… When do we want it

 

… When do we want it

Building a Better Tomorrow

Introduction

This is the third in a series of three articles about building a future society. The first outlined our choices. The second article was about the type of society that I envision. And this last article is about how we could get there.

There are basically two main approaches to building a better future. We can either plan for the future and so we are ready for when the current system collapses or we can be pro-active and start building today.

Foundation

In the Foundation series, Asimov wrote about a post collapsed galactic civilisation. Before the collapse a mathematician by the name of Hari Seldon was able to predict the collapse using a method he called psychohistory. He also predicted that the coming dark age could be shortened if two foundation were established to preserve knowledge.

Today we face, I would argue, a situation of potential collapse as our current socioeconomic system is fundamentally unsustainable. But even so, there are forces at work that will try and preserve this current socioeconomic system. As a result, any attempt to move to an alternative substantial system will be thwarted, so the argument goes. Thus, all we can do today is set up “foundations” to preserve knowledge, prepare for a collapse, and then wait to the system collapses.

The “foundation” approach is basically the approach taken by Technocracy Inc. and The Venus Project (TVP). The idea goes, at least, back to Thorstein Veblen in his book “Engineers and the Price System”. In his book, Veblen proposed a Soviet of Technicians to take over the means of production in the US, but not by force, as he says :

“… and what will of necessity be the manner of organization which alone can hope to take over the industrial system, following the eventual abdication or dispossession of the Vested Interests and their absentee owners. And, by way of parenthesis, it is always the self-made though reluctant abdication of the Vested Interests and their absentee owners, rather than their forcible dispossession, that is to be looked for as a reasonably probable event in the calculable future. It should, in effect, cause no surprise to find that they will, in a sense, eliminate themselves, by letting go quite involuntarily after the industrial situation gets quite beyond their control.”

Jacques Fresco follows the same idea as he said :

“The transition to a resource-based economy will not happen through violence or revolution. It will happen when the old system collapses under its own weight, and those who are prepared can offer a viable alternative.”

He also pointed out the need for being prepared for the collapse on other occasions :

“The future is not something we wait for—it’s something we design. The question is: Will we be ready when the old system fails?”

and

“The only way to create real change is to make the old system irrelevant. Build the new world in the shell of the old, and when the collapse comes, people will naturally gravitate toward what works.”

“The Venus Project is not about predicting collapse—it’s about preparing for it. When the old system fails, we must be ready with a viable alternative.”

and then he also warned :

“The people who control the world today—bankers, politicians, corporate leaders—do not want change. They profit from scarcity, war, and debt. A resource-based economy would eliminate their power, so they will fight it with everything they have.”

The idea of collapse first and the need to be ready for it can also be seen in some of Technocracy Inc. publications such as :

“We are not waiting for the system to collapse—we are preparing the blueprints for what comes next. When the old system fails, those with a viable alternative will lead the way.”

“The first step is education. People must understand that another system is possible—one that is not based on money, politics, or scarcity.”

The problem I have with this approach is what kind of world will be left after a collapse and would that world be a good bases to build a future sustainable, moneyless, world from? I doubt it. Even if we were to prepare, a collapsed society will be a desperate place and we could see the rise of more irrational ideologies instead.

Evolution

Jacques Fresco makes an interesting point :

“We are not trying to overthrow the system—we are trying to make it irrelevant. The Venus Project is about building a new world in the shell of the old. When the old system collapses, we will be ready with an alternative.”

There is a tendency, I think, to dislike revolution among groups that propose a technocratic like socioeconomic system. You can see that in Technocracy Inc. as well :

“We don’t need revolution—we need engineering. The solution is not to overthrow the system, but to make it obsolete by designing a better one.”

I would also go down the “no revolution” route. I would also agree, we need to actually build an alternative and demonstrate that it can and actually does work. We also need to test the ideas out. The ideas for a better society, whether from me, from Technocracy Inc, or from TVP have never been tested. It would be seriously unwise to overthrow a government and install such an untested alternative. That could lead to an even worse disaster than trying to preserve our current unsustainable system.

The “MillennialProject” is a book written by Marshall T. Savage. It is not really about building an alternative, sustainable, moneyless, socioeconomic system. However, it does argue that our current system is unsustainable and the solution lies off world in colonising the galaxy. To achieve that, Savage proposes a number of steps. The early ones, like forming a Foundation and then sea colonies, relies on working within our current system and then moving in to space. A sort of evolution and it is this idea of evolving to a desired state that I would propose for moving towards a better socioeconomic system.

Basically the idea is similar to TVP and Technocracy Inc. educate, build, and prepare but instead of just waiting for a collapse start linking together, forming networks and gradually move society to an alternative without having to go through the pain of collapse. An example of this is EOS in Sweden. In the Design, they propose a process called stepping stones, where they work within the current system but towards a better system. For example, they have a project centred around a biodome and an urban garden where they are building a sustainable solution and testing it out. They are also forming a network with other EOS groups.

 

Umeå biodome

The argument against this approach goes back to the idea that those with a vested interest in the current system will stop any move to an alternative. As Jacques Fresco says about TVP :

“Any movement that threatens the status quo will be infiltrated, discredited, or destroyed. Look at what happened to the Occupy Movement—it was crushed because it challenged the financial elite. The Venus Project is a bigger threat, so they will ignore it, ridicule it, or try to co-opt it.”

And that maybe true and what will happen but I still think we should try to evolve society to a sustainable solution regardless. We still need to build something and test it out even if we are waiting for a collapse. We are still educating and preparing so even if the evolution fails we fall back to the waiting for collapse idea anyway. But if we try to evolve society to a sustainable socioeconomic system it might just work, especially if we can point to something and show that a moneyless system does actually work.

One more quote from Technocracy Inc. :

"The future will be built by those who prepare for it. The question is: Will you be part of the solution?".

The Expert in the Room Problem

 

Introduction

Peter Joseph did a podcast in December 2024 called “Revolution Now! Episode 53”. Somehow I managed to miss all the previous episodes but I caught this one and listened to the whole thing.

The first part was a good explanation of why we need to explore the idea of an alternative socioeconomic systems. For me, this is a bit of preaching to the choir as I’ve been looking into this sort of stuff since the 1990s. To me, the unsustainable nature of our current system is obvious but to anyone new to the subject, the first part of Peter Joseph’s podcast is worth listening to.

The part that interests me the most starts around the 49:22 mark, so I will concentrate a bit more on that.

Self organising and all that jazz

The thing that caught my attention most with Peter Joseph’s podcast is the overview that he gave of a possible future socioeconomic system. What was proposed has a lot of similarities that the system proposed by the Earth Organisation for Sustainability (EOS), which is based in Sweden, and is laid out in The Design. To start with Peter Joseph talks about self organising distributed, decentralised, systems. At 51:39 he states:

“Efficiency

Efficiency emerges through decentralised cooperative networks, with all knowledge shared, infused with direct democratic mechanisms to arrive at economic action.”

EOS also proposes a decentralised cooperative network. Not much is given in the podcast about the network topology however. The impression I got was it was a full connected network. EOS, however, does present more details about the network topology. In EOS’s Design the network is a holonic system. Holonic systems form part – whole constructs, similar to what we find in nature. These type of cooperative decentralised systems can work well if a number of criteria are met:

• Goals

• Communications

• Rules

The system has to have an overall goal. Peter Joseph doesn’t actually say anything as such about goals but goals can be inferred. EOS, however, explicitly states the goal as:

Highest standard of living for the longest time possible

That goal is borrowed from Technocracy Inc. and I would imagine that the goal of Peter Joseph’s network would be much the same (or at least compatible).

Communications is the next important attribute that self organising systems need to function. Peter Joseph talks about feedback loops and certainly feedback in such systems is vital for them to work. However, there is more to communications than just feedback. New ideas need injecting into the system as well, for example.

The last thing that self organising systems need is a set of rules to work with. At the very least they will have the laws of physics to work with but a network of human communities would need other rules in common. Such as a basic set of human rights.

These aspects of self organising systems weren’t explored (although I can infer them as “natural law standards” and “scientific analysis” is mentioned) in the podcast probably because the last section was really a short introduction to a complex subject. I hope, however, Peter Joseph will go into these in more details in later podcasts.

An example of how these three aspects enable self organisation can be seen in the following video. In the video the metronomes fail to synchronise at first. They have rules (the laws of physics) and they have a goal (to measure time) but there is no communication channel. However, when they are put up on to two cans, the vibration form each is able to influence the others. With communications established, the metronomes synchronise automatically.

An other interesting overlap is the presentation of food production as an example. That is something that EOS has also been looking at. EOS was part of a cooperative project to build a biodome in Sweden. 

 

The biodome built by EOS in Umeå, Sweden

 

The technical aspect

Now we come to the bit I have most problem with. Both Peter Joseph’s ideas and those presented by EOS aim for a hi-tech society. Both see the system being demand driven rather than centrally planned. Both look at efficiency using science driven analysis and AI. Both see the system as being open source. So far so good. But then we come to complexity. Peter Joseph makes the point at about 54:12 that as participation grows complexity grows. Yet, the system proposed by Peter Joseph relies on democratic mechanisms. I would argue that that is going to require management by technical experts if this is to work. Peter Joseph does make a quick reference to the need for management and how that can be worked out later. I would argue that this point is so fundamentally important that it needs to be worked in from the start.

If the system is to use scientific analysis then it will need people to understand that scientific analysis. If the system is to have technology, then it will need people who can understand that technology and can design and implement it. If the system is to have zero waist then it will need to be able to efficiently manage its resources and that will take knowledge and expertise.

The problem with knowledgeable experts is they tend to be in the minority but the majority, who have a poor understanding of the subject, tend to over estimate their abilities. Thus, you will most likely get wrong decisions being confidently made and correct decisions being overruled if you leave the decision making to the masses. This is known as the expert in the room problem. Imagine needing brain surgery and the brain operation being decided by the masses who have no idea about brain surgery. How confidant would you feel about going under the knife?

You can still have the people participating in what a society does and what is produced. But at the level of a customer. The people can demand what is to be produce but behind the scenes you will need a team of experts making the decisions to get the whole thing to work. This problem is addressed from the beginning in the Design preposed by EOS.

This system will also need regulation and control. Both Peter Joseph’s and EOS’s systems are moneyless systems but there still needs a control mechanism. As they say, you can’t control what you can’t measure and from what I see there is no measurement system in what Peter Joseph proposes. There is a mention of time banks, which is something that could work on a small scale but this system wont take into account the energy and material needs of the system. And as the system becomes more complex, I would expect a system using time banks to run into problems. EOS has a system energy accounting. All systems require energy to work and we can measure the energy we have available and what we need to produced items. If we allocate the energy to the people, this becomes a mechanism to allow people to decide what gets produced. It also allows us to monitor demand and production and to manage the system. The energy accounting system will also scale as the system becomes more complex.

Conclusion

Much of what Peter Joseph proposes is compatible with the Design proposed by EOS. However, there is a need of expert management behind the system. This need for expert management will become more important as the system becomes more complex. This is something that is central to The Design by EOS but appears to be an after thought in Peter Joseph’s proposal.

What Have We Done?

 

 

The World on Fire

Introduction

Apparently scientists are “shocked” or “scared” at the ever increasing rate of climate change. This year alone we have seen huge forest fires, like in California or in Siberia, flash floods, like those in Germany, China, or in Tennessee. We have even seen powerful tornadoes in the Czech Republic. But I don’t see any reason to be “shocked” by all this. Perhaps “scared” but not “shocked”. It is not as if this hasn’t been predicted. Scientists have been warning that this would happen for decades. Even if things are happening faster than expected that should have been given as a possibility. The climate is, after all, a non-linear, chaotic system and such systems can suddenly flip from one state to another state. Such a change is called a phase shift.

Despite all the warnings and all the evidence we haven't actually done anything to prevent the current changes have we? I’m sure we are all buying “environmentally friendly” stuff. We are all using some kind of “bio fuel” and our government has made all kinds of environmental agreements and introduced schemes like carbon tax. Yet, all that hasn’t really done much has it? It’s like throwing a bucket of water of the fires in California or Siberia; pissing in the ocean. And just to add to the problem, we have been busy with climate change denial and other activities to counter any advance we might make.

What’s the Problem?

Is the problem too little carbon tax or what stuff we buy? I would say no. And if that is so, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we are not having much effect on preventing climate change. I would argue that the problem is to do with the way we do things in general; with our whole socioeconomic system.

Our socioeconomic system is a debt based money system that aims to grow exponentially with finite resources. This leads to an amazing advancement in human civilisation but it is also fundamentally unsustainable. We produce more and more stuff and in doing so produce more and more waste as goods are not made to last. We end up over exploiting the planets resources and creating the conditions for climate change as well as many other problems. So, if we really want to do something about climate change then we need to change our current socioeconomic system to something sustainable.

An Alternative?

There are probably many alternative socioeconomic systems to our current one. But I would propose one where we can maintain a high standard of living but one where we also balance our needs with those of the planet. We could do this given the huge waste we have in our current system. Think about cars, just as an example. Cars spend most of their time standing still in a car park or garage or just by the side of the road. Most of them are not actually doing something useful most of the time. Now imagine a system where cars are used for 80% of the time. We could do that if we shared cars. If I was to take my car to work in the morning I wouldn't just park it and leave it for the day until I need to drive home again. Instead, the car could be used by someone else to drive them to work or for other tasks. At the end of the the car would be ready and waiting to take me home again. So long as the car is there when I need it, does it matter if others also use it? If we had such a system we would need far less cars. If we had a system that minimised transport needs (by, for example, work from home) we could cut down the amount of cars even more. If we also made cars to last, we would not have to make so many new ones each year. If we did this for as many products as possible then we could drastically reduce our impact on the planet yet still maintain a high standard of living.

We can’t have such a system in our money based world, so I would propose a system without money. To do that we would still need some way to account for all the materials and energy we have in the system. We could do that by using exergy. Exergy is a measure of how useful the energy we have is (we can’t always use all the energy we have) but it can also be used to measure materials. If we use exergy we would have, what I would call, an energy accounting system. We could then allocate production capacity to people so they decide what gets produced or what services they can use. As the capacity to produce or consume a service will take energy and materials we can use exergy as a way to allocate these to the people.

But for such a system like that to work it will need experts to run it. The whole system is complex and is made of systems within systems. Just to understand how one part of it works can take many years of study or experience. So, we would need teams of experts from different disciplines to run the system, calculate out the exergy, allocate production capacity, and keep things running.

Such a system would also need to balance our needs with those of nature; it will be sustainable by design from the beginning. Again, we will need experts to design the system and the systems within the systems. Cars are just one example of that but cars are part of a transport system. If we think about how a transport system works and what it aims to do, we can start thinking about how to build such a system so it has minimum impact on nature. We wont have to worry about profit or cost, we just need to know if we have the energy and the resources to achieve the goal. But a transport system are part of cities as well, so we would have to think of transport within the context of cities and the other systems that make a city.

The system I propose is really about engineering society. It takes a scientific approach to what we do. Scientific because we need a good understanding of how nature works in order to balance our needs with those of the planet and still maintain a high standard of living. Science is demonstrably the best system for understanding the world. What I propose is engineering society as it is about applying science to society.

A Way Forward

The Bio Dome that EOS built

I say “I propose” but this is not just my proposal. There are a number of groups around the world working on similar ideas. One of the more well known groups is the Venus Project in the US but the proposal I have just introduced here is put forward by a group called EOS, which is based in Sweden. The full proposal can be found here. But a summery is also presented here and here.

If we want a sustainable future, a future that balances our needs with those of the planet, a sustainable future, then we need to act ourselves. It is not going to build it self. We also ready have people acting. EOS has not only worked on a proposal but has started to test some of the ideas out. From simple projects like building a bio dome, EOS is now working on building a test community. But more needs to be done. More people and more finances (irritatingly for an organisation that wants a moneyless world).

Will it work

A possible future sustainable moneyless network of communities

Ok, so, EOS proposes a socioeconomic system for a sustainable world. A moneyless, “Star Trek like”, system that builds upon communities that act like building blocks. Each community rules itself, manages its own waste and produces its own food and power. These communities then network together to handle projects that one community alone cannot. Experts manage the technical resources of the communities. All this works with in bounds such as basic human rights. This means we present a goal orientated system where power becomes distributed among the people and localised within communities with no centralised form of government. A sort of bottom up form of governance.

But I have a question:

Will it work?

Ultimately, building it represents the best way to see if such a system would work. Obviously, we cant expect to change over to such a system planet wide over night just to see if it worked. If it went wrong we could end up creating a worse disaster than we have now. However, we can build small parts and test them out. As things work we can then start adding to the system. That summarises the basic idea behind stepping tones as a plan to go from our current unsustainable system to a future sustainable system. We have started working on that with the bio-dome project but we have lots more to do.

Another way we could see if the ideas work involves looking at other societies in time and space and see if they have had something similar. I actually stumbled upon an article that Prof. Francis Pryor, the archaeologist, wrote that caught my eye as it talked about a similar bottom up form of governance:

“I’m fascinated by the extent to which we ordinary folk can govern ourselves without the top-down

A reconstruction of an Iron Age Celtic village in Britain

help of Big Men and leaders ‘up there’. And as a prehistorian, I have been given a unique handle on all this. Because before the Romans arrived (in AD 43) and gave us writing, we had to live our lives without written records. There were no bureaucrats, no civil servants and no politicians. Government was local and was firmly embedded within the community and its families. If you’re a chief or leader and you get big-headed, the family and the rest of the tribe would soon sort you out. It was an effective system and it gave us stunning monuments, like Stonhenge. It also oversaw the creation of the British landscape, our first road system, together with the foundation of many villages and towns, even if some of these were not fully urban, in the modern sense.

Put another way, bottom-up, family-based, political systems worked for tens of thousands of years and the proof is out there in the landscape. I’m not suggesting we should turn back the clock, but why have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater? Why have we abandoned localism entirely?” [Prof. Francis Pryor]

I'm not suggesting that we turn the clock back either but we in EOS do suggest a form of localism and the idea that early pre-Roman Britain worked with such a system does provide some evidence, although far from conclusive, that such a system could work. 

The Inca empire forms another example that shows something of our proposal could work. The Incas

Atahualpa, Inca Emperor

ran a moneyless empire in central America. They guaranteed a basic level of living with free clothes and food. Although they did expand through conquest to some degree they also persuaded other tribes to join their empire, which those tribes often did willingly. We have two aspects of our design here; moneyless socioeconomics and the idea of persuaded people through showing them something better.

Finding examples of communities could present a problem as the design allows for a variety of communities with their own culture and way of doing things; from religious to atheists or primitive to transhuman and much in between. However, we can find examples of communities that could fit in. Twin Oaks in the US could form one example. Set up in the 1960 and not only still around today but has sprouted a number of other communities to form a sort of network. Although not using energy accounting nor having experts managing the technology it does show some aspects of how a community could work and the idea of networking.

Although we don’t have anything conclusive, we do find bits and pieces here and there that suggest at least some of ideas could work. Enough to suggest that we present ideas worth investigating. It might work!

all a matter of time!

Ok, not our dome but we can dream!

I have had complaints that I haven’t written much for a while now; both here and on the Facebook page. I have had few reasons for that. First, I wanted to wait till we had something interesting to write about regarding the bio dome and now we have. We have finally received funding and have started to get the build process underway. We hope to have the dome up during the summer. So a big well done to all those who have put the effort in to get us this far!

Unfortunately, we don’t have full funding yet so the internals will have to wait till we get more funding.

Second; a lot of what I have to say I have said. We have put together our ideas into the Design and now, rather than writing, we want to start doing something. Also, I want other people to contribute. We, as in EOS, do not pretend we have the one and only perfect solution and the holonic design allows others to contribute their ideas as well.  As long as we work towards the same goals and work within the bounds of tolerance and stick to the core ideas we have room for many alternative approaches. To that end, I have seen a lot of activity on the Facebook pages where many people have thrown in all kinds of ideas and possibilities. Now we need to start building things. 

So, thing have really started taking off since we started in 2004 but things still move slowly.

Which brings me to another problem; time. We have the idea of testing things out, of experimenting, as we both take a scientific approach and as no group proposing an alternative socioeconomic system actually know what will and will not work. However, the more time passes the more we destroy the Earth and the more we run out of resources. So, I’m beginning to think about complementing our main idea. What would it take to get other people in other place on the planet to start testing out our ideas as well? What would it take to get other people to start building something? To start forming a network with us? The more of us who start building the more of us will start getting things done!