies and preserve your land were never in question.* Totally agree :). But this is serious :l, there is a destructive way of doing things, and while "killing masses of baddies" is NOT something I support at all, fighting back and preserving the land is something I do. Millions of people and animals and plants aren't just being neglected, they are being actively harmed, whether people mean to or not, and that is just looking at the present, excluding the future life that is being destroyed. You can't balance that, that needs to be stopped. I also however agree that any force you can truly get to serve the cause of life, and that is the cause we are all talking about, should be used. However, grand balls and 'healthy' tourism do maintain the same culture that they try to minimize the effects of, and as long as the culture continues, the harms will continue. We need to change our culture, stop objectifying things, re-focus. However, (how many times am I going to use that word?) doubling back again, stopping some immediate bad things is a priority, independent loggers and environmentalists can work together to stop corporate logging. DB: The point of Matrix or Star Wars was the comparison between a win - lose situation and the one we are in - which is either lose - lose or win – win. We are not going to create the world we want by defeating anyone - because we are all in this together. The only way out of those circumstances that are making life more difficult for all of us is new circumstances that make life easier for all of us. I am certain that what I am proposing is not the only course of action that can lead in that direction. I am also certain that we all need to climb out of our silos to see where we "fit" in the necessary changes - if we are going to make any progress. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 07 May 2008 06:18:04 PDT From the Global Mind Shift discussion: MH: DB said: *The history of the universe is about the increase in complexity - beginning with the big bang's seamless field of energy - leading to the congealing of matter into gravitational systems - leading to life and living ecosystems - and now the conscious systems we are talking about adjusting.* I disagree. Humans are not the highest level that evolution has just now reached, any more than bacteria are. Life hasn't been preceding in a straight arrow towards complexity, or even a kind of wavy arrow. Life and the universe has proceeded to diversify, not complex-ify, looking for more different ways of doing things, not necessarily more complex ones. At least that is what I see, does that make sense? *I think you are wrong when you say nature only creates complexity as a last resort - but, when you talk about diminishing returns, you are talking about reducing complexity.* Yes, I am. My point is that complexity has problems, is subject to diminishing returns, and that we need to be wary of looking to complexity as a tool to solve our problems. A complex way to solve the problem, is, by definition, the most energy intensive way, and that is rarely a good thing. DB: I think, here, we have primarily a semantic dispute as to what we mean by "complexity". In `Complexity Spirals`_ I define it this way: .. _`Complexity Spirals`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Complexity_spirals *An increase in the number of species/organizations (diversity) -> increases the number of ways that each species/organization can interact (complexity) -> increases the likelihood that interactions will take place (stability) -> increases the actual number of interactions that do take place (productivity) -> increases the opportunity for additional types of interaction (new niches) and if those niches are filled that is an increase in diversity - completing the cycle. It also works in reverse if we reduce any of those numbers.* So, I suppose I could have just as easily called them diversity spirals or stability spirals or productivity spirals. The term `upward spirals`_ is from Paul Krafel and refers to life's capacity to increase the amount of energy retained in the ecosystem "in defiance" of the second law of thermodynamics. .. _`upward spirals`: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-frWkYg2-Ew The type of complexity that produces diminishing returns is that which is designed as if it were a closed system unto itself. That is, production systems that do not account for their impact on the larger "whole system". They may be able to overcome some problems in increasing their internal productivity by increasing complexity but they approach diminishing returns because of their effect in decreasing diversity/complexity/stability/productivity in the "whole system". MH: I agree to an extent, we need to find new ways, we need to open up new spaces for people to step into, but we need to stop the old spaces at the same time. Everyone can win, but maybe not from their view point at the moment, it may require a reduction in material comforts, what is conventionally considered quality of life. We can find new and better ways to live, and those ways may be better for everyone, in the long run, but it looks like their are losers in the short run. I am reminded of a quote from Crimethinc: *We're not out to pull the rich and powerful down to "our level" - rather, we pity them for not being ambitious enough in their aspirations, and hope they will abdicate to join us in fighting to make it possible for everyone to ascend to greatness (that way, we don't have to guillotine them ;)).* In the end, everyone wins, but that abdication seems a lot like losing. DB: This comment is highly insightful. Think of this problem in light of the belief that resources are scarce and life is about the struggle to obtain our share of those resources. Then think of this same problem in light of the potential contribution of some 3 billion people and uncountable numbers of creatures - who could increase the amount of resources to go around. Resources are only scarce because we fail to use that potential productivity - that could increase the resources to go around to the point where everyone had all the "material comforts" they wanted. We may not be able to count driving a Hummer getting 10 miles to the gallon as one of the material comforts available - but is that really a reduction in quality of life? ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Fri, 09 May 2008 15:02:53 PDT From the Global Mind Shift discussion: GP: I enjoy the wide-open view that all seem to have in the postings that I have read for this conversation. I think this is the future. How are the economic and political power players, and the business interests that are intertwined with all of that, going to bring us sustainably through to the close of the 21st century? That is a big question. Governments and markets, our present dualistic approach, don't seem to have the answers that are going to create sustainability on the planet; politically, as well as environmentally. I think for the first time, we have the capability of bringing civil society together in a referendum approach, with scalable software and server technology as a booster for the process. We can actually create a virtual world forum, as we are beginning to do here. I think this is key to going forward; civil society, joined together as a large and powerful voice, is what we need to move political will toward the changes needed. There is a group who is now in the process of creating the framework for a global referendum, along with a fully-interactive process for all who participate on the website, to re-create a set of ideas and proposals for restructuring. As part of this process, global negotiations will commence around 2010, so that all stakeholders in the global economy, as well as other aspects of the "global commons" are fully participating in this process. Civil society, through our groups as well as individuals, along with governments, UN agencies, institutions, banks and corporations, need to be recognized as vital parts to this process. The website for The Coalition for the Global Commons is at http://www.global-commons.org , and is a work-in-progress at this point. What I like about the group is that the plan is to bring people and their ideas together, and create the changes as we propose them. The power is in the numbers, and in the creativity spurred on by the democratic process itself. Humanity must implement our own will. There is no other way. DB: Welcome Greg. I went to the global commons web site - and I understand that it is a work in progress - do you know if there are any active discussions going on there? Global referendum seems to me to be a difficult approach - and assumes that solutions will be delivered top down. I am advocating a planetary discussion about designing "production systems that heal nature and produce abundance", to empower local self-determination - assuming bottom up solutions. I visualize the process as a `feed back loop`_ testing sustainable systems locally to support improved design across all communities. I bundle those ideas in the term `local organizing and the planetary mind`_. Right now I am holding this conversation across four forums and would be pleased to participate in the global commons one as well. .. _`feed back loop`: http://www.aboutus.org/Local_Organizing_and_the_Planetary_Brain .. _`local organizing and the planetary mind`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Local_Organizing_and_the_Planetary_Mind ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 07:30:28 PDT :Modified: Tue, 13 May 2008 07:15:58 PDT The good news is that the systems we are talking about have the capacity to produce an abundance of those things that humans need to thrive. In that sense, `resources are not scarce`_. .. _`resources are not scarce`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Resources_are_not_Scarce The sobering reality is that there is no government, corporation, foundation or university that is going to design and implement these systems for us. The only way to create the future we want is for those of us who understand what is needed - to work in community to create production systems that heal nature and produce abundance. We need to identify those people in our community that can bring people out of their silos to look at how they fit in these new systems. We then need to support those people in their work - soliciting design expertise and implementing specific systems. We need a way for all of those `community organizers`_ to communicate about what works and what doesn't work. We need to help spread the word that we are creating the future with every choice we make and that we can make much better choices. .. _`community organizers`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_TheBasicIdea I am open for suggestions on what I can do to facilitate the next step. ---- :Author: chris macrae :Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 09:12:14 PDT :Modified: Mon, 12 May 2008 09:13:52 PDT Exactly we are imo hurtling into an Orwellian world where the bigger the system, the more the superpower, the more the people with decision making and resource influence are likely to take wriong decisions in terms of the deepest community and sustainability crises if we can get that far we could do so much with agreeing one synonym for the reverse system world is it micro is it community up is it grasroots what is it? unless we can get that far it seems to me we are arguing across each other's vocabularies even while we intend to identify and network with those who are prepared to stand up and solve vital stuff from the bottom up , and side to side across networking boundaries such as cross-cultural misunderstandings or professions which because they dont talk to each other simply go into their own box and charge more and more for defending their own case with lawyers and the like whose costs spiral endlessly - one of the few groups who definitely gain the more crashes there are ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 07:37:07 PDT Chris, when I review the choices, I like **the community sufficiency movement** To me, that reflects the need for production systems that heal nature and produce abundance. I also think it reflects an acknowledgment that we are all part of the one world eco-economic system but, at the same time, an attitude that “we can take care of ourselves” despite what might happen at the planetary level. I also want to be clear that I am not talking about a “synonym for the reverse system world” if I understand that to mean we have to choose between global organizations and local organizations. I think of it in terms of large complex systems need stable local components – as in nodes in the internet – or cells in the body. In the first place, I do not see a way to eliminate global organization. Secondly, even if we could, I don't think we want to forgo the benefits that globalization has brought – and promises to bring - to the world. I think it is a case of globalization spiraling out of control unless we can balance it with an equally powerful localization – through the community sufficiency movement – or whatever turns out to be the common phrase to describe it. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 08:52:20 PDT :Modified: Tue, 13 May 2008 08:52:54 PDT From the Open Money discussion: SH: Yes David, how to make it happen. *How to bring people out of their silos to look at how they fit in these new systems*, as you say. This brings to mind another conversation that is going on at the p2p foundation's Ning site. It is titled `Quality of Experience`_ and was started by John Hammink. .. _`Quality of Experience`: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2003008:BlogPos... From that conversation it would appear that perhaps by providing clear rules (like a sample contract, an open source license) for the group endeavor could prepare the ground for such systems to spring up. I believe it would give people more confidence to try this out if they knew that someone gave this a good deal of thought and published a sample agreement which by the way should be continually subject to review and amendment. Make the rules and the purpose of the community clear, and people will start to try it out. Of course, as you say, it would then be necessary to help those people, and especially to get the organizers to communicate what is working and what isn't. That by itself will create a necessary conversation and will act to spread the word. DB: A very interesting conversation at the P2P site. I think the co-ownership contract could be thought of as a single focus example of the self-help corporation - producing a particular product or service for consumption by the owners. I had a similar idea for a purchasing co-op as the start up for a local currency based on the `evidence of ownership`_ of productive assets. I think you are limited in what you can do on a single focus basis so long as you are competing with economies of scale and do not incorporate `economies of integration`_. Aside from "the corporations are responsible" and "resources are scarce", I get the most resistance from a prejudice against hierarchy. The most efficient decision making structure to have evolved to date is the one employed by business corporations. I think we need to design in that same efficiency if we are going to build local organizations with the power to balance global organizations. If that is the case, there are many examples of Articles_, Bylaws, and operating procedures - and I like the ones that are written clearly without a lot of legalese. Democracy does not work in a large corporation because most of the shareholders do not spend the time to read the annual report and make an informed decision on who to elect as directors. In a community investment enterprise all of the shareholders would be intimately involved in the day to day operations - and able to make informed decisions about who should be director. The more interesting question - and one in which I have yet to have anyone engage - is the process of issuing shares for labor. I think it would be a negotiating process, where management would offer m