What are they? Simply put, confederations are groups of cities and towns that band together to complete projects too big to do on their own. Things such as new railways, airports, dams, or collective defense installations are too complicated and effect too many people for just one town to control. For these, confederations will be formed that allow cities to freely work together for the common good.
These confederations will provide most services we currently think of countries or states providing now, and as always cities will be free to leave at any time.
While confederations have a considerable degree of power, ultimately they are less powerful than tribes because only tribes have access to the global society (a supersized version of the UN), and completely control the economic sphere of life. Both tribes and confederations help plan and manage The Venus Project.
The resource-based-economy is planned for on the basis of self-organizing confederations, which will tend to come together in the most efficient way.
Because confederations are self-forming, the cities within them will tend to get along better than today's often grumpy neighbors. Nothing says that cities in a confederation have to be coterminous, although common sense would prevent a city joining a confederation 1000 miles away.
It's that "of convenience" part that matters the most though: These confederations could be created to design and build a single project, then disappear when they're finished. Flexibility is key to maintaining freedom.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Let's bring democracy back: How to change the world, one city at a time.
It's a Catch-22. If you want to change the world, then you need to get into politics. But people won't vote for you unless you're supported by the establishment. And as we all know, the establishment would hate to see things change.
Everyone knows that our electoral system is broken- yet we still vote, because we don't really have a choice. If we vote, at least we get a short burst of "pride", but that pride is quickly tempered by the fact that, aside from a few local races our vote almost never counts. And even when our candidate gets elected, there's no way to keep them accountable throughout their term! If they make a bad choice but also make good choices, it becomes hard to decide whether or not you will vote for them again.
Everyone knows that our electoral system is broken- yet we still vote, because we don't really have a choice. If we vote, at least we get a short burst of "pride", but that pride is quickly tempered by the fact that, aside from a few local races our vote almost never counts. And even when our candidate gets elected, there's no way to keep them accountable throughout their term! If they make a bad choice but also make good choices, it becomes hard to decide whether or not you will vote for them again.
Maybe in the 1800s we needed a system of representative government, but today we obviously don't. The first hurdle to any sort of political change is getting into power- and this is where a lot of young movements go wrong- or right, depending on your level of realism. What's been missing all this time is a widely-accepted and safe way for the people to express their will on public policy issues. I'm not talking about corruptible small-sample -size surveys, or easily hacked internet tallies and opinion polls.
I'm talking about a real direct-democracy voting system that is always on, all the time. A place where citizens can go to vote 7 days a week,
One of the biggest hurdles to e-democracy has been the fact that many home computers and smartphones are riddled with malware and viruses. Not only could these viruses spy on the user and steal highly sensitive personal info, they could alter the vote in ways that would be impossible to detect. This is why we go to such great lengths to produce application-specific voting machines that are harder to tamper with, and even then we only bring them out once every four years. We also hold elections in well-trafficked, public places to ensure people are not coerced into choosing a specific candidate. This poses a great many limitations for any home-internet voting system, which are more or less impossible to solve today.
Even with these challenges, nothing changes the fact that our current political system is broken beyond repair- with the levers of power kept far away from the general public. This is a problem that must be solved if we want to move forward with any type of proposal. There must be a direct link between the citizens and their government.
The secret then, is to continue holding elections in public areas, but instead of holding them once a year, hold them all year long. Citizens will be able to walk into any partnered business or school, swipe an identity card and make their voices heard when it comes to public policy issues.
The voting itself will happen on locked-down hardware: Laptops or smartphones that are not only chained to the desk, they will require a special code to change or alter the software. This is not unlike the filters that exist on school or work computers. This password will not be known by any one person- it will be split up, and placed in the hands of several trustees. The code may be well over 100 characters long, and in order for any changes in software to occur, all the trustees (or people who know the code) would need to be present. It would be best if a random group of citizens were chosen for this purpose, as they are less likely to become corrupted. When it comes time to access the central computer and unlock the results, people will be brought in one at a time, never meeting the other trustees.
These laptops would be available in any private business that wants them, and an app would show the locations of them in your city. All software and hardware would be open-source for transparency. The genius of this proposal is that it allows everyone to vote any time they wish, not on people, but on policies.
In order to authenticate voters, citizens would only need to swipe an identification card into an e-reader, not unlike the current system in Estonia: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21605923-national-identity-scheme-goes-global-estonia-takes-plunge
These new computers would not have any internet access beyond a very limited set of websites- all directly dealing with the democratic process. Here, citizens could view proposals, communicate and edit them. Note that each time a person attempted to visit an unauthorized website this attempt would be logged and published.
Businesses that have a voting terminal within them would see increased traffic and purchases, likely gaining a boost of goodwill too. The hardware exists and can be bought cheaply, with many computers available for under $200.
The software for liquid delegative democracy is also freely available and open source. There are many options, but helios and liquidfeedback are two of the best.
In order to implement the policies the citizenry chooses, (first at a local level, then state, then national), a new political party will need to be formed- but this one will be unique. It will have no platform, and only do what the citizens tell it to through the voting terminals. Beyond this, it will act as a major "disruptor"- shouting down politicians who don't follow the will of the people, demanding resignations, and making it political suicide not to listen to the demos. It will be incredibly hard for politicians to justify going directly against their constituents, unless they prefer an early retirement.
Of course, this party's ultimate goal will be transition of the world to a global liquid democracy- and this is a giant step in that direction. Eventually after this party gathers enough power it would simply abolish itself, and pass a law stating that from here on out, the word of the demos *is* law.
With democracy re-established, it will finally become possible for us to move towards a resource-based economy, and this political party will pave the way for sister organizations such as TZM and Copiosis to operate in each town. These organizations (remember tribes?) will take over many of the current roles of government, and said party would constantly cut taxes, take payment in alternative currencies and promote sustainable development, ensuring re-election.
Ideally, we want to make it impossible for any candidate to get elected unless they agree to vote the way the people do- and after a few years, representative government will be completely superfluous.
This is how we win: City by City, Street by Street.
Step one: Canvass local businesses to see if they would allow a voting terminal to be placed in their store. They have the freedom to set polling hours and days, and the app would recognize this when you search for open voting booths.
Step Two: Lay the groundwork and "register" voters. In comes the on-the-ground political organizing. We will give everyone a smartcard they can use to sign in and vote. Come next election we will win in a landslide, based on a platform of lower taxes, deregulation and direct democracy.
Step Three: Pave the way for the next level- Set up and invite sister organizations who can lay the groundwork for winning the next-higher level of government, whether this means protesting undemocratic political candidates (who go against their own constituents) or supporting policies conducive to an RBE (such as open borders, basic income etc). By this time, thanks to the sister organizations, many of the homeless will be housed and fed through great advancements in technology like automated farming and earthbag construction. Citizens of the cities will begin to see changes as well, as free food and other products are beginning to flow in. Investment will begin in building the new, efficient cities and the fever will spread.
Step Four: Create Local Confederations Of Convenience: Using the internet, groups of political leadership in certain cities and towns will connect together and form regional policy, laying the groundwork for a resource-based-economy. In the future, with each city being independent, confederations will provide services such as defense and policy co-ordination that can't efficiently be provided by one city on their own. These confederations will replace all current nations. Most will be rather small, but bigger confederations may be possible. Ultimately it's up to the voters of a city to decide if they want to join.
Step Five: Global domination: Not really. At this point, the citizens will have all the power, so the party's work will be done. With the direct-democracy system fully built-out, the party will disband itself and declare power officially devolved to the people. Not only will the party be dissolved, but borders and countries will be too. The world will finally be an open place.
While this change is occurring, new apps can be created to connect people who want to help their city. A good idea would be a "Cityvolunteer" application which would allow a group of people to crowdfund local improvement projects.
Businesses that have a voting terminal within them would see increased traffic and purchases, likely gaining a boost of goodwill too. The hardware exists and can be bought cheaply, with many computers available for under $200.
The software for liquid delegative democracy is also freely available and open source. There are many options, but helios and liquidfeedback are two of the best.
In order to implement the policies the citizenry chooses, (first at a local level, then state, then national), a new political party will need to be formed- but this one will be unique. It will have no platform, and only do what the citizens tell it to through the voting terminals. Beyond this, it will act as a major "disruptor"- shouting down politicians who don't follow the will of the people, demanding resignations, and making it political suicide not to listen to the demos. It will be incredibly hard for politicians to justify going directly against their constituents, unless they prefer an early retirement.
Of course, this party's ultimate goal will be transition of the world to a global liquid democracy- and this is a giant step in that direction. Eventually after this party gathers enough power it would simply abolish itself, and pass a law stating that from here on out, the word of the demos *is* law.
With democracy re-established, it will finally become possible for us to move towards a resource-based economy, and this political party will pave the way for sister organizations such as TZM and Copiosis to operate in each town. These organizations (remember tribes?) will take over many of the current roles of government, and said party would constantly cut taxes, take payment in alternative currencies and promote sustainable development, ensuring re-election.
Ideally, we want to make it impossible for any candidate to get elected unless they agree to vote the way the people do- and after a few years, representative government will be completely superfluous.
This is how we win: City by City, Street by Street.
Step one: Canvass local businesses to see if they would allow a voting terminal to be placed in their store. They have the freedom to set polling hours and days, and the app would recognize this when you search for open voting booths.
Step Two: Lay the groundwork and "register" voters. In comes the on-the-ground political organizing. We will give everyone a smartcard they can use to sign in and vote. Come next election we will win in a landslide, based on a platform of lower taxes, deregulation and direct democracy.
Step Three: Pave the way for the next level- Set up and invite sister organizations who can lay the groundwork for winning the next-higher level of government, whether this means protesting undemocratic political candidates (who go against their own constituents) or supporting policies conducive to an RBE (such as open borders, basic income etc). By this time, thanks to the sister organizations, many of the homeless will be housed and fed through great advancements in technology like automated farming and earthbag construction. Citizens of the cities will begin to see changes as well, as free food and other products are beginning to flow in. Investment will begin in building the new, efficient cities and the fever will spread.
Step Four: Create Local Confederations Of Convenience: Using the internet, groups of political leadership in certain cities and towns will connect together and form regional policy, laying the groundwork for a resource-based-economy. In the future, with each city being independent, confederations will provide services such as defense and policy co-ordination that can't efficiently be provided by one city on their own. These confederations will replace all current nations. Most will be rather small, but bigger confederations may be possible. Ultimately it's up to the voters of a city to decide if they want to join.
Step Five: Global domination: Not really. At this point, the citizens will have all the power, so the party's work will be done. With the direct-democracy system fully built-out, the party will disband itself and declare power officially devolved to the people. Not only will the party be dissolved, but borders and countries will be too. The world will finally be an open place.
While this change is occurring, new apps can be created to connect people who want to help their city. A good idea would be a "Cityvolunteer" application which would allow a group of people to crowdfund local improvement projects.
Localized Manufacturing and Automated Agriculture: What you need to make an RBE in your city.
When it comes to making a Resource-Based-Economy happen in real life, it's best to start small. Really small. Like your city. I propose a "food first" policy when it comes to automation, where we automate the production of the basic needs of life first, then work our way up to producing more complex goods. For our purposes, this means food be the top priority, then housing. This new approach isn't about building shiny new cities or breathtaking vistas: It's about producing real, tangible results for all the time that's been invested, and allowing members to work less. Everything mentioned here works together to give members a better quality of life at a lower cost.
Automated Agriculture
Steady, free food should be a right for all people. Everyone could grow food at home, but most don't because it's too much work. "Food First" means that we would use technology such as farmbot to take care of TVP members' gardens for them- and eventually produce an overabundance of food to freely give away. Some local ordinances will need to be changed to allow home gardening, which will require getting into politics. Alternately, we could seek farmland donations from people interested in assisting the project. While the current version of farmbot runs on a system of rails, an outdoor version would probably use wheels and raised beds. Each raised bed would contain an RFID chip that had information about it's position relative to the other raised beds, and farmbot would know what types of plants were inside. An interesting effect of knowing exactly where plants are is that you can plant "polycrops"- ecosystems of plants that work together in the way nature intended. With automation, Permaculture just got a whole lot easier. Every few days, a truck with several farmbots would pass by your house and take care of your gardens for you. Even the harvest could be done automatically. While in the beginning people would need to volunteer to drive the truck, self-driving vehicles could later make their daily rounds unattended.
When it comes to meat and dairy needs, automatic farming can shine too. Any farmer in the rural areas of town who wanted to join the project would be welcome to donate their time and resources. As technology improves, even this would become unnecessary. Chicken production is already largely automated, and automated dairy farms have already been tested out. In keeping with the "waste nothing" ethos of a RBE, even the lawn clippings from grass would be used to feed cows and goats. Of course, the lawnmowers would be electric so the grass wouldn't become tainted with gasoline. Localized food production will allow members to save money on groceries.
All Hail The Sharing Economy!
One of the core tenets of a RBE has always been "Access Abundance"- the idea that everyone really doesn't need one of everything. We see sharing services such as Taskrabbit and Lyft exploding in popularity. Tool lending libraries are starting to pop up in cities all over the globe. But what's been missing is a free and open source alternative that allows communities to easily set up trust networks. Like many of the things we need, it already exists.
Meat Joatu.
Short for "Jack of All Trades Universe", Joatu is an open-source community marketplace you can use to exchange nearly anything you can think of. With Joatu, you can keep track of your trades and build a reputation- all without using money. It's purpose is to build "vibrant communities", and with a little on-the-ground promotion, I think it can work.
Localized Manufacturing and Closed-Loop Recycling
This is the big one. Obviously, the goal of a RBE is "zero waste"- getting the most out of every product from cradle to grave. The Venus Society in each city would live by this principle: "Waste Nothing, Want Nothing". In practice, this means that everything would be "kept in the system", recycled, and used to make new products. You can call it "Trash to Treasure" if you want.
Every member's home would have a special trash can with several holes in it. In reality, this is a recycling bin. One hole is for paper waste, another is for metals, yet another is for plastic and the last is for "Organic" Waste. I don't see glass being used that often, but if it is it could have it's own hole too.
When the "trashman" comes, the entire trashcan is taken and a new, clean one provided. At the processing facility, waste is seperated for reuse:
Paper, Wood and organic waste is used for biofuel.
Plastic is melted and formed into filaments for 3-D printing new products
Metals are separated and go into induction furnaces for reprocessing. Open Source Ecology already has most of this stuff covered, including the machine tools you'd need to build functioning products.
When you look at everything cities throw away, it becomes clear that if all that waste was constantly reused, cities would always have enough resources to support themselves.
In the beginning, you won't be able to make everything. Advanced components like computer chips and other technology is still too expensive to produce locally- if done the old fashioned way. However, using direct-write electron beam lithography, it's possible to create computer chips in your average university research lab. In advanced stages of RBE development, it'd make sense to crowdfund the purchase of an electron microscope and use it for semiconductor production.
Even with the limited variety of products you can make, there's still plenty you can do. You can manufacture clothing, chairs, cups, bears- just take a look at Thingverse and let your imagination run wild!
And as always, an equal share of goods will be distributed freely to all members at no charge. Read below for more info.
How will you distribute goods?
That's a very good question. In a resource based economy, everyone will be entitled to an equal share in the world's production. This is a birthright, and it isn't transferrable or up for sale. But what does that mean? You can't just give everyone a chair if you produce 7 billion chairs monthly- some people won't want a chair, they might want something else entirely, or nothing at all.
It's here that the ideas of "RBE" and "UBI" collide. An equal share in the world's production could more appropriately be called an equal share in the value of the world's production. How would we allocate this? You guessed it: "money". But in sociocapitalism, money has a vastly different purpose than it has today. For one, these credits can only be used to buy goods- and once the goods are bought, they are destroyed. (The market for services uses social capital.) There would be a finite amount of credits too- exactly enough to buy all the goods on the store shelves. No more inflation, period.
What's more interesting than the credits themselves is the price system. How, exactly do we determine how much a particular good should cost? While it would be easy to do this at the local level, it definitely would be harder at the global level. Some people argue that a "free market" is the only way to do this, but I disagree. The free market as it is today leaves out many of the bigger costs, like the incredible damage to the environment and public health. Higher crime, corruption and even terrorism isn't accounted for either. The most important thing of all, the cost in human lives is also given no value. Externalizing all of these costs can only harm society at large.
When we think of "cost", we usually think of money and the price system. Price is an important way to allocate scarce goods, no doubt- but deciding who lives and who dies based on who has the most pieces of paper with funny pictures on them isn't just stupid, it's inhumane. So can we separate "price" from "money"? Of course we can.
Let's start with the basics: A resource-based economy is an economy based on resources. Simple enough, right? So we want to always keep a running total of how many resources are available, and compare those amounts. We'll call this "Scarcity", and the higher the scarcity of something, the higher the price. Scarcity can be measured based on available supply of an item vs the demand.
Next, we need to calculate the "Labour" that goes into producing a product, and since labour is just Time x Energy, both of these values are directly measurable in seconds and joules, respectively. So for a computer, we will measure how much time it takes for us to gather the necessary raw materials, manufacture the final product, and most importantly, ship it to your destination. We'll also measure how much energy it took to extract the raw materials, run the machines and transport them to the store.* This gives a great incentives** towards designing methods of production that use less time and energy. There's no doubt that this final number will be large, maybe in the millions- so we'll want to divide it by 1000, or any number that makes the final price human-readable.
Price = Scarcity x Time x Energy
*An important note about energy: For "natural" products that grow on trees or inside animals, the energy only includes what it took to prepare and transport the finished product for sale. Direct solar energy is always free.
It would be a ridiculous idea to get rid of prices and money altogether, and by reworking them we can design a stable system with little to no inflation or externalized costs.
**Most of this really falls under "Economics", but the question of how you motivate people to innovate and improve society when everything is free is a good one. Although it's been proven that money is a bad motivator, saying that people will work just for the joy of it isn't satisfactory to most people. They have a good reason to be skeptical- communism failed because people were paid the same for doing terrible work.
In this case, things are very different. While everyone receives the same amount of good credits monthly, nothing is stopping them from earning social capital by doing things for other people. In this sense, social capital is a lot like today's money. If you invent a new industrial process that saves time and energy, you will receive all the saved good credits for a year.
So why this, and why now?
By growing food and manufacturing products locally, you are bringing a small-scale version of an RBE to life. You won't be able to produce everything you need at first, and that's okay. It's about taking real steps towards sustainability. There is absolutely no need to go out and buy large tracts of land to produce communes- besides being remote, most new "intentional communities" don't survive because taking care of them is too much work, or they lack a steady income stream. It would only be wise to establish new cities once we have the proper technology to care for them. This is why getting people who can help develop the technology is so important, and why we will eventually need to find investors.
Automated Agriculture
Steady, free food should be a right for all people. Everyone could grow food at home, but most don't because it's too much work. "Food First" means that we would use technology such as farmbot to take care of TVP members' gardens for them- and eventually produce an overabundance of food to freely give away. Some local ordinances will need to be changed to allow home gardening, which will require getting into politics. Alternately, we could seek farmland donations from people interested in assisting the project. While the current version of farmbot runs on a system of rails, an outdoor version would probably use wheels and raised beds. Each raised bed would contain an RFID chip that had information about it's position relative to the other raised beds, and farmbot would know what types of plants were inside. An interesting effect of knowing exactly where plants are is that you can plant "polycrops"- ecosystems of plants that work together in the way nature intended. With automation, Permaculture just got a whole lot easier. Every few days, a truck with several farmbots would pass by your house and take care of your gardens for you. Even the harvest could be done automatically. While in the beginning people would need to volunteer to drive the truck, self-driving vehicles could later make their daily rounds unattended.
When it comes to meat and dairy needs, automatic farming can shine too. Any farmer in the rural areas of town who wanted to join the project would be welcome to donate their time and resources. As technology improves, even this would become unnecessary. Chicken production is already largely automated, and automated dairy farms have already been tested out. In keeping with the "waste nothing" ethos of a RBE, even the lawn clippings from grass would be used to feed cows and goats. Of course, the lawnmowers would be electric so the grass wouldn't become tainted with gasoline. Localized food production will allow members to save money on groceries.
All Hail The Sharing Economy!
One of the core tenets of a RBE has always been "Access Abundance"- the idea that everyone really doesn't need one of everything. We see sharing services such as Taskrabbit and Lyft exploding in popularity. Tool lending libraries are starting to pop up in cities all over the globe. But what's been missing is a free and open source alternative that allows communities to easily set up trust networks. Like many of the things we need, it already exists.
Meat Joatu.
Short for "Jack of All Trades Universe", Joatu is an open-source community marketplace you can use to exchange nearly anything you can think of. With Joatu, you can keep track of your trades and build a reputation- all without using money. It's purpose is to build "vibrant communities", and with a little on-the-ground promotion, I think it can work.
Localized Manufacturing and Closed-Loop Recycling
This is the big one. Obviously, the goal of a RBE is "zero waste"- getting the most out of every product from cradle to grave. The Venus Society in each city would live by this principle: "Waste Nothing, Want Nothing". In practice, this means that everything would be "kept in the system", recycled, and used to make new products. You can call it "Trash to Treasure" if you want.
Every member's home would have a special trash can with several holes in it. In reality, this is a recycling bin. One hole is for paper waste, another is for metals, yet another is for plastic and the last is for "Organic" Waste. I don't see glass being used that often, but if it is it could have it's own hole too.
When the "trashman" comes, the entire trashcan is taken and a new, clean one provided. At the processing facility, waste is seperated for reuse:
Paper, Wood and organic waste is used for biofuel.
Plastic is melted and formed into filaments for 3-D printing new products
Metals are separated and go into induction furnaces for reprocessing. Open Source Ecology already has most of this stuff covered, including the machine tools you'd need to build functioning products.
When you look at everything cities throw away, it becomes clear that if all that waste was constantly reused, cities would always have enough resources to support themselves.
In the beginning, you won't be able to make everything. Advanced components like computer chips and other technology is still too expensive to produce locally- if done the old fashioned way. However, using direct-write electron beam lithography, it's possible to create computer chips in your average university research lab. In advanced stages of RBE development, it'd make sense to crowdfund the purchase of an electron microscope and use it for semiconductor production.
Even with the limited variety of products you can make, there's still plenty you can do. You can manufacture clothing, chairs, cups, bears- just take a look at Thingverse and let your imagination run wild!
And as always, an equal share of goods will be distributed freely to all members at no charge. Read below for more info.
How will you distribute goods?
That's a very good question. In a resource based economy, everyone will be entitled to an equal share in the world's production. This is a birthright, and it isn't transferrable or up for sale. But what does that mean? You can't just give everyone a chair if you produce 7 billion chairs monthly- some people won't want a chair, they might want something else entirely, or nothing at all.
It's here that the ideas of "RBE" and "UBI" collide. An equal share in the world's production could more appropriately be called an equal share in the value of the world's production. How would we allocate this? You guessed it: "money". But in sociocapitalism, money has a vastly different purpose than it has today. For one, these credits can only be used to buy goods- and once the goods are bought, they are destroyed. (The market for services uses social capital.) There would be a finite amount of credits too- exactly enough to buy all the goods on the store shelves. No more inflation, period.
What's more interesting than the credits themselves is the price system. How, exactly do we determine how much a particular good should cost? While it would be easy to do this at the local level, it definitely would be harder at the global level. Some people argue that a "free market" is the only way to do this, but I disagree. The free market as it is today leaves out many of the bigger costs, like the incredible damage to the environment and public health. Higher crime, corruption and even terrorism isn't accounted for either. The most important thing of all, the cost in human lives is also given no value. Externalizing all of these costs can only harm society at large.
When we think of "cost", we usually think of money and the price system. Price is an important way to allocate scarce goods, no doubt- but deciding who lives and who dies based on who has the most pieces of paper with funny pictures on them isn't just stupid, it's inhumane. So can we separate "price" from "money"? Of course we can.
Let's start with the basics: A resource-based economy is an economy based on resources. Simple enough, right? So we want to always keep a running total of how many resources are available, and compare those amounts. We'll call this "Scarcity", and the higher the scarcity of something, the higher the price. Scarcity can be measured based on available supply of an item vs the demand.
Next, we need to calculate the "Labour" that goes into producing a product, and since labour is just Time x Energy, both of these values are directly measurable in seconds and joules, respectively. So for a computer, we will measure how much time it takes for us to gather the necessary raw materials, manufacture the final product, and most importantly, ship it to your destination. We'll also measure how much energy it took to extract the raw materials, run the machines and transport them to the store.* This gives a great incentives** towards designing methods of production that use less time and energy. There's no doubt that this final number will be large, maybe in the millions- so we'll want to divide it by 1000, or any number that makes the final price human-readable.
Price = Scarcity x Time x Energy
*An important note about energy: For "natural" products that grow on trees or inside animals, the energy only includes what it took to prepare and transport the finished product for sale. Direct solar energy is always free.
It would be a ridiculous idea to get rid of prices and money altogether, and by reworking them we can design a stable system with little to no inflation or externalized costs.
**Most of this really falls under "Economics", but the question of how you motivate people to innovate and improve society when everything is free is a good one. Although it's been proven that money is a bad motivator, saying that people will work just for the joy of it isn't satisfactory to most people. They have a good reason to be skeptical- communism failed because people were paid the same for doing terrible work.
In this case, things are very different. While everyone receives the same amount of good credits monthly, nothing is stopping them from earning social capital by doing things for other people. In this sense, social capital is a lot like today's money. If you invent a new industrial process that saves time and energy, you will receive all the saved good credits for a year.
So why this, and why now?
By growing food and manufacturing products locally, you are bringing a small-scale version of an RBE to life. You won't be able to produce everything you need at first, and that's okay. It's about taking real steps towards sustainability. There is absolutely no need to go out and buy large tracts of land to produce communes- besides being remote, most new "intentional communities" don't survive because taking care of them is too much work, or they lack a steady income stream. It would only be wise to establish new cities once we have the proper technology to care for them. This is why getting people who can help develop the technology is so important, and why we will eventually need to find investors.
Monday, February 16, 2015
New Technology: Payband
January 1, 2028 - Just outside of Chicago, Illinois
It's a cold day outside, and winter is in full swing. The party ended a few hours ago and it was finally time to go home. Thanks to automated vehicles, you didn't have to worry about being safe to drive- but your smartphone was broken so you couldn't hail one. Shivering, you walk down the street and come to a bus stop. You look down, disappointed. You still have 5 more miles to go, and you can barely walk as it is. The forecast says it's going to get even colder within the hour. Luckily, the city's transit system is always on time. Within a few minutes, a large white vehicle smoothly glides to a stop in front of you. To your surprise, it has no wheels! It's a hovercraft, and it floats on air instead. You want to ride, but you don't have any money in your pocket. Ten years ago, you'd be in big trouble.
Luckily, you don't need money anymore. You wave your wrist in front of the payment terminal and grab a seat- your bracelet takes care of the rest. It fits snugly, and is completely customized. From the color to the style, everything was made just for you. The band may be small, but inside lies amazing technology that lets you pay for things with the flick of a wrist. No more fumbling around for loose change and dropping dollar bills, no more worrying about money being lost or stolen. The best thing about your paybracelet is that it only works for you. Besides remembering your unique biological signature, your bracelet is linked with your handprint- something that's unique to every individual and nearly impossible to fake. Using palm-vein scanning technology, whenever you go to the store to buy something, all you'll have to do is wave your hand over the palm reader. No PIN numbers, no secret codes. There's nothing to remember or write down so there's nothing to steal. You also don't need to touch anything, which will help prevent the spread of germs.
Palm-Vein Scanning
Biological Signature with Nymi
That's not all. It may be called a "payband", but this bracelet can do much, much more than just pay for your drink. In a resource based economy, your payband is your lifeline and best friend. It's not just for young people or old people- it's for everyone. Using your wristband, you will be able to sign in to websites, unlock doors, cars and even your home. Lost keys, just like money will become a thing of the past. You'll be able to meet up with other members of your tribe and form groups just by tapping your bands together. Your bracelet will constantly monitor your health and wellbeing, along with providing location data to your tribe's emergency center. Thanks to the two-way nature of privacy, you will always be able to see who is accessing your data and where they are. Unlike government, if a tribe is not respecting your privacy you can fire them and choose another one! The pressure of competition will naturally lead tribes to find new ways to protect privacy. Still, in case something goes wrong, you will be able to get help at the push of a button- and the police or ambulance will know exactly where you are, wherever you are. Speak into the bracelet's microphone and let them know what's wrong. Fire, heart attack, sudden fall, or downed power lines; Every second counts in an emergency, and this bracelet will undoubtedly save countless lives.
The bracelet can measure your blood pressure, heart rate, nerve function and galvanic skin response. If you place it on your chest (like a stethoscope) it can also measure your breathing rate. While the bracelet itself won't have any screens, you will be able to wirelessly connect it to your smartphone to view data and send money. Did I mention it's completely waterproof?
What about the batteries? None needed. No charging time required. Thanks to the magic of piezoelectricity, simply walking around or shaking the bracelet will be enough to power it. To supplement the piezoelectric generator, flexible solar panels will wrap all the way around the edges of the bracelet in order to power it.
http://www.gizmag.com/wearable-thermoelectric-generator/31617/
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/solarhug-bracelet-solar-powered-external-backup-battery-19-12-2014/
Payments
These bracelets use harmless NFC and RFID tags to communicate to payment readers. Like today's smart cards, they also contain a low-power microchip. If you tap your bracelet with any phone, a digital ID will pop up, giving you easy identity verification.
"Lollapalooza goes cashless"
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/lollapalooza-goes-cashless-digital-wristbands-158661
"Bpay contactless payment system"
http://www.barclaycard.com/news/bpay-band-launches.html
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150220000004&cid=1204
Fitness and Health Band
http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/27/the-mood-ring-gets-its-quantified-self-update-with-the-wme-wristband/
https://jawbone.com/blog/up3-wearable-heart-rate-monitor/
As you can see, while the idea may sound farfetched, bracelets like this already exist! We only need to bring the separate functions together.
It's a cold day outside, and winter is in full swing. The party ended a few hours ago and it was finally time to go home. Thanks to automated vehicles, you didn't have to worry about being safe to drive- but your smartphone was broken so you couldn't hail one. Shivering, you walk down the street and come to a bus stop. You look down, disappointed. You still have 5 more miles to go, and you can barely walk as it is. The forecast says it's going to get even colder within the hour. Luckily, the city's transit system is always on time. Within a few minutes, a large white vehicle smoothly glides to a stop in front of you. To your surprise, it has no wheels! It's a hovercraft, and it floats on air instead. You want to ride, but you don't have any money in your pocket. Ten years ago, you'd be in big trouble.
Luckily, you don't need money anymore. You wave your wrist in front of the payment terminal and grab a seat- your bracelet takes care of the rest. It fits snugly, and is completely customized. From the color to the style, everything was made just for you. The band may be small, but inside lies amazing technology that lets you pay for things with the flick of a wrist. No more fumbling around for loose change and dropping dollar bills, no more worrying about money being lost or stolen. The best thing about your paybracelet is that it only works for you. Besides remembering your unique biological signature, your bracelet is linked with your handprint- something that's unique to every individual and nearly impossible to fake. Using palm-vein scanning technology, whenever you go to the store to buy something, all you'll have to do is wave your hand over the palm reader. No PIN numbers, no secret codes. There's nothing to remember or write down so there's nothing to steal. You also don't need to touch anything, which will help prevent the spread of germs.
Palm-Vein Scanning
Vein scanning is much more secure than using fingerprints or facial recognition, because the veins are *inside* your body. Unlike your fingerprint, which can be lifted from any flat surface, it's nearly impossible to counterfeit your hand-vein pattern.
That's not all. It may be called a "payband", but this bracelet can do much, much more than just pay for your drink. In a resource based economy, your payband is your lifeline and best friend. It's not just for young people or old people- it's for everyone. Using your wristband, you will be able to sign in to websites, unlock doors, cars and even your home. Lost keys, just like money will become a thing of the past. You'll be able to meet up with other members of your tribe and form groups just by tapping your bands together. Your bracelet will constantly monitor your health and wellbeing, along with providing location data to your tribe's emergency center. Thanks to the two-way nature of privacy, you will always be able to see who is accessing your data and where they are. Unlike government, if a tribe is not respecting your privacy you can fire them and choose another one! The pressure of competition will naturally lead tribes to find new ways to protect privacy. Still, in case something goes wrong, you will be able to get help at the push of a button- and the police or ambulance will know exactly where you are, wherever you are. Speak into the bracelet's microphone and let them know what's wrong. Fire, heart attack, sudden fall, or downed power lines; Every second counts in an emergency, and this bracelet will undoubtedly save countless lives.
The bracelet can measure your blood pressure, heart rate, nerve function and galvanic skin response. If you place it on your chest (like a stethoscope) it can also measure your breathing rate. While the bracelet itself won't have any screens, you will be able to wirelessly connect it to your smartphone to view data and send money. Did I mention it's completely waterproof?
What about the batteries? None needed. No charging time required. Thanks to the magic of piezoelectricity, simply walking around or shaking the bracelet will be enough to power it. To supplement the piezoelectric generator, flexible solar panels will wrap all the way around the edges of the bracelet in order to power it.
http://www.gizmag.com/wearable-thermoelectric-generator/31617/
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/solarhug-bracelet-solar-powered-external-backup-battery-19-12-2014/
Payments
These bracelets use harmless NFC and RFID tags to communicate to payment readers. Like today's smart cards, they also contain a low-power microchip. If you tap your bracelet with any phone, a digital ID will pop up, giving you easy identity verification.
"Lollapalooza goes cashless"
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/lollapalooza-goes-cashless-digital-wristbands-158661
"Bpay contactless payment system"
http://www.barclaycard.com/news/bpay-band-launches.html
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150220000004&cid=1204
Fitness and Health Band
http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/27/the-mood-ring-gets-its-quantified-self-update-with-the-wme-wristband/
https://jawbone.com/blog/up3-wearable-heart-rate-monitor/
As you can see, while the idea may sound farfetched, bracelets like this already exist! We only need to bring the separate functions together.
Measuring Social Capital
From here: http://fueledbyfriendship.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-is-sociocapitalism.html
We're living in a digital world. This generation spends more time online than ever before, and parents often think of it as a waste. But instead, what if spending time online connecting with your friends was a way to earn money? Think about it. You post videos to Youtube, say funny things on Twitter and upload amazing pictures to Instagram. All these are examples of things that add value to society- yet we don't get paid a penny for them. I'm sure you're laughing right now. "Me retweeting that funny cat video isn't worth anything" you think. But it does. Facebook and Twitter make millions because of the community we built, but an artist who spends hours painting pictures on Deviantart doesn't make a dime.
Why? Doesn't creativity count? Tsu is on the right track by giving their users a portion of the advertising revenue they bring in, but why not take it further? In today's world, views and likes are a new form of social currency. They're a status symbol and a harbinger of digital wealth, a quick snapshot of what the world thinks of you. No longer do we look to see if you have fancy watches or cars, we check how many subscribers you have on Youtube, or how much karma you have on Reddit. What if we could take this snapshot with us, wherever we go?
This is social capital- the inherent value found in what you do and who you know. Until today, there was no direct way of measuring it. Thanks to the internet, that's changed. We have the ability to harness massive amounts of data and gain insights into a person's trustworthiness, responsiveness and more. It's a near future where your reputation is gold- giving you access to free goods and services from others. Your social capital will allow other people to trust you, and it'll let you trust other people. We already are starting to see baby steps towards reputation-ranking services such as reputation.com and trustcloud, but we're still waiting on something that will bring all your data together. Today, your Ebay seller score, your Airbnb trust ranking and Uber score are each separated into walled gardens. Tomorrow that won't be the case- your reputation and social ranking will be easily accessible on a single page, and constantly grow each time you "buy" a good or service from someone else. Of course you won't actually need to buy anything, because thanks to automation everything is free in a resource-based-economy.
In order to directly calculate how much social capital someone has, it's necessary to use an algorithm. This formula will evaluate the depth and strength of a person's human relationships, along with how widely their influence reaches. While using social media to determine the amount of social capital someone has can never capture everything they do, currently it's the only way to directly measure how much society values someone without resorting to intrusive surveys or subjective value judgments.
Keeping in mind what social capital is (the collective value of a human's social networks), we can separate this value into two broad categories:
"Depth"- The strength and intensity of someone's relationships.
"Breadth"- How many relationships someone has or how far their influence reaches.
A great example of this difference would be comparing someone who has a few, very close friends to an internet celebrity who has millions of casually engaged followers she rarely speaks to. In order for a relationship to be "deep", it needs to be reciprocal- I have to return your favors. Measuring depth is much harder than measuring breadth, because while you can easily count the followers or unique views a person has to see how widely their influence reaches, it's a lot harder to measure how intense a relationship is. Both are equally important when it comes to evaluating social capital.
The four types of online relationships.
Deep + Narrow: Someone with a small circle of friends who are deeply engaged with each other, or highly interested in a single topic/range of topics.
Shallow + Narrow: All new website users start here- with a shallow or nonexistent circle of friends, and a microscopic influence.
Deep + Broad: Comparatively rare, this is a person with a large following who regularly interacts with their fanbase.
Shallow + Broad: The initial example of an internet celebrity who rarely "Gets into the comments" and talks to fans.
These can apply to communities as much as they can apply to people.
Social capital is earned whenever someone likes, views, shares or otherwise positively interacts with content you produce on the web. It's also produced when you form deep friendships with other people. It's lost when these friendships are broken. This isn't limited to social networks as we know them today, but specialty websites such as art portfolios, design catalogs and even video games can all count towards your earnings. In order to distinguish actual views from fake activity, only activity that's done while a user is "signed in" with a specific account will be counted. Needless to say, a person can only have one "money" account per website that's connected to their true identity.
When we want to actually add up the amount of views and likes a person receives, immediately there's a problem: How much are they worth? Obviously likes aren't worth as much as subscribers, but exactly how much more they are worth varies. For our purposes we will use this scale.
1 point- a like or a view.
2 points- an add (to a collection) or favorite.
5 points- a share or a comment.
10 points- a new subscriber/friend/use of a product or service.*
Each time something you create is used in a new invention or product created by someone else you will earn 10 points. For physical inventions this reward continues each time the product is bought, for virtual products it only occurs once. So if you create a new kind of component used in a smartphone, and 10 million of those phones are bought, you then earn 100 million points. If you create a song and it's used in 10 million other videos (unlikely, but it happens), that counts for 10 million points.
Some notes:
The total value of all social capital is limited to twice the value of the basic income provided to everyone each month. The percentage of social capital each person earns monthly determines how many BI credits or T-Notes it's worth.
*Partial Social Capital will never be given, the amount will be rounded up or down.
One somewhat important aspect of social capital is that it accumulates- but not over time. If you get people with a lot of Social Capital to talk to you, it will increase your social capital too. In general this means that if a person with a lot of followers follows you your social capital will grow as if their followers followed you as well. If someone with a lot of favorites favorites your tweet, the effect will be the same. This will not show up publicly on your profile, and you will not be able to transfer this effect to others. Still, this will be a big help to smaller accounts just getting off the ground.
While that's fine for measuring the breadth of someones' social reach, it's not enough for deriving the depth.
To do this, we must consider what makes a good friendship. Time is definitely one thing- You generally get to know people better the longer you know them. Frequency is also nice to have- You'd like a friend to contact you often so you can talk to each other and have real conversations. Reciprocity is the third and arguably most important- if you do something for a friend, you would like if they did something for you at some point in the future.
Keeping this in mind, we can devise a simple scale based on reciprocity and the average amount of it found on a specific network. "0" will be the average amount of reciprocity, while "100" will be complete reciprocity (every time someone watches you, retweets you, you watch and retweet back). If your levels of reciprocity are less than the average, your score will be negative and it can actually take away from your social capital. No "friendship" will begin until those involved have mutually followed each other on any platform.
Here's how we will handle each of these three quantities.
Time- How long have you been mutual friends with someone? This one is very straightforward. We would just measure the amount of time it's been since you followed someone, and use it to compute the next value. Time is not measured on it's own 0-100 scale.
Frequency: How often do you speak to your friend? How much time do you spend communicating with them? This includes the time spent typing messages and voice chat. Compare this to the average on the 0-100 scale.
Reciprocity: How often do you return the behavior of others? This is in general, not just for friends. If someone leaves a comment on your post, do you comment on theirs? If someone watches you, do you watch back? How much time do you spend on your friend's profile compared to how much time they spend on yours? There are many more possible questions, and reciprocity could be applied to any social behavior.
Zero is average reciprocity, and 100 is total reciprocity. Most people will fall somewhere in between.
Engagement: What percentage of your audience regularly interacts with you? If that interaction is reciprocal, it's value is doubled. 0%-100%
What do we do with these values?
Simple. "Depth" acts as a multiplying factor that levels the playing field between those with a lot of social capital, and those with little. It screens out people with a ton of followers who do nothing, while rewarding those who have active and devoted followings of any size. It can have a value anywhere between -100% and +100%, and this percentage is multiplied with your "breadth" score in order to increase or decrease it. For example, if you start off with a breadth score of 23000 and have a "depth" score of -17%, your final score will be 23000 -(.17 x 23000) = 19090. Only negative depth scores lower your total, zero or positive percentages will have no effect or increase it, respectively.
Depth is calculated by adding your Frequency, Reciprocity and Engagement values together, then dividing them by three.
Distributing and Tallying Social Capital
Social capital is measured and distributed on a monthly basis. In order to prevent rampant inflation, unused social capital from a previous month cannot be used next month. There's a simple reason for that: Likes and views aren't scarce. Me liking your tweet doesn't mean there are less likes in the world. If these likes accumulated, existing social capital would rapidly decrease in value. It's the change in social capital that truly counts, and while the total amount of social capital you've accumulated throughout time would be visible on your reputation profile, you would only be allowed to access the amount you earned in the past month.
There is one way to cash in your excess social capital though, and that's turning it into T-notes issued by tribes. Unlike SC, Tribes can be saved over time by using them to buy tangible objects. If you want to buy more stuff, you can simply offer your social capital for sale, and someone will give you other things in return. Remember, everyone receives an equal amount of good credits monthly but the amount of social capital you can earn is unlimited.
Calculating the amount of social capital someone has earned is easy, and will be done automatically: Just add the total views, watches and shares they received across all platforms they use, plug in their relative market values and multiply this by the "depth" score. Tribes are in control of this process and run the markets.
The total value of all social capital does not change in a month, rather it exists as a "pool". This pool of wealth is always equal to the value of all basic income and tokens added together. This pool is then split up according to who earned how many points that month.
If the pool of wealth to be distributed sat at "100" credits/month, and there were only two people in the economy with one earning 50 points and the other 200 points, the first would take home 20 credits and the second 80.
Today's social networks are inadequate for this purpose, so new ones would need to be created. They preferably would follow this charter:
We're living in a digital world. This generation spends more time online than ever before, and parents often think of it as a waste. But instead, what if spending time online connecting with your friends was a way to earn money? Think about it. You post videos to Youtube, say funny things on Twitter and upload amazing pictures to Instagram. All these are examples of things that add value to society- yet we don't get paid a penny for them. I'm sure you're laughing right now. "Me retweeting that funny cat video isn't worth anything" you think. But it does. Facebook and Twitter make millions because of the community we built, but an artist who spends hours painting pictures on Deviantart doesn't make a dime.
Why? Doesn't creativity count? Tsu is on the right track by giving their users a portion of the advertising revenue they bring in, but why not take it further? In today's world, views and likes are a new form of social currency. They're a status symbol and a harbinger of digital wealth, a quick snapshot of what the world thinks of you. No longer do we look to see if you have fancy watches or cars, we check how many subscribers you have on Youtube, or how much karma you have on Reddit. What if we could take this snapshot with us, wherever we go?
This is social capital- the inherent value found in what you do and who you know. Until today, there was no direct way of measuring it. Thanks to the internet, that's changed. We have the ability to harness massive amounts of data and gain insights into a person's trustworthiness, responsiveness and more. It's a near future where your reputation is gold- giving you access to free goods and services from others. Your social capital will allow other people to trust you, and it'll let you trust other people. We already are starting to see baby steps towards reputation-ranking services such as reputation.com and trustcloud, but we're still waiting on something that will bring all your data together. Today, your Ebay seller score, your Airbnb trust ranking and Uber score are each separated into walled gardens. Tomorrow that won't be the case- your reputation and social ranking will be easily accessible on a single page, and constantly grow each time you "buy" a good or service from someone else. Of course you won't actually need to buy anything, because thanks to automation everything is free in a resource-based-economy.
In order to directly calculate how much social capital someone has, it's necessary to use an algorithm. This formula will evaluate the depth and strength of a person's human relationships, along with how widely their influence reaches. While using social media to determine the amount of social capital someone has can never capture everything they do, currently it's the only way to directly measure how much society values someone without resorting to intrusive surveys or subjective value judgments.
Keeping in mind what social capital is (the collective value of a human's social networks), we can separate this value into two broad categories:
"Depth"- The strength and intensity of someone's relationships.
"Breadth"- How many relationships someone has or how far their influence reaches.
A great example of this difference would be comparing someone who has a few, very close friends to an internet celebrity who has millions of casually engaged followers she rarely speaks to. In order for a relationship to be "deep", it needs to be reciprocal- I have to return your favors. Measuring depth is much harder than measuring breadth, because while you can easily count the followers or unique views a person has to see how widely their influence reaches, it's a lot harder to measure how intense a relationship is. Both are equally important when it comes to evaluating social capital.
The four types of online relationships.
Deep + Narrow: Someone with a small circle of friends who are deeply engaged with each other, or highly interested in a single topic/range of topics.
Shallow + Narrow: All new website users start here- with a shallow or nonexistent circle of friends, and a microscopic influence.
Deep + Broad: Comparatively rare, this is a person with a large following who regularly interacts with their fanbase.
Shallow + Broad: The initial example of an internet celebrity who rarely "Gets into the comments" and talks to fans.
These can apply to communities as much as they can apply to people.
Social capital is earned whenever someone likes, views, shares or otherwise positively interacts with content you produce on the web. It's also produced when you form deep friendships with other people. It's lost when these friendships are broken. This isn't limited to social networks as we know them today, but specialty websites such as art portfolios, design catalogs and even video games can all count towards your earnings. In order to distinguish actual views from fake activity, only activity that's done while a user is "signed in" with a specific account will be counted. Needless to say, a person can only have one "money" account per website that's connected to their true identity.
1 point- a like or a view.
2 points- an add (to a collection) or favorite.
5 points- a share or a comment.
10 points- a new subscriber/friend/use of a product or service.*
Each time something you create is used in a new invention or product created by someone else you will earn 10 points. For physical inventions this reward continues each time the product is bought, for virtual products it only occurs once. So if you create a new kind of component used in a smartphone, and 10 million of those phones are bought, you then earn 100 million points. If you create a song and it's used in 10 million other videos (unlikely, but it happens), that counts for 10 million points.
Some notes:
The total value of all social capital is limited to twice the value of the basic income provided to everyone each month. The percentage of social capital each person earns monthly determines how many BI credits or T-Notes it's worth.
*Partial Social Capital will never be given, the amount will be rounded up or down.
One somewhat important aspect of social capital is that it accumulates- but not over time. If you get people with a lot of Social Capital to talk to you, it will increase your social capital too. In general this means that if a person with a lot of followers follows you your social capital will grow as if their followers followed you as well. If someone with a lot of favorites favorites your tweet, the effect will be the same. This will not show up publicly on your profile, and you will not be able to transfer this effect to others. Still, this will be a big help to smaller accounts just getting off the ground.
While that's fine for measuring the breadth of someones' social reach, it's not enough for deriving the depth.
To do this, we must consider what makes a good friendship. Time is definitely one thing- You generally get to know people better the longer you know them. Frequency is also nice to have- You'd like a friend to contact you often so you can talk to each other and have real conversations. Reciprocity is the third and arguably most important- if you do something for a friend, you would like if they did something for you at some point in the future.
Keeping this in mind, we can devise a simple scale based on reciprocity and the average amount of it found on a specific network. "0" will be the average amount of reciprocity, while "100" will be complete reciprocity (every time someone watches you, retweets you, you watch and retweet back). If your levels of reciprocity are less than the average, your score will be negative and it can actually take away from your social capital. No "friendship" will begin until those involved have mutually followed each other on any platform.
Here's how we will handle each of these three quantities.
Time- How long have you been mutual friends with someone? This one is very straightforward. We would just measure the amount of time it's been since you followed someone, and use it to compute the next value. Time is not measured on it's own 0-100 scale.
Frequency: How often do you speak to your friend? How much time do you spend communicating with them? This includes the time spent typing messages and voice chat. Compare this to the average on the 0-100 scale.
Reciprocity: How often do you return the behavior of others? This is in general, not just for friends. If someone leaves a comment on your post, do you comment on theirs? If someone watches you, do you watch back? How much time do you spend on your friend's profile compared to how much time they spend on yours? There are many more possible questions, and reciprocity could be applied to any social behavior.
Zero is average reciprocity, and 100 is total reciprocity. Most people will fall somewhere in between.
Engagement: What percentage of your audience regularly interacts with you? If that interaction is reciprocal, it's value is doubled. 0%-100%
What do we do with these values?
Simple. "Depth" acts as a multiplying factor that levels the playing field between those with a lot of social capital, and those with little. It screens out people with a ton of followers who do nothing, while rewarding those who have active and devoted followings of any size. It can have a value anywhere between -100% and +100%, and this percentage is multiplied with your "breadth" score in order to increase or decrease it. For example, if you start off with a breadth score of 23000 and have a "depth" score of -17%, your final score will be 23000 -(.17 x 23000) = 19090. Only negative depth scores lower your total, zero or positive percentages will have no effect or increase it, respectively.
Depth is calculated by adding your Frequency, Reciprocity and Engagement values together, then dividing them by three.
Distributing and Tallying Social Capital
Social capital is measured and distributed on a monthly basis. In order to prevent rampant inflation, unused social capital from a previous month cannot be used next month. There's a simple reason for that: Likes and views aren't scarce. Me liking your tweet doesn't mean there are less likes in the world. If these likes accumulated, existing social capital would rapidly decrease in value. It's the change in social capital that truly counts, and while the total amount of social capital you've accumulated throughout time would be visible on your reputation profile, you would only be allowed to access the amount you earned in the past month.
There is one way to cash in your excess social capital though, and that's turning it into T-notes issued by tribes. Unlike SC, Tribes can be saved over time by using them to buy tangible objects. If you want to buy more stuff, you can simply offer your social capital for sale, and someone will give you other things in return. Remember, everyone receives an equal amount of good credits monthly but the amount of social capital you can earn is unlimited.
Calculating the amount of social capital someone has earned is easy, and will be done automatically: Just add the total views, watches and shares they received across all platforms they use, plug in their relative market values and multiply this by the "depth" score. Tribes are in control of this process and run the markets.
The total value of all social capital does not change in a month, rather it exists as a "pool". This pool of wealth is always equal to the value of all basic income and tokens added together. This pool is then split up according to who earned how many points that month.
If the pool of wealth to be distributed sat at "100" credits/month, and there were only two people in the economy with one earning 50 points and the other 200 points, the first would take home 20 credits and the second 80.
Today's social networks are inadequate for this purpose, so new ones would need to be created. They preferably would follow this charter:
Sunday, February 15, 2015
But What About the Rich and Powerful?
One of the biggest objections that comes up anytime a plan to improve the lives of the 99% is proposed is that "the rich and powerful will never let it happen".
Here's a secret: The rich and powerful are just like you and me. Ultimately they want a safe world, they want to be loved, to protect their family.. They don't see themselves as selfish, they see themselves as merely guarding their rightfully-earned wealth. If you were in their position, i'm sure you would do the exact same thing. It's hard to let go of something that's defined you for so long- and if any plan like this is to move forward, activists must come to grips with the fact that the rich will not let go of their assets without receiving something in return.
The issue then, is compensation. How will the wealthy be compensated for allowing their riches and resources to be used for the common good in a moneyless society? The answer is very simple: Power. Money isn't the only type of wealth there is- there's social capital, knowledge and even political. Wealth will never be taken or redistributed- merely transformed. This voluntary approach is what sets sociocapitalism apart from all previous attempts and makes it far easier to get more people on board. .
Those who decide to donate their resources to the project will be fully compensated with a proportional say over how those resources are used. This means that depending on how much you give, you will get more votes, and these votes are transferable to any TVS tribe on earth. Not only will real assets like land and machines be valued, but cash-in-bank, bonds and stock will count too. Nobody will lose a dime by supporting the transition. In the case of corporations, governments and large organizations, their wealth will be split up and handed to shareholders or citizens. Keep in mind that since money is digital, we will not have to "raise enough money" to do this. We will just create it- possibly in the form of a cryptocurrency. Our money will not be backed by faith, it will be backed by the resources of those who believe in this project.
The more you give to support the transition, the more power and control you get in return, and better yet these votes can be handed down through generations or split up, unlike delegative votes. They can be sold and traded like corporate stock. Even better, tribes pay dividends to their citizens.
But wait a minute! Doesn't this sound a lot like one dollar, one vote!? That's not very democratic!
Calm down, it's okay. Remember U.S. History and the great compromise? Sociocapitalism respects the one person, one vote principle in exactly the same way. While tribes are purely economic entities, cities follow the one person, one vote principle. They share two separate but overlapping domains as one is always a part of both a city and a tribe at the same time. You can read a lot more about the way government is structured here.
After their resources have been donated, they will be placed under the control of the global assembly via local production districts- (ones they have a large stake in). This foundation will work tirelessly to research and develop new technologies while advancing the aims of the project. Over time, less people would need to work and could quit their jobs with all their needs provided for. Once the project has been completed, everyone will receive an equal share of the world's production. See "economy" for more details.
In the meantime, most people would be allowed to continue living as usual. Farmers would keep farming, factories would keep producing- all "donating" really means is that you're ready to automate and produce goods for the RBE when the time comes and the technology is ready, which shouldn't take too long.
Many of today's rich are self-made people like you and I- and most have a philanthropic heart. Even if they don't want to part with all their wealth, by guaranteeing them a permanent stake in the future of society and the ability to sway events worldwide, the large majority of them would jump at the chance. Far from being a mere donation, it would be an investment in the future. Instead of fearing this change, the wealthy would welcome it.
Here's a secret: The rich and powerful are just like you and me. Ultimately they want a safe world, they want to be loved, to protect their family.. They don't see themselves as selfish, they see themselves as merely guarding their rightfully-earned wealth. If you were in their position, i'm sure you would do the exact same thing. It's hard to let go of something that's defined you for so long- and if any plan like this is to move forward, activists must come to grips with the fact that the rich will not let go of their assets without receiving something in return.
The issue then, is compensation. How will the wealthy be compensated for allowing their riches and resources to be used for the common good in a moneyless society? The answer is very simple: Power. Money isn't the only type of wealth there is- there's social capital, knowledge and even political. Wealth will never be taken or redistributed- merely transformed. This voluntary approach is what sets sociocapitalism apart from all previous attempts and makes it far easier to get more people on board. .
Those who decide to donate their resources to the project will be fully compensated with a proportional say over how those resources are used. This means that depending on how much you give, you will get more votes, and these votes are transferable to any TVS tribe on earth. Not only will real assets like land and machines be valued, but cash-in-bank, bonds and stock will count too. Nobody will lose a dime by supporting the transition. In the case of corporations, governments and large organizations, their wealth will be split up and handed to shareholders or citizens. Keep in mind that since money is digital, we will not have to "raise enough money" to do this. We will just create it- possibly in the form of a cryptocurrency. Our money will not be backed by faith, it will be backed by the resources of those who believe in this project.
The more you give to support the transition, the more power and control you get in return, and better yet these votes can be handed down through generations or split up, unlike delegative votes. They can be sold and traded like corporate stock. Even better, tribes pay dividends to their citizens.
But wait a minute! Doesn't this sound a lot like one dollar, one vote!? That's not very democratic!
Calm down, it's okay. Remember U.S. History and the great compromise? Sociocapitalism respects the one person, one vote principle in exactly the same way. While tribes are purely economic entities, cities follow the one person, one vote principle. They share two separate but overlapping domains as one is always a part of both a city and a tribe at the same time. You can read a lot more about the way government is structured here.
After their resources have been donated, they will be placed under the control of the global assembly via local production districts- (ones they have a large stake in). This foundation will work tirelessly to research and develop new technologies while advancing the aims of the project. Over time, less people would need to work and could quit their jobs with all their needs provided for. Once the project has been completed, everyone will receive an equal share of the world's production. See "economy" for more details.
In the meantime, most people would be allowed to continue living as usual. Farmers would keep farming, factories would keep producing- all "donating" really means is that you're ready to automate and produce goods for the RBE when the time comes and the technology is ready, which shouldn't take too long.
Many of today's rich are self-made people like you and I- and most have a philanthropic heart. Even if they don't want to part with all their wealth, by guaranteeing them a permanent stake in the future of society and the ability to sway events worldwide, the large majority of them would jump at the chance. Far from being a mere donation, it would be an investment in the future. Instead of fearing this change, the wealthy would welcome it.
Resource Based Economy
A resource-based economy is a new kind of economy where the world's resources are used for the betterment of mankind, instead the profit of a few. Originally a Jacque Fresco proposal as part of The Venus Project, his work has greatly inspired Sociocapitalism.
RBE is a brilliant and intuitive solution to the world's problems. It states the obvious: We don't need money, we need the things that money can buy. Of course, the problem with money is that a lot of people don't have enough, so they starve. Or get sick and can't afford medical treatment when there are empty hospitals right next door. This is brilliantly illustrated by the homeless population of the world: We have more vacant houses than homeless people! If a group of people stranded on a desert island had all the money in the world, but no water, food or shelter, they would not survive. Unfortunately, it's often in life-or-death situations that people learn you can't eat money. When someone is given 6 months to live or loses a family member, suddenly the things that truly matter in life hit them like a freight train.
Money- doesn't exist. Banks and governments create it out of thin air. No matter what you believe, gay or straight, atheist or muslim- you need the basics of human life in order to survive, and because you live on this planet you are entitled to them. This is something everyone should agree with.
However, there is a fatal flaw in his suggestion: The idea that we should get rid of all forms of money. "Money" is only a tool, and it can be used in many different ways. One of the more cogent proposals i've seen has come from Perry Gruber of Copiosis, in which "money" would only be used to reward good behaviors. I've incorporated this into Sociocapitalism as well.
The gist of the RBE idea is that, with increasing automation of labor, goods and services can be made for free. While this is true, money is still needed to keep track of goods and prevent cost/price overruns. If everything were free, it is highly likely that someone would take too much, not leaving enough for others- and producing enough to cover these losses would only lead to even more amounts of waste than we have today. I've invented a new price system that will allow for goods to be provided at no long-term-cost to consumers, which is discussed further here.
In a resource-based economy, goods are provided for free and the earth's resources are managed by a coalition of global societies called tribes. A enormous network of supercomputers exists to keep track of these resources and provide bio-feedback from the environment. Today, we have the computing power and all necessary technology to make this happen. We just don't have the "money". A resource-based economy will base decisions not on who can make the most money, but the most wealth- defining wealth as improving the common health of all mankind.
Imagine everything we could do if money was no object. We could build cities in the sea, sail the stars, and wipe out world hunger- permanently. We could even find ways to cure currently fatal diseases like ALS. Everyone could be provided with a lifestyle only the wealthy live today, at no cost. This isn't the dream of a mad scientist, it's legitimately possible and has been researched for over 75 years.
Still, decisions will need to be made by humans, which are fallible. The good news is that this isn't a soviet command economy. Production is dynamically matched to demand. All this means is that if you order a pair of shoes, your account will be deducted and your shoes will be created for you, on demand. Production is as localized as possible, with factories being dispersed in every region. The goal is to have noone live more than an hour away from a regional production and distribution centre.
So, is this a "moneyless society"? No. We just change the rules of money so that money works for everyone instead of a few.
RBE is a brilliant and intuitive solution to the world's problems. It states the obvious: We don't need money, we need the things that money can buy. Of course, the problem with money is that a lot of people don't have enough, so they starve. Or get sick and can't afford medical treatment when there are empty hospitals right next door. This is brilliantly illustrated by the homeless population of the world: We have more vacant houses than homeless people! If a group of people stranded on a desert island had all the money in the world, but no water, food or shelter, they would not survive. Unfortunately, it's often in life-or-death situations that people learn you can't eat money. When someone is given 6 months to live or loses a family member, suddenly the things that truly matter in life hit them like a freight train.
Money- doesn't exist. Banks and governments create it out of thin air. No matter what you believe, gay or straight, atheist or muslim- you need the basics of human life in order to survive, and because you live on this planet you are entitled to them. This is something everyone should agree with.
However, there is a fatal flaw in his suggestion: The idea that we should get rid of all forms of money. "Money" is only a tool, and it can be used in many different ways. One of the more cogent proposals i've seen has come from Perry Gruber of Copiosis, in which "money" would only be used to reward good behaviors. I've incorporated this into Sociocapitalism as well.
The gist of the RBE idea is that, with increasing automation of labor, goods and services can be made for free. While this is true, money is still needed to keep track of goods and prevent cost/price overruns. If everything were free, it is highly likely that someone would take too much, not leaving enough for others- and producing enough to cover these losses would only lead to even more amounts of waste than we have today. I've invented a new price system that will allow for goods to be provided at no long-term-cost to consumers, which is discussed further here.
In a resource-based economy, goods are provided for free and the earth's resources are managed by a coalition of global societies called tribes. A enormous network of supercomputers exists to keep track of these resources and provide bio-feedback from the environment. Today, we have the computing power and all necessary technology to make this happen. We just don't have the "money". A resource-based economy will base decisions not on who can make the most money, but the most wealth- defining wealth as improving the common health of all mankind.
Imagine everything we could do if money was no object. We could build cities in the sea, sail the stars, and wipe out world hunger- permanently. We could even find ways to cure currently fatal diseases like ALS. Everyone could be provided with a lifestyle only the wealthy live today, at no cost. This isn't the dream of a mad scientist, it's legitimately possible and has been researched for over 75 years.
Still, decisions will need to be made by humans, which are fallible. The good news is that this isn't a soviet command economy. Production is dynamically matched to demand. All this means is that if you order a pair of shoes, your account will be deducted and your shoes will be created for you, on demand. Production is as localized as possible, with factories being dispersed in every region. The goal is to have noone live more than an hour away from a regional production and distribution centre.
So, is this a "moneyless society"? No. We just change the rules of money so that money works for everyone instead of a few.
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