[p2p-research] simpler way wiki

[Nathan Cravens]

Looks like some useful stuff here to build Intentional Community 2.0


> Global problems are rapidly getting worse.  The environment is being
> severely damaged.  Resources are being depleted.   Third World poverty  is
> increasing.  Even in the richest societies the quality of life is falling,
> cohesion is eroding and social problems are accelerating.


So many proposals start out this way. I don't like the approach. Michel may
quickly point out, with fewer words, this method fosters extrinsic rather
than intrinsic motivation which potentially subjects  reliving the ghost of
scarcity: even if the practice proposed is of greater material benefit than
before. No matter how good or how much better--if it is motivated by
guilt--this community cannot be considered abundant--even if 100% of all
wants and needs are personally produced at 0% labor time.

Asserting the world we WILL live in is an approach I suggest to prop makers
everywhere--with a disclaimer that no matter how flexible, it may not be for
you. But yet, what other alternatives have we not mentioned that are better
than these?! This suggests an open proposal based on a core value structure
or aim, blending all methods in order to develop closer to the described
core ideals. And even then we need to be careful: using a theist analogy:
all paths may lead to a false god or gods.

I suggest pointing out the problem only before the solution. Or, state a way
of doing differently than existing problematic practices. I would like a
proposal to start this way:

"Present ways of living work poorly and put our lives at risk.
[1][2][3][4][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]" Hah! Well, perhaps not so
condensed, but I hope you have the point.

Production: Personal vs. Community

There is a juggling act in proposing production foundations in two areas: 1)
personal and 2) community production. Using technology already available
will require the insightful use of both. Careful observation of the most
off-grid, self sustained communities can weed out best production processes.
These productive approaches then, to work best, match personality profiles
with members of complimentary manners as a reference at least before meeting
with all members of the community for a potluck.

Personal production benefits without being a time or material expense to
other community members, ideally, but this can fail without automation in
the chain to do the work of several people. Community production in the form
of "momentary mass production" is more practical, when say, planting is to
be done to feed the community. With only a tractor attachment to till soil,
hands-only personal production of planting takes longer than a community of
hands. The community production approach in this case prevents individuals
toiling seperately in personal production methods or can generate available
time to develop personal production models further. The community approach
also gives a reason to co-exist and ensures everyone learns how to farm and
better appreciate food.

Based on the knowable options, if community production benefits a
member--that is done. If personal production benefits the member and the
community--that is done. This means that when ascerting personal or
community, the best manner of practice is considered first, even if the
surface quality is less visually appealing than mass production or digitally
assisted techniques. Ascerting at least two core production approaches helps
to consider why we do stuff to make stuff to begin with.

Unpleasant company: The food may be the best in the world, but you have
found yourself unable to measure up to the never ending expectations within
a group of particulars. You are permissable only for moral reasons alone:
you are hungry and hunger is bad. This creates an anxious setting for the
visitor, regardless of how 'friendly' the words may be from this sort.
Though you may be 'welcome' to share a meal with your hosts, the food
doesn't seem as great as it may otherwise. Given food is abundant, the
visitor would rather share a meal of lesser quality than with the snobbish
hosts.

To play on an old phrase: material cannot be made into happiness.

2.  From "Local Currencies":
> <http://ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/localcurrency.html>
>
> <blockquote>However the problem is that most people do not have much
> they can sell, i.e., they do not have many productive skills or the
> capital to set up a firm....
>
> It is obvious here that what matters in local economic renewal is not
> redistribution of income or purchasing power.  What matters is
> redistribution of production power.</blockquote>


Skilled labor will become more valuable as production returns to the town in
the short term.
Community and personal production standards will be made, adjusted for
foreseeable novelty to reduce human labor. This assumes by the time this is
a widespread movement without a proper social network to share various
community living designs and instructions on how to build them. Until then,
people will continue to have exchange value by learning skills. Knowledge at
some level will remain scarce until robotics can perform the physical
activities which tap the same network to execute the activities, if but
converted to machine language.

A social network will be formed to provide the knowledge tools to do
whatever tasks have been done before. Physical areas are found or built to
house materials warehouses to store discarded materials, known in practice
to scale well in terms of discarded housing materials in Huntsville, Texas,
a city of 35,000. I am told this facility circulates a lot of stuff without
seeing a dumpster. With an easily accessible web application in place, you
then follow instructions. Knowing the benefits, the human mind will catch on
similarities and become more independent from the instructional program of
archived designs created by communards globally.

I believe we'll look back and liken exchange value to theft. Even suggesting
it: a playful threat. It is a form of slavery to the almighty concept of
standardized value. Evil; okay?

At the barebones minimum, a tent city on cheap land organized along the
> lines of one of
> those corporate campgrounds or RV parks, with individual tent
> (hexayurt?) spaces and community water taps and composting toilets,
> might provide at least an indefinite source of safe and secure
> shelter, and would be a lifesaver for those who really needed it.
> Some sort of shared transportation could be used to ferry residents to
> and from the Fab Lab/Net Cafe/Community Garden sites.
>
> And in either this or the earlier YMCA model, labor in the garden or
> maintenance and support work at the Fab Lab and Cafe might be traded
> for living space.
>
>
Thanks for suggesting this as a viable alternative. I was encouraged to
revise the source you mentioned.

In terms of housing, there's plenty of waste in building materials to build
homes for those with few monetary metrics. While this waste stream exists, a
social network must link with businesses to discard the home building waste
to a local freeconomy warehouse. Due to working with the materials
available, labor time in building a house is high, but financial costs to
building a home are reduced by half at least? That is productive recursion
in practice.

I learned of this during an Earth Day event at Stephen F. Austin University
during a presentation by Dan Phillips about his experience in home building
from discarded materials, how to make beauty from the industritus, and a bit
on the business model. Referencing activities in practice like this makes
for a stronger proposal.

Phoenix Commotion
http://www.phoenixcommotion.com/index2.html

Though it is novel and the market for this will expand as incomes deplete, I
do see an end to this model rather quickly. If we take the formula as
practiced and apply it to every Industrial town, it will quickly turn waste
materials into scarce goods with a price tag. This is similar to biofuel use
in San Francisco persistent enough that restaurants now charge for discarded
oil.

Regardless of this foreseeable pitfall, the Phoenix Commotion model can be
tweaked over time to continue an abundant setting by generating the means to
produce materials personally or communally. The trick, of course, is to do
this in a manner that uses less personal time than preceding mass models in
a manner that's constructive without ecological destruction.

The YMCA approach you mention is also very useful when considering living
space for the 50% of folk living in urban areas. I disagree with the name,
Quadruple Alliance, as these three organizations I consider community
ventures outside the home environment. Because the home I prefer to keep in
the personal realm, I do not consider that an official community space. This
arbitrary separation ensures personal vs community growth. Also, I believe
the Fab covers the construction of living environments. The fab lab title
covers the other structural areas of concern to meet the objectives of the
lab: materials generation or recycling (a farm, from food to aluminum),
retrieval (using people/robots), and storage (warehousing, expected to
dwindle over time).

-- 
Nathan Cravens
Effortless Economy
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