Civilization Startup Experiments

These are mostly software projects, not dirt and twig to advanced civ.

Startup Civilization Experiments (Outside: Startup Cities, Freedom Cities, Autonomous Republics, Microstate Startups, Charter Cities, SEZs, Space Colonies, Seasteading)

This page lists non-territorial and “stack-level” civilization experiments that bootstrap civilization functions (production, governance, culture, infrastructure, finance) without requiring new sovereignty or a new jurisdiction first.

1. Parallel Civilization Stack Experiments (Non-territorial)

Experiments that rebuild civilization functions as portable systems, protocols, and shared artifacts.

Open Civilization Infrastructure Projects (Open Blueprints, Replicable Build Systems)

Build civilization as open designs + processes: machines, housing, energy, logistics, documentation standards. Examples:

• Open Source Ecology (OSE) – Global Village Construction Set
• Appropedia – Open Source Appropriate Technology (OSAT)
• WikiHouse – Open source housing / digital fabrication building system

Protocol Nations / Cloud Polities (Membership + Rules Without Territory)

Civic membership and services defined by rules, coordination software, and exit rights. Examples:

• Nation3 – “cloud nation” experiment
• Zuzalu – pop-up city/community experiment

Economic Overlay Societies (Parallel Economies Over Existing States)

Mutual credit, commons accounting, and alternative settlement networks that operate alongside fiat. Examples:

• Sardex – mutual credit network (B2B complementary currency)

Context references:

• EU CORDIS reporting mentioning Sardex mutual credit system

2. Production-Centered Civilization Experiments

Civilization bootstrapped by controlling how things are produced (capability-first).

Open Industrial Villages (Shared Production Capacity + Local Fabrication)

Communities organized around shared machine pools, fabrication hubs, local materials + global designs. Examples:

• OSE – GVCS (machines enabling village-scale production)
• Appropedia – appropriate technology knowledge base

Extreme Vertical Integration Communities (Full-Stack Local Capability)

Housing + energy + food + machines built as an integrated stack with training embedded in production. Examples:

• OSE – “Construction Sets” approach (systems, not one-off products)
• ReGen Villages – integrated resilient neighborhood concept

Post-Labor Production Societies (Automation + Commons Access)

Experiments that try to reduce dependence on wage labor through shared assets, automation, and contribution norms. Examples:

• Open Collective – open finance + fiscal hosting for communities/projects
• Open Collective – how the platform works (open finances + hosting)

3. Governance and Institutional Rewrites (Without New States)

Institutional “OS upgrades” inside existing legal frameworks.

Private Law Societies (Contract-First Governance)

Communities and marketplaces enforced primarily via contract + arbitration rather than local politics. Examples:

• Kleros – decentralized arbitration / dispute resolution protocol

Background reference:

• Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution – Kleros case study (PDF)

Cooperative State Substitutes (Services Rebuilt as Co-ops)

Replacing state-like services functionally via cooperative provision: governance tooling, finance ops, mutual aid operations. Examples:

• Loomio – cooperative decision-making platform
• Open Collective – fiscal hosting (legal/financial wrapper for groups)

Polycentric Governance Zones (Overlapping Rule Systems)

Multi-layer governance: different rules for different domains, with explicit choice and separation of concerns. Examples (tooling-oriented):

• Loomio – distributed decision processes
• Kleros – arbitration layer for digital commerce

4. Cultural and Cognitive Civilization Experiments

Civilization reboot at the “human OS” level: training, norms, meaning-making.

Education-First Civilizations (Skill Pipelines as Civic Core)

Communities centered on rapid skill acquisition, builder culture, and systems literacy. Examples (open-knowledge ecosystems):

• Appropedia – open knowledge ecosystem
• OSE – skills anchored in real machine builds

Normative Reset Communities (Explicit Norms + High-Trust Systems)

Rewriting defaults (transparency, participation, anti-fragility, shared standards). Examples:

• Black Rock City (Burning Man) – temporary city organized around explicit principles
• City infrastructure + preparation (how a temporary city functions)

Consciousness / Narrative Societies (Meaning Systems as Coordination Layer)

Communities experimenting with shared narratives, rituals, and identity as coordination primitives. Examples (pop-up / intentional community format):

• Zuzalu – pop-up community format
• Hack Zuzalu – “pop-up city” sub-experiment

5. Infrastructure Without Cities

Civilization capacity without conventional urban form.

Networked Rural Civilization (Dense Capability, Sparse Population)

High bandwidth + shared tools enabling village networks instead of centralized metros. Examples:

• guifi.net – open, free & neutral telecom infrastructure commons

Independent reference:

• APC profile of guifi.net

Mobile / Modular Civilizations (Portable Infrastructure)

Civilization built from modular, quickly deployable components (housing, power, fabrication). Examples:

• WikiHouse – modular building system (digital fabrication)
• WikiHouse FAQ – open source access + reuse

Disaster-First Civilizations (Resilience as Primary Design Input)

Systems designed around failure modes, redundancy, rapid repair, and rapid rebuild protocols. Examples (infrastructure commons / resilience-oriented governance):

• guifi.net – community-owned telecom with repair/extension by users

6. Legal–Economic Edge Experiments

Using seams of the current system as leverage points (insurance, procurement, property instruments).

Insurance-Driven Governance (Rules via Insurability)

Behavior and compliance enforced through coverage eligibility and priced risk. Examples (proto-infrastructure; often emerging via co-ops + mutuals):

• Fiscal hosting as governance-adjacent wrapper (Open Collective)

Procurement-Driven Civilization (Anchor Buyers Bootstrap Systems)

Demand aggregation and guaranteed procurement used to stand up production capacity. Examples (open production networks):

• OSE – construc_()*