Democracy

From Open Source Ecology
Jump to: navigation, search

History and How-to

See Periclean Athens

OSE Proposal for Democracy

Personal Note

And here is Sunday reading, on how massive scaling of the 'enterprise village' or 'campus' can roll out - just general concept building upon the $1.2M Core Enterprise Module, and the $12M Core Enterprise Module 2 with 240 apprentices.

What I'm aiming for here, as opposed to common utopian pipe dreams, is tangible details that can guide the development of further proofs of concept that can make this happen. Just trying to substantiate all the critical aspects - land, startup capital, people.

I believe that we would need to start a total of about 10,000 of 'startup cities' as described, with the simple collaborative production 'social contract' - but functioning as a real, not elite, settlement. If we get one of these within an hour's drive of any place in the world, I think the world can transition towards stable democracy.

This is inspired thinking, so I'm not sure if it will make any sense to you as this is very broad. But I continually try to move the concept towards at least a plausible path.

Summary

10000 real villages (not elite villages) that bridge the gap between classes via lifelong learning and psycho-social growth. Founded on extreme productivity, they grow via an education enterprise model. These serve as accessible points of light that take people beyond the scarcity mindset, thus ensuring democratic development. The core is open source and collaboration, for regenerative development of prosperity - anywhere in the world. Attempt here is to shake down ideas that could actually get us there - and scalably so - because the essential value proposition revolves around essential distribution of wealth and possibility - avoiding competitive waste and yielding an efficient + effective economy.

Proposal

OSE is pursuing a solution based on individuals developing towards Radical Man as derived from the seminal work of Kurt Lewin on humanistic psychology. The practical solutions derive from the completion of the GVCS, ie a complete kernel allowing for the creation of modern society from abundant, local resources. As long as critical infrastructure is provided effectively via open source hardware in the framework of Open Source Microfactories, such as terraforming, housing, cars, food, and technology - then a foundation is set for cultural and scientific advancement. OSE's framework for achieving this is via a village-scale (200 people) unit of infrastructure as embodied in the GVCS, which can be scaled up as needed.

Opportunity and access, as afforded in the OSE Specifications for the GVCS - enable the solution for democratic society. To date, such a solution has eluded civilization, and this is especially poignant in 2022 as autocratic regimes are on an upswing since 2006. We propose a solution that embodies productivity training and holistic thinking - through education programs such as the Core Enterprise Module on the Seed Eco-Home 2. This addresses housing, and terraforming, and extends to energy/transportation, and open source microfactories.

We envision a square mile parcel as the core unit of land, populated by a sufficient number of people to guarantee prosperity - still delivering the initial promise of Factor e Farm - 2 hours of work to provide prosperity up to semiconductor production. Nominally 1000 acres and $1M in land, the total startup cost is $10M for such a charter city. Note that the infrastructure will be bootstrapped - the $10M ticket is startup costs. Such a startup budget can be funded via the Core Enterprise Module - on demand - in its second year of operation (240 workers). Nominally - village scale is the right population - but the population may rise to about a 1000 or so. This may be necessary to address the diversity of functions in a workable experimental society. In the startup phase, lifetime-design infrastructure building will be key, and such time may be 4-8 years - the equivalent of gaining mastery in an area of endeavor. It may be reasonable that an 4-8 year startup phase may be necessary, and after this time the 'financial independence' for self-determination becomes real. Regarding the population - building around the 10x Core Enterprise Module (240 people) may be the right framework to start with. This provides the necessary economic surplus to guarantee a high quality of life. If we build around a powerful, regenerative economy - that is a good start.

The 4 year time scale assumes taking in a population at least at the post-high school level (18 year old), and requires an open mind. It requires a mind that has not yet closed itself from lifelong learning - so that such a mindset can still be cultivated. A comfortable way to exit the Prosperity Social Contract must also be designed into the package, as the social contract must remain voluntary.

The critical design features surround transformative scalability of such an endeavor. Thus, some desirable features may be:

  1. $10M startup cost, population of 240 minimum.
  2. Replication time of 8 years to train leadership, acquire land, deploy a new operation
  3. First cohort in Prosperity Ville takes 4 years to establish, and 8 years to become a seed community capable of training others.
  4. Leveraging existing technical schools + veterans community - 24-student cores are disseminated through a large number of Tech Schools, creating productive entrepreneurs. 10-100 such operations to be started, with 1 year prep time to this campaign.
  5. Potentially leveraging existing community colleges, and possibly continuing education functions of 4 year colleges and universities, and possibly converting the actual universities to collaborative development. That may be in the later phase.

Ideal result would be 1000-10000 of such operations sprouting within 2 years of the Prosperity Ville model being demonstrated.

In other words:

  1. Self-sustaining, and lifetime-evolving productive skills, combined with integral psychology of a growth mindset - must be developed in a period of 8 years from an age that is amenable to such training. In short: we teach skills in 8 years, but the skills are demonstrated and applied skills - such that a person is fully operational in 8 years of time. Or at least the governance structure is operational - a Council of Elders who pass merit of wise thought and action.
  2. Financially-stable operation is achieved in 6 months from housing, cars, terraforming, and food production. This is the core of technical training.
  3. Wisdom is phased into the operation as its population continues to develop their mental models. With abundant opportunity and sound incentives, a democratic enterprise is formed. Safety mechanisms for peace are included: collaborative design, peacekeeping/mediation/enforcement function, negotiation skills for win-win collaboration, ongoing psycho-social development. Comfortable Exit is allowed for non-compliance.

Operations

The essence of operation is responsibility to a baseline level of production and improvement of the square mile facility. Training is required for such productivity, and especially training in collaborative literacy based on an understanding of product ecosystems and natural ecosystems. Such that ecological integrity improves with time, and prosperity improves - as a point of light that demonstrates paradise. Extreme productivity, with zero waste - is the key to the low work requirement so people gain self-determination. This is not free or easy - it requires learning - and as stated up front - a high level of responsibility. But once skills are learned, the basic social contract is one of stewardship of the facility, its land, its tool library - for ready startup of any enterprise. The only requirement is regeneration - leaving the place better than one found it.

Participants gain the benefit of an accessible equipment infrastructure - a community tool library that is an enterprise run by one of the members. This tool infrastructure is broad, open source, and a construction set. It can readily be combined into a productive enterprise of any type, in any industry. By focusing on eco-industrial processes instead of dirty ones, we maintain ecological integrity while doing so on a small scale. This is done via circular material flows as the essence of eco-industrial design.

Infrastructure (buildings, terraforming, roads) must be produced regeneratively, and in collaboration with other team members. The whole village is a team. Any destruction must be matched by equivalent or greater production. For example, the farmer must improve soil quality with time, collaborating and negotiating with others as needed for win-win situations. How do you for example maintain a lawn if before there was rich prairie? One route is to plant a prairie, or do set up an increasingly diverse area (such as perennial polyculture food forest, enhanced natural area, biotope, etc) in another area. How to make up for construction? By planting more trees if trees were used for lumber, according to time scales of interest. For example, one can assume a 10 year time scale for forestry, with a house lasting at least that long and a tree scape coming back with improved diversity on at the very least that time scale. Any debit on environmental integrity or quality of life must be matched with an equivalent or greater credit. Terraforming for improved biological productivity is a great solution here, as is planting trees.

For each area of endeavor, there is a regeneration plan to match. Any number of trees taken down must be matched or exceeded with trees planted or landscape improved, with generally accepted, science-based ratios. Or, underground soil-food web enhanced, for example with the equivalent addition of biomass underground for fungi to grow. If materials are depleted, they must be restored. People, animals, and nature must be considered.

All energy installed must be renewable, with means for energy storage considered. For example, for winter heating, photovoltaics, solar thermal, or wind power may be used for mass heat storage that lasts for a few days.

Key enterprises include housing, transportation (cars, engines, bikes, hydrogen), and food. Public infrastructure includes a learning center much like a multimedia library, augmented with enhanced hands-on training bays. This infrastructure can also be used to run workshops for the public.

An onsite microfactory can produce most consumer goods and power tools such as found on Amazon, and is both a membership, prosumer, and consumer product operation. It can be used for extreme manufacturing workshops, where people build durable goods to take home with them, such as cars, refrigerators, or manufacturing tools. All of this relies on open source technology to provide the necessary design.

On the more advanced side, there is material production. This includes steel from scrap, concrete from local rock, glass from sand, plastic from waste, hydrogen from water, and silicon from sand. This addresses critical needs for construction, fuel, energy, and consumer products.

But all this still happens at the 1/4 time effort - where the rest is completely based on self-determination.

Relevant Statistics

  • About 750k professors and faculty in the USA [1]

Fukuyama

  • It appears Fukuyama forgot that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants in his book, The End of History. He's got a sequel. [2]. See Critique of Liberalism.

Books

Media

  • Digital world order threatens democracy. In 1990, USA was the leading exporter of democracy. In 2024 - US is the leading exporter of potentially non-democratic technology. Hear more at [4].

Links

Retrieved from "https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/index.php?title=Democracy&oldid=299677"