Blemya

Blemya - The friction-free monster of collectivity.

The core philosophy of Blemya blog lies in the beliefs that “Super Collective composed by the beautiful and strong different individuals will achieve better present and tomorrow”. The sympathetic character of the blemya monster is regarded to what we are now living; In the beginning, it can be very frightening, but if you can beat that little negative rejection to the monster of collectiveness, you will surely love her.


http://www.blemya.com/

Evolutionary Economics

Every fisherman in Tsukiji fish market (築地市場 Tsukiji shijō) in Tokyo knows that the fight to the top, in a non productive way, is the worst thing one should do in order not to be eaten.

Leia este artigo em Português

Portunus Trituberculatus, the GAZAMI crab is a Japanese blue crab that is also the most widely consumed species of crab in the world, with over 300,000 tonnes being caught annually the GAZAMI is the best example of nature’s contraproducent behavior. The lack of success of this crab is due to an apparent inherited selfish attitude.

Gazami demonstrate some intelligence and are even capable of communicate by drumming or waving their pincers. They are aware about themselves and others.  It is well known that if you put a bunch of GAZAMI crabs in a barrel they would never be able to leave. When one nears the top of the barrel, approaching his escape, one of the other crabs reaches the mate and pulls the crab back down. Another one goes up, and he or she is also pulled up to fall.  This process continues and the only way for them to escape from the barrel is to be sold to someone with lunch or dinner intentions.

Markets are the perfect non-biased teachers of self-reflection and discipline as well as evolution. Studying attitudes of animals like that we could understand our own nature and also learn how to keep up with our social lives. Termites in other hand are proliferating worldwide, and differently from GAZAMI crabs, they are capable of helping each other, looks like they live by the motto “Create more prosperity in the life of others and you shall experience more prosperity in your own life”.

David M. Raup, a biologist at the University of Chicago, identifies in his book "Bad Genes or Bad Look?" that everything about extinction that we thought was true is wrong. The author’s main thesis is that extinction is a mostly random event; due to catastrophes and bad luck, and not related to the process of evolution itself.

There is an interesting but naive chapter in the book on the relation of extinction to industries. Raup argues that most of the companies around today were not in existence 50 years ago, and the cause of their disappearance, merger or bankruptcy corresponds to the causes of species disappearance or phyletic transformation.

The author draws parallels between such things as that the total number of companies names was lower 50 years ago, just as biodiversity was less, and that certain industries wax and wane just as species do.

Comparing the extinction of ancient species and old companies brings few points into consideration:

1 - Species are temporary but the energy manifested in individuals and markets carries on beyond the gradual understanding of science and reason. (Corporate) death is nothing but an opportunity. Time is nothing but a hubristic attempt to contemplate the unknown;

2 - Individual entities, while susceptible to a variety of ills, are more inclined to survive attacks based on the presumption that assumes a large group is present and available to be taken out with the first strike. Less mass = Less possible chance of extinction;

3 - Diversification in multiple markets should prove a trusted strategy?

4 - Extinction would have taken its toll on multiple organisms, yet somehow these organisms were allowed endure.

Evolutionary economics is a heterodox school of economic thought that is inspired by evolutionary biology. Much like mainstream economics, it stresses complex interdependencies, competition, growth, structural change, and resource constraints.

Joseph Alois Schumpeter (8 February 1883 – 8 January 1950) was one of the predecessor of evolutionary economics, economist and political scientist born in Moravia, then Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic. Schumpeter wrote “Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung” translated as The Theory of Economic Development (Entwicklung also means Evolution).

In Schumpeter's book he proposed an idea radical for its time: The evolutionary perspective. He based his theory on the assumption of usual macroeconomic equilibrium, which is something like "the normal mode of economic affairs". Both economics and evolution employ the notion of optimization, whether optimization of the profit, of a business, or optimization of species for its environmental niche.

Howard Aldrich, Geoffrey Hodgson, David Hull, Thorbjoern Knudsen, Joel Mokyr, Viktor Vanberg and others have argued that the general Darwinian principles of variation, inheritance and selection should be applied to social as well as biological entities, despite important detailed differences in the mechanisms and processes involved.

Maybe in the future Artificial Intelligence and paleontology would work together in a model that simulates fluctuation of the markets comparing companies to extinct and living animals.

Perhaps Google could base its strategy on algorithms using as a base the events that lead Dimetrodon to evolve into mammals (the large sail at the back of the Dimetrodon which gave rise to the homoeothermics creatures can be compared with the mechanisms of Google search, and its magnificent effect in the global economy). And so Google can plot its next move to an even greater leadership strategy in the future.

Larry Page, Sergey Brin and the Dimetrodon - both have a breathtaking new tool 

Edward O Wilson wrote in 1978 “Human Nature” – Economics can be improved by Darwinian theory. Wilson supports that All Social sciences rely upon implicit models of genetic. (It won a Pulitzer Prize) Even though it was written in 1978, it continues to provide a good overview of much that is still held to be true about human biology and sociology.

He asserted that many human behaviors had genetic basis, like the behavior of termites inside a mound, an idea then disputed by many social scientists and by Marxists intent on remaking humanity.

Today, termites are one of the world's most pervasive and successful insect groups, with about 2,300 known species, mostly in tropical settings, busily at work chewing wood or other plant fiber that protozoa help to digest. They have important ecological roles, helping to create habitat, build soil fertility, recycle nutrients and serve as food for many predators.

On march 2009 Dr. George Poinar discovered the earliest known form of mutualism between an insect and a microorganism ("mutualism," type of symbiotic relationship in which two species help each other) a termite and a protozoa entombed in amber for 100 million years. This particular termite was probably flying around while mating in a wet, humid tropical forest in what is now Myanmar during the Early Cretaceous period.

We should take social life in a termite colony as model for today’s economic life, it is flawless. The termites act together simultaneously as one body and cooperate in performing all functions of the community. And, if we consider that some termites live together with at least one million others, we can easily understand the importance of a system of communication that allows termites to provide a working area, come together and join forces against intruders and manage all the other needs of the colony in perfect harmony. This communication system is based on the exchange of chemical signals such as smell or taste.

Perhaps it is in our DNA the origin of our social life, but, once it would not be appropriate for a person to be conditioned like termites, we should not be surprised if in a non-distant future colonies of termite-minded robots would be working in the surface of Moon or Mars.

I’m sure that more and more we will live under the motto “Create more prosperity in the life of others and you shall experience more prosperity in your own life”. In fact I do believe that this attitude is more like a genetic instruction than a religious commandment.

Post-scarcity is not post-problems by Toby Russell

www.thdrussell.com

“Free will is doing gladly that which one must do.”

Carl Gustav Jung

Upon hearing a post-scarcity world described, most people find it silly and fantastical, or a charming yet unrealistic dream. The idea that an abundance could be produced for all the world’s people, that there would thereafter be no war, no poverty, no corruption etc., is hard to envisage, but our understandable difficulty picturing such a world makes it neither unfeasible nor unrealistic. Indeed, our difficulty is not a reflection of the unerring accuracy of our predictive abilities, but arises naturally from a history of economic systems shaped, until now, by conditions of scarcity. This small article is my attempt to make a post-scarcity world seem a little more pragmatic and prosaic, less “nirvanalike,” less utopian, and therefore more worthy of serious study. For my more detailed analysis, read this article.

I want to remind people here too, that this is not some idle, cerebral pursuit of a perfect world, something to while away the hours on a rainy Sunday. There are serious reasons to consider a radical alternative to the current crop of economic models, and there are serious people discussing them.

Money is, among other things, a force for division and corruption. Because being rich is better than being poor, money motivates many to behave corruptly, and lies at the root of all socio-economic models currently operative on our planet. Combine this tendency to corrupt with humanity’s enormous powers of consumption and production, add in the legal structure of the corporation requiring that ever increasing profits be the number one priority, factor in a teetering ecosystem, and you have a huge and many faceted motive to take radical change seriously. So it is not just that a post-scarcity world would be better than a scarcity-based world, but that we must start looking at how to implement such a model as a matter of urgency. We are consuming ourselves to death, while manufacturing and inventing with an eye only to profit. We ignore the branch we all sit on – the environment – at our peril, and put, to our collective detriment, matters such as human dignity and respect on a distant back-burner.

So what does post-scarcity mean for ordinary folk like you and me? Put very simply, it means no more material/financial worries. It would be as if everyone had enough money not to worry about it any more. Would this mean an end to all problems, all challenges, all worries? Of course not. Ask those who have won the lottery, question them on the new set of problems they have had to deal with. Having no money worries does not in any way guarantee happiness. It simply means one type of problem has been removed. That its successful removal from society would necessitate a prior, well-planned, ground-up redesign of everything, would of course mean other (profound) changes too, but my basic point remains. We would still be humans, would still have to get along, learn, do, sustain, and otherwise grow old, and die, as happily as we are able. That will always be an almighty challenge.

Furthermore, if we look a little deeper into the way things are today, we can see we don't actually HAVE to do the boring job that brings in the money we need. We are actually “free” to live our lives completely differently; to go off and live in “nature,” or live on the streets, or go into crime, leave our families, commit suicide, and so on. The reasons we tend to carry on with what we've got, however mundane and uninspiring, do not exist solely because of money, but consist of a complex of societal influences, as well as our own likes and fears and history. All these things combine to make us do things we might not otherwise do. We each sustain the system that is our life by various means, and for various reasons, only one of which might be suffering a job we don't like. My point here is that no matter what – and even in a post-scarcity society – there will always be things that must be done, compromises to make, opportunities that must be forgone, as inescapable parts of keeping things going in the manner of our choosing. And there will always be forces, internal and external, to “make” us do them. Consequently, the disappearance of money and financial concerns would not mean motivation disappears from human experience, nor that life would be one endless party, nor that we would no longer be able “to get things done.”

As an introspective person who enjoys such solo pursuits as reading and writing, a post-scarcity world appeals to me, perhaps because I can easily imagine filling my time pursuing my twin hobbies. And yet I know not all are like me in this regard, and nor should they be. It will be an enormous challenge to fill one's own time with activities and hobbies, goals and objectives we set for ourselves because we want to, not because we are told to. True freedom is actually a daunting prospect, when you think about it. A post-scarcity economy will not be “heaven on earth,” and should not be imagined as such. It will necessarily demand of us all full maturity, which few in scarcity-based systems reach (myself included in my humble opinion).

Post-scarcity economics of course requires, as mentioned above, the total and deliberate redesign of all aspects of society – our cities, our energy sources, our transport systems, education, law, defence, etc. It is misleading trying to imagine post-scarcity looking like the present, just minus money. Indeed, today's world could not function without money. Total redesign is essential to the idea's successful execution.

Each human on the planet would have to be raised from childhood to become a mature, free-thinking adult, as opposed to the unthinking and obedient consumers our education tends to produce today. A post-scarcity world demands of us generally a recognition that we are responsible for our actions, and that we understand how profoundly interdependent we are. It will be up to us all to maintain our societies, and the ecosystem that supports us, in a sustainable way.

Ethical evolution is an important part of human history that will never end, just as technological progress knows no end. Currently, we face a set of coinciding circumstances unprecedented in human history, a challenge which requires of us a readiness to consider solutions which seem outlandish and unworkable at first. In contemplating a world of abundance for all, we are obliged to remember that such a world is not about the self-serving accumulation of possessions and status, but about cooperation and sustainability. Just as the cells of the human body co-operate in conditions of nutrient-abundance, but compete with, and steal from, one another in conditions of nutrient-scarcity, so humans would exhibit co-operative behaviours in conditions of abundance, as surely as they go to war in conditions of scarcity. For example, in a theatre we get along, laugh, clap and enjoy ourselves as the play proceeds. Should a fire break out we become very different creatures indeed, trampling each other to death to escape the danger.

Behaviours that seem so natural and “inborn” to us, such as lording it over others, seeking power over others, Schadenfreude, and so on, are more accurately seen as the inevitable consequences of conditions of scarcity. Scarcity leads to competition, where obviously the victors benefit, which rewards aggressive and hoarding behaviours, this over millennia shaping our belief systems, our social and economic systems, our politics and philosophy, profoundly. Of course aggression and competitiveness are natural – as is greed – in that they exist in us as potentials, but their chance of being expressed, and the manner in which they are expressed, are determined by environmental factors.

Imagine two puppies taken from the same litter, one raised by wolves, the other by a loving human family. How differently would these dogs end up? They might start out physically and genetically identical, but their personalities would be as different as chalk and cheese. So it would be with identical human twins, the wolf-boy being after seven years in the wild utterly different from his twin raised by loving human parents. So too with apple-seeds from the same apple, one planted in barren, the other in fertile soil, one grown with minimal water, nutrients and sunshine, the other with exactly the right amounts. The seeds would be genetically identical, but the fruit produced very different in taste and sweetness, though of course still apples. Environmental conditions are not everything – puppies can’t grow into cats, apple-seeds can never become orange trees – but they are extremely significant. Significant enough, in fact, to make a post-scarcity world both feasible and desirable. We just have to take it seriously, then work towards it.

It certainly won’t be easy, but will be well worth the effort.

First Steps Towards Post scarcity – by Jason Stoddard

I Came across this brilliant article about the financial crisis of 2008/2009, how it was triggered by a liquidity shortfall in the United States and was responsible for the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble.
I’m pleased to share it with you:

Editor's Blog
First Steps Towards Post scarcity: or Why the Current Financial Crisis is the End of the World As We Know It (And Why You Should Feel Fine)
By: Jason Stoddard
Published: March 19, 2009

It’s never easy to see your hard-won earnings disappear. When you open your 401K and see it’s just lost another 30%, you think: Holy moly, there goes my retirement. Yeah, it’s a natural reaction, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right one. We live in a world of accelerating change. Tomorrow won’t necessarily look anything like today. Not even slightly. In fact, it looks to me like the current financial crisis is the first step from a scarcity economy to a postscarcity scenario.

Let’s be clear on this. We’re not going to wake up in a magical world where iPods and McMansions grow on trees overnight. Before that can happen, every part of today’s value chain has to be overturned. Everything. Production of raw materials, transport and refining, design and engineering, manufacturing, distribution . . . even our own sense of worth. So, if today’s financial crisis is the first step, where do we go from here?
See Also

h+ Magazine Current Issue http://hplusmagazine.com/magazine

The Mighty Morphin’ Mortgage Meltdown http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/economy/mighty-morphin%E2%80%99-mortgage-meltdown

The Whuffie Factor http://hplusmagazine.com/2009/03/19/why-whuffie-wiser-hacking-economy-blues-social-capital

Is the Future Cancelled or Just Postponed? http://hplusmagazine.com/2009/03/19/future-cancelled-or-just-postponed


LATE SCARCITY: WHERE WE ARE TODAY
Keynesian? Marxist? With derivatives and CMOs and other abstractions propping up the value of investments, neither school of thought may be entirely valid. And with global population growth slowing, we’re going to have to re-evaluate the “good companies will be growing at 5% a year, forever” assumption that’s been the basis of corporate valuation.

We’re also already starting to see some examples of near post-scarcity. Consider computers and communications. If you’re willing to use a computer that’s a couple of years old, you can probably find a hand-me-down for free, and then happily talk to your friends around the world on Skype using free public wi-fi.

Or consider that in the last Depression, the main worry was simply getting enough food. Today, the marketplace is more worried about maintaining the marketing budgets of 170 different kinds of toothpaste than about ensuring that everyone has toothpaste. There’s a lot of padding in the system. Couple a financial crisis with this overweight, inefficient system, and you have the stage set for the first transition to post-scarcity: a comprehensive rethink of our concept of value.

TRANSITION PHASE 1: VALUE PROLIFERATION
Today, rappers sing about driving Bentleys, living in hotel-sized mansions, and drinking thousand-dollar bottles of cognac. Soon, they may be saying, “And that don’t mean shit unless you got viz and virt and rep!” We’ve already seen the beginning of this: divorce cases in which World of Warcraft’s internal currency is named as an asset; the growing importance of reputation systems such as eBay feedback; the proliferation of corporate “points” or “bux” systems that can be exchanged for real goods; the monetization of attention via friend-spamming on social networks and advertising on popular blogs. Our concept of value is expanding; it will expand even more in this phase.

Think about it. If real currency, virtual currency, corporate points, visibility, and reputation all have value, exchanges will soon crop up. Think of a FOREX (a market in which foreign currencies are exchanged) for all things we consider of value. As point examples of near post-scarcity grow and these value systems become interlocking, we’ll move beyond a single monetary value system. You’ll be able to live well under any number of value systems: reputation, visibility, network, rewards points, or even “old-fashioned” currency.

TRANSITION PHASE 2: UNSEEN GOLDEN-AGE
The second phase of the transition to post-scarcity is the scariest, but only if you look at it from today’s POV.

What’s hard to accept? Well, multiple interlocking value systems require comprehensive metrics and tracking. Read: surveillance. We could easily find ourselves in a propagational economy, where a person’s entire value is based on their Attention Index (their visibility to other people) and Monetization Effectiveness (how well they sell.)

Yuck," you say.

…divorce cases in which World of Warcraft’s internal currency is named as an asset; the proliferation of corporate “points”… our concept of value is expanding.

But what if advances in manufacturing efficiencies make it possible to live well, simply by interacting with friends and going about your life? What if below-replacement-level birthrates and advances in biotechnology meant you could check out of the system by claiming a piece of unused desert and planting a house? This surveillance economy might be a very easy place to live.

The end of this phase would come rapidly if Drexler-level nanomachines (molecular manufacturing) made the production of material stuff essentially free, and took the future worth of the entire value chain to zero. If it costs nothing to make the machines to find and refine the raw materials, or to grow the transportation network, two of the “insurmountable” obstacles to post-scarcity disappear. Even without this near-magical technology, bioassembly and other methods will slowly erode the value of raw materials refining, transportation, and manufacturing. In either case, this is an even bigger economic rethink than the one we’re going through today.

TRANSITION PHASE 3: MAGICAL IDEAS
True nanotech is limited only by the energy we put into it. In this time, unthinkable mega-engineering projects become feasible: growing a global network for finding, refining, and transporting raw materials; producing hundreds of space elevators for easy access to extraterrestrial resources; assembling magical factories along every coastline.

In this phase: we are truly free to dream and big ideas are the currency. The dreamers and designers who can imagine the best ways to change the world will become the “economic” giants of their time. The big issue will be how to coordinate these visions, and to eliminate or minimize disruptive ones.

This phase ends when the systems for effortless production of all our dreams are in place. Artificial intelligences or powerful semantic processing make this unlimited capability accessible to anyone. We are now free to imagine what we want — and have it delivered on demand.

TRUE POST-SCARCITY
Speak your wishes to the air and it will deliver. The seamless nanotech/biotech skeins distributed through the earth and the solar system make every wish possible. The only remaining question: where do your rights end and someone else’s begin?

Now, sit back and think: even without life extension, I might see every phase of the transition to true post-scarcity in my lifetime. And remember that thought the next time you check your brokerage account. It is the end of the world as you know it. And that is perfectly fine.

Go to original artcle http://hplusmagazine.com

Community Empowerment

“Attention energizes, and intention transforms.” (D. Chopra)

It is impossible to go on with Post Scarcity without mention Community Empowerment, and, It is impossible to say something about Community empowerment without quoting Anita Roddick.

She focuses much of her attention to the empowerment of communities in the Third World. Her campaigns for the Third World include "Stop the Burn" to save the Brazilian rainforests and "Trade not Aid."

The Body Shop operates on a strict respect of the five core values stated by the company (which, by the way, would be the core values of Post Scarcity itself):

1. AgainstAnimalTesting
They do not buy any ingredient that has been animal tested for cosmetic purposes by their suppliers since 31 December 1990..

2. ProtectingtheEnvironment
The Body Shop believes that a business has a responsibility to protect the environment in which it operates. The Body Shop’s first Environmental Policy was developed in to ensure that environmental laws are complied with at all times and in the event of difficulties, these will be reported to the appropriate regulatory authorities.

3. DefendHumanRights
The Body Shop believes that businesses, in particular, have a part to play in effecting social change. If more businesses demonstrate a social conscience and act with social responsibility, governments would have to listen.

4. SupportCommunityTrade
The Community Trade program is aimed at small producer communities around the world who supply it with accessories and natural ingredients. Fair prices help producers to take control over their own lives and allow money to go back into the community to supply basic needs such as water, health and education.
The Body Shop believes that big businesses have a huge responsibility to use trade not just to make money but also to have a positive influence in the world.

5. ActivateSelf-Esteem
The Body Shop defines self-esteem to be “.... about self-awareness, self- confidence, self-worth, and self-acceptance”. It's about respecting yourself, looking after your body and soul, and being proud of who and what you are.

To have a clear understand why we should empower communities and fight for wealth (and consequently end poverty) lets read an article written by Phil Bartle, PhD - COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT - Making Neighbourhoods (If you copy text from this site, please acknowledge the author(s)
and link it back to www.scn.org/cmp )

Why Empower Communities?
leia este arigo em Português

When we use words, we often convey meanings that we do not intend, or meanings that we do not know we convey. There are emotions and assumptions associated with the words we use.

Take the word "poverty" for example. In the assistance industry (helpers of development), we often see ourselves as soldiers in the so-called war against poverty. Poverty is what we want to defeat. But what is the opposite of poverty? Wealth. Somehow we do not like to admit we are "soldiers in the war in favour of wealth." Why?

Because while poverty and wealth are technically opposite, there are many assumptions, emotions and hidden values that are attached to both those words, and those are conveyed along with their overt meanings. Somehow it is morally OK to help poor people, but we do not always like to keep in our conscious thoughts that we are helping them to obtain wealth.

The module on income generation is more acceptable when it is named as "income generation" than as "wealth generation" even though "wealth" is a more accurate economic term. (Where the objective is to generate wealth rather than merely transfer money). The term "wealth" comes with hidden emotional baggage that implies it means huge richness.

Poverty is a problem because there are disparities in wealth; some have more than others. If genuine equality were possible (and it is not, you may be happy to learn), then poverty would not be a problem.

Closely associated with "wealth" are "power" and "capacity." Communities (and individuals) that have lots of one, usually have lots of all three, and vice versa (those with low wealth usually have low power and low capacity). So when we want to improve the conditions of people in low income communities, poor communities, marginalized communities, we want them to have more wealth, power, and capacity.

But not too much.

It is nice (we think) to help the poor, but (in our hidden desires) we do not want them to become rich, or at least we do not want them to become as rich as us. We do not want to admit that.

Another of the emotionally laden words we use today is "democracy." We are all in favour of it, apparently.

But are we?

When we look carefully at the meaning of democracy, it turns out that we are not always in favour of it, especially if it means having to give up some of our own relative power (or wealth, or capacity).

Many who say they are in favour of democracy are really in favour of a set of institutions that allow people to vote for candidates, putting into power those with the most votes, allowing them to represent the people. This is "representational democracy." That is almost a contradiction in terms. The meaning of "democracy" is "Power to the people" (demo = people, cracy = power). The process of voting for representatives takes power away from people and gives it to the vote winners.

When we say we want to empower a community, we mean that we want to democratize it. That does not necessarily mean we want them to have votes to choose their representative (as in the British or American political model). It means we want the people (not just individuals) as a whole (collectively) to have power. We want to find ways for the community to have more power, wealth and capacity.

The communities most deserving of our assistance, then, are those with the least amount of power, wealth and capacity.

And we must be aware of our hidden desires to keep them poor, powerless and incapable just so that we can keep giving them our charity. If we genuinely want to empower them, we must do it in such a way that they become independent of our charity, that they become self reliant, that they can sustain their own development without our help. Our own desires for wealth and power are normal and natural. We need not be ashamed of them. We must, however, keep in mind that in our desire to help people who are poor and powerless, that we do not do so in ways that, in the long run, keep them poor and powerless ─ and dependent upon us.

The training documents on this web site are aimed primarily at the community mobilizer, and emphasize methods and techniques rather than theory or ideology. To effectively use those methods, however, we must be aware of what reasoning lies behind them, what principles apply, and what long term effects they have. Importantly, we must also constantly examine our own motives and purpose behind what we do.

Getting Stronger through Exercise:

Many times throughout this web site, you are advised to take approaches that can be seen as empowering, rather than those which promote dependency.

We sometimes use the term "charity approach" to name dependency producing methods of giving help. Charity in itself is not bad, in so much as it is based upon generosity, a value that we strongly support.

What we mean by the "charity approach," however, is a way of helping poor and powerless people that does not help them to become self reliant. Gifts that make the receivers more dependent upon the givers, are not truly generous. They sustain poverty. They keep the givers in a position of giving. If you give something to a person or group in need, you temporarily alleviate their need. You can be quite sure that when they are in need again, they will come back to where they received their first assistance.

This is not bad; it is human nature, or the nature of survival for any organism.

If you want that person or group to become self reliant, you need to be sure they want something in the first place. Then you must find ways for them to work or to struggle for it, so that when they need it again they will not come begging for it. If they get something for free, they will know that it was worth (to them) every penny they spent on it.

Several times on this web site, you will see a sports analogy to explain the empowerment method. A coach does not do push ups for the athlete, nor does a coach practice putting the basketball into the hoop for the basketball player. The person who is to get stronger and more competent has to do the work.

Another analogy is found in physiotherapy. If you hurt yourself and lose the use of your arm, you go to a physiotherapist for help. The physiotherapist may move your arm in the manner you need to move it, but only to show you where it must be exercised. You need to practice moving it yourself, and that is a painful and uncomfortable process. You need to want to get better. The result is that you get your strength back, and no longer need the services of the physiotherapist.

If the coach does the push ups for the athlete, the athlete does not become stronger. If the physiotherapist does the exercises for the patient, the patient does not become stronger. If the community worker does the work for the community, the community remains dependent, and poverty is sustained. Weakness.

The empowerment approach to community development is one where first you determine that the community wants something (as discovered in a brainstorming session) and then shows the community members how to get it. The process of their getting it is the exercise (struggle) that strengthens them.

Why Choose a Community to Empower?

If the purpose of community mobilization is to increase its power, wealth and capacity, why would you choose to mobilize one community and not another?

The world is not a fair place. There is inequality. There is strife. There is inhumanity towards mankind, by humans. Life is not fair. We need some purpose in life. Trying to set right the wrongs of the world; trying to help poor people to become independent and escape from their poverty, are among such purposes. Simply trying to become rich ourselves is the main purpose of some people, but it is a very shallow and unfulfilling purpose (the richer that people get, the more wealth they want; there is no satisfaction). There is no evidence, or even hope, that the world will become fair, that poverty will be eliminated. Yet the striving for it is a purpose that has its own rewards.

So we could spend our energy in trying to mobilize and empower a rich or relatively wealthy community, but that has less purpose than trying to help a poor community become stronger. The methods that are explained in this web site can be applied to rich or poor communities.

Choosing to work with a poor community can be a way of putting more purpose in your life. Choosing a community simply because it is the one you were born in is perhaps equally valid, but less purposeful.

The documents on this web site are designed mainly to be applied to low income, poor capacity, poorly empowered communities. Writing them has purpose; no money is earned in putting them here on the internet. It is an element (regiment? ammunition?) in the war against poverty.

Some people like to quote: "Charity should begin at home." They often say this to justify raising money to give out handouts to poor people in their home communities (which does not end their poverty, as we know). Unfortunately, such people often believe that it should not only start at home; it should also end there. What a short sighted and selfish notion.

The whole world has human beings in it. We are all related. We are one big human family. The people far way in isolated poor communities are our brothers and sisters. If we can help them, we have purpose in life. If we help them, we should concentrate on helping them to become independent of our charity, able to help themselves in the future.

If we have a choice in which community to apply our skills as mobilizers, it is more meaningful (and has greater global effect) to choose the lowest income communities, those with less power and capacity.

Empowerment as a Social Process:

In several places on this site, we point out that poverty is a social problem, and is contrasted with the individual problem of lack of cash or other resources. We must distinguish between the social level and the individual level, in our analysis, in our observations, and in our interventions.

A community is a social organization, and is not an individual. It is far more than a mere collection of individuals. It is an entity, sometimes described as "superorganic," that transcends the individuals that compose it at any one time.

It is easy to see and interact with an individual. A "community," in contrast, is a scientific model, like an atom or a solar system, which can be seen at most only partly at any one time, but cannot be seen as a whole. (You know the story of the seven blind men and an elephant). A community does not behave like an individual.

We sometimes anthropomorphise a community (think of it and talk about it as if it is a human being) but it is more like a social amoeba than like an individual human.

We can make individuals stronger (physically, psychologically) and we can make communities stronger (capacity, wealth, power); these are not the same. In our work as mobilizers, we must be careful to avoid making predictions and assumptions about communities as if a community is an individual, thinking, human being. It is easy, but wrong, for us to slip into that kind of thinking.

While you, as a mobilizer, can see individuals, can work with individuals, your target is the community, a social organization, which you can not see in its totality, and with which you must work indirectly.

To be successful then, in empowering the community, it is necessary for you to understand the nature of social organizations, of the social level, of society. It is also necessary for you to know something about the relationship between an individual, or individuals, and community, and society.

While this web site tries to minimize theory and ideology, and tries to emphasize practical guidelines, methods and techniques, it encourages you to learn about the science of sociology, the nature of community as a social organization, and sociological perspectives, in order to do your work more effectively.

Remember, however, that sociology can not be very precise and very predictive as, say, is chemistry or astronomy, because the factors that affect social change are too many. It is made more difficult because as social organization, such as a community or an NGO, is a construct, a model, that you can not see directly.

Nevertheless, you need to set yourself a career goal of learning more about the social perspective, and to develop skills in understanding the social elements that are revealed by the indicators you can see, including the behaviour of individuals, social and economic statistics, some events, and demographic data. To help you in this, there are two modules which identify sixteen elements of empowerment. One is focused mainly on capacity development of an organization (such as an NGO or CBO), and the other is focused mainly on measuring increases (or decreases) in the capacity of a community. These sixteen elements, many of which also can not be seen except through characteristics of individuals, will help you to carefully and in detail look at the empowerment process as a social process.

Why Participation?

Empowering a community is not something that you can do to that community. Because the process of empowerment, or capacity development, is a social process, it is something that the community itself must undergo. Even members of a community, as individuals, can not develop their community, it is a growth process of the community as a whole, internally, as an organism (super organism or social organism).

Trying to force growth, trying to force social change, is called social engineering, and it does have its effects, but usually effects that are far from what you want. Our method is to stimulate the community to take action.

We often refer to that action as a "project." By doing a project, the community will become more empowered, develop more capacity. The action it takes is its exercise to become stronger.

We noted above that the people must struggle in order to become stronger. The basic method of a community mobilizer is to first determine what the community as a whole wants, then guide it in struggling to achieve it.

An outsider can not decide what the community wants. The community members have to agree on what they all want most. That is the first of several reasons why they need to participate in decision making; that participation is needed first to determine what they want most.

The brainstorm session is one of several techniques taught on this site that helps you to draw out of them their priorities. When done correctly it is a process that determines a communal choice, not the choice of a few people, or of a dominant faction.

After that is the decision of strategy, or what path to follow in order to reach the priority goal. Again, there are different ways to choose a strategy, but the more it represents the will of the community members as a whole, the more valid it is. Their participation is vital for success.

Whatever the project, it will have inputs and outputs. Inputs are the resources put into the project. An output is an objective when it is realized. While some of the inputs can come from outside donors, including the government, but the community itself, its members should make some sacrifices too. As well as participation in decision making, we suggest that they also make contributions of resources, as inputs.

Monitoring is an essential, but often overlooked, element of any project. The community should also participate in monitoring the project. Members should not leave it only to the outsiders ─ donors or implementors ─ to see if it is going as planned.

In the course of carrying out the project, community members may identify some skills that they lack. These could be in accounting, in reporting, or in technical skills. If you are able to help them obtain training in such skills, we recommend that the training is participatory also. That people learn best by "doing" rather than listening to lectures or watching presentations.

Participatory approaches are recommended throughout the empowerment process. Participation contributes to strength.

National Development:

The nineteen fifties and sixties (and later) saw the end of colonial period for many new countries. Hope was high that it would also mean the end of poverty as countries became more self reliant and stronger.

The reality was very different, and discouragement replaced optimism as poverty and the number of poor people grew. There are many historical causes for this, neo colonialism, multi national corporations each stronger and wealthier than whole countries, globalization of corporate culture, lack of sophistication and knowledge by leaders, and on and on. Everyone has her or his own favourite theories.

In Factors of Poverty, we distinguish between (1) historical causes and (2) factors that contribute to the problem remaining. This has a very practical purpose. We can not go back into history and change events. We can see current factors, and have some influence, however small, on them. The training on the web site is aimed primarily at the community mobilizer (and her or his manager, planner, programmer and administrator).

In the gender module, we cite the slogan, "Think globally, act locally." This applies here, too. How can we contribute to a strong, self reliant, independent nation? If that country has strong, self reliant, capable communities, then it will become stronger.

You, as a mobilizer, can not (through your work) directly change the national characteristics of a country, but you can contribute to one or more community becoming stronger. Also, by teaching these methods and techniques to others, you can contribute indirectly to other communities becoming stronger. You may be able, too, to influence the legislature and ministry directives and regulations in ways that will contribute to an environment that promotes and supports strong self reliant communities. As more communities become stronger, the country benefits.

Joseph Marie de Maistre wrote, "Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle merite" (Every country has the government it deserves) Lettres et Opuscules Inedits (vol. I, letter 53), sometimes incorrectly attributed to the second American president, Thomas Jefferson. If you work towards getting the society you want, you will contribute to getting the government you deserve.

National development will not come through wishful thinking or by bar room debate. It comes as a result of hundreds of thousands of small, steady, changes based upon hard work of many people with vision. You can be among them, and this web site gives you the tools with which to engage in that hard work.

Find the Best and Enhance It:

A positive attitude with optimism and the willingness to keep trying are not mere luxuries in this work. They are necessities.

No person, no community, no society, is perfect. We all make mistakes. If you spend any time and energy on criticizing, you will emphasize the fault you criticize, and hinder its correction. You will meet people who promise and fail, people who do not carry out their side of an agreement, people who lie and cheat, people who are inept, inefficient and inaccurate, people who are dishonest and misleading. From the time you were born, no one promised you that life would be fair. That is just the way it is.

To succeed at this kind of work, you need a positive attitude, and you need to accept that failures are inevitable, and be willing to, "Keep on keepin' on," even after failures.

To get the best out of people, you need to see but not mention their weaknesses and failures, you need to recognize their strengths and achievements, and you need to let them know you expect their best.

Build on strengths, not on weaknesses.

Conclusion:

Why help communities to become stronger? The world will be a better place; poverty will be reduced; working towards this is a meaningful endeavour. What is the empowerment method? Charity (giving things for free) weakens communities. Communities will become stronger when they decide what they want, and work (exercise) to obtain it.

What communities should you choose to assist in becoming more self reliant? Choose those in most need, the poorest, the ones with least capacity, the ones with the least power.

Why is poverty and development not merely applicable to individuals? Poverty is a social problem and requires social solutions.

Development is not possible unless it affects whole communities. Why should community members participate in development? Without their participation, there would be no development, and any improvements will not be sustained.

Why not work towards national development? As communities become stronger, they contribute to genuine national development. You as a mobilizer can practically work at helping communities become stronger, whereas work with nations directly is less practicable.

What about all the disappointments, dishonest people, and cheating individuals? A positive approach is a requirement for community work; accept failures and go on beyond them; accept that we all make mistakes so avoid criticism and build on strengths.

Your work is honourable and valuable, even if unsung.

But after all, what is Prospenomy and Post Scarcity?

University notebooks by Luiz Pagano in which he conceptualizes (and draws) the ideas of Prospenomics.

Prospenomics is the study of prosperous, harmonious, and equitable societies, often depicted in fiction. These societies imagined in fiction can represent ideal or aspirational models of social, economic, and environmental organization, where resources are used sustainably and equitably, and where there is a positive interconnection between humans and the environment. Prospenomics may involve analyzing these fictional models to extract insights and inspiration for building a real society that is fairer and more prosperous.

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On the other hand, the concept of Post-Scarcity refers to a future stage where the scarcity of material resources is no longer a predominant concern. In this stage, advanced technology, production efficiency, and sustainable resource use would allow for abundance of goods and services for all, without compromising the environment or depleting natural resources. Post-scarcity implies a fundamental shift in how society organizes and utilizes its resources, seeking to achieve a sustainable balance between human needs and planetary preservation.

In 1986, I had the unusual classes of "Brazilian Problem Studies" that my mentor, Antonio Sérgio Pacheco Mercier, taught. Even though they were on Saturdays, I loved attending his classes. Professor Mercier had the gift of captivating students with his engaging narratives, especially when discussing subjects like international trade.

His classes were rich; he talked about a convention in Luang Prapang, which inspired my friend Gilberto Lacerda to adopt a new dream tourist destination, or the international maritime law agreement signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in 1982 - he took us on a journey to these incredible locations.

The professor showed us the importance of these events, as well as the pleasures of practicing a profession that best suits one's spirit, reconciling the joy of travel with improving human relations on the planet.

But it was during a conversation about possible topics for my thesis that Professor Mercier truly inspired me.

I shared with him my supposedly "revolutionary" idea of applying science fiction concepts to economics and public administration, an approach I called #prospenomics.

I believed (and still believe) that just as the science fiction of Jules Verne inspired Santos-Dumont in multiple inventions, we could also use Gene Roddenberry's post-scarcity society from Star Trek as inspiration for new approaches in economics and public administration.

At first, Professor Mercier was interested in the argument, but after listening carefully to my explanations, he said that my ideas were "still in their infancy" and that there was "little applicability to reality." :( However, he encouraged me to study more about the subject and to explore these ideas further.

Even though I felt a little frustrated for being so far from a viable argument, with his careful guidance and constructive criticism, I embarked on a journey of research and reflection that broadened my academic and professional horizons, achieving feats that I had never dreamed of achieving.

The End of Working for a Living and the Beginning of Working for Your Talents

As we move towards a future where traditional notions of scarcity and work are being questioned, there is a need to explore new approaches to societal and economic organization. In this context, digital tools like LinkedIn have played a significant role in facilitating connections between people and job opportunities, aiming to enable individuals to work based on their talents and passions, rather than just to sustain their basic needs.

LinkedIn, a widely used professional networking platform, has the primary purpose of connecting professionals from various fields, allowing them to share experiences, skills, and job opportunities. By providing a space where users can highlight their skills and experiences, LinkedIn fosters an environment where individual talents can be recognized and valued, regardless of their academic background or previous experience.

The underlying idea behind the use of LinkedIn and other similar tools is that by creating opportunities for people to work based on their talents and interests, rather than just to earn a living, it is possible to promote a more creative, productive, and fulfilling society for all its members. This approach, known as "working for talent," aims to maximize the potential of each individual, encouraging creative expression, innovation, and personal and professional growth.

Based on the assumption that each person is the world’s best in a particular subject, worldwide-business-oriented social networking site such as Linkedin will be the perfect tool to locate and to employ the best professionals possible at the best position.

More than just allow registered users to maintain a list of contact with details of people they know and trust in business, replacement software will analyze candidate’s skills to create a GRePS (Graphic Representation of Professional Skills). As fingerprints those GRePS are unique and allows the candidate to experience professional plenitude.

Lets see how it will work:

Mr. Miyamoto Shintaro lives in Tokyo and is currently looking for a job. His experiences encompasses managing Human Resources department, recruiting, training and supervising the F&B teams, as well as creating supporting material. Systems update (Micros, websites) is also part of the routine. He speaks Japanese, English and Italian.
He keeps his profile in Linkedin perfectly updated. The GRePS program generates an specific key that matches perfectly to an open position at an Italian Company.Mr. Miyamoto was very excited with the prospects of working in Rome, but he lacks the Erasmus Exchange Program, course required by the contractor. He immediately inscribed ate the course and after 6 months he will be “perfectly” qualified to the position.Thanks to the GRePS Software Mr. Miyamoto and many others around the world would find the perfect workplace, helping Earth’s society to reach post-scarcity Era.

Post Scarcity Society – Prosperous Civilization

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The problem of watching science fiction movies is that once the film ends you have to get back to your own bad reality. I never get tired to hear the memorable movie quotes and lines of dialogue, from Star Trek for example, when they say, “we live in a society free from poverty”.

I remember specially this line of Star Trek The Next Generation when Counselor Deanna Troi explain to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain):

Counselor Troi: “Poverty was eliminated on Earth, a long time ago. And a lot of other things disappeared with it - hopelessness, despair, cruelty...”

Mark Twain: “Young lady, I come from a time when men achieve power and wealth by standing on the backs of the poor, where prejudice and intolerance are commonplace and power is an end unto itself. And you're telling me that isn't how it is anymore?”

Counselor Troi: That's right.

Will we be able to say that in the future?

May be Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) would help us. Giddens is a British sociologist who is renowned for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern contributors in the field of sociology, the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29 languages. Baron Giddens, uses "post-scarcity" to refer to a set of trends he sees in modern industrialized nations, such as an increased focus on "life politics" and a decreased focus on productivity and economic growth. Giddens acknowledges that the term has also been used historically to mean a literal end of scarcity.

Post scarcity or post-scarcity describes a hypothetical form of economy or society, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free. This would be due to an abundance of fundamental resources (matter, energy and intelligence), in conjunction with sophisticated automated systems capable of converting raw materials into finished goods, allowing manufacturing to be as easy as duplicating software.

Even without postulating new technologies, it might be true that today there is already enough energy, raw materials and biological resources on Earth to provide a comfortable lifestyle for every person on earth, but even a hypothetical political or economic system that was able to achieve an egalitarian distribution of goods would generally not be termed a "post-scarcity society" unless the production of goods was sufficiently automated that virtually no labor was required by anyone (although it is usually assumed there would still be plenty of voluntary creative labor, like a writer creating a novel or a software engineer working on open-source software). This is a key difference between the most common post-scarcity vision and other utopian visions.

When we reach the status of a Post Scarcity Society the human race will eventually realize the insane extravagance of throwing away a single item. (read also my article http://blemya.blogspot.com/2007/09/globalizao-e-conscincia-coletiva.html ) . The way we treat our trash says much of how evolved we are.

If we want to take the next step towards a Non-Waste Society here goes some good ideas to consider:

Trash Powered Car - Gasification Plasma – as in Back to the future “Mr Fusion”

As Deanna Troy, Doc Emmett Brown impressed me in Back to The Futre. He’d modded the Delorean to run on garbage.

Nowadays, Jim Mason did the same.

The technology? - gasification - and is running his '89 Honda Accord on garbage ... or biomass, if you prefer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XPH3fV1Fd4&feature=related

Plasma, often referred to as the “fourth state of matter”, is the term given to a gas that has become ionized. An ionized gas is one where the atoms of the gas have lost one or more electrons and have become electrically charged. The sun and lightning are examples of plasma in nature. Man made Plasma is formed by passing an electrical discharge though a gas such as air or oxygen. The interaction of the electric discharge and the process gas causes the temperature of the gas to increase significantly often exceeding 5,500°C (10,000°F), nearly as hot as the sun’s surface.

What is Plasma Gasification?

Gasification is a process that converts carbon-containing materials, such as coal, petroleum coke, municipal solid waste, or biomass, into a synthesis gas, (syngas), composed primarily of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.Gasification occurs when a carbon-containing feedstock is exposed to elevated temperatures and/or pressures in the presence of controlled amounts of oxygen.

St. Lucie County, Florida (GeoPlasma)

The first plasma-based waste disposal system in the USA was announced in 2006 in St. Lucie County, Florida. The county stated that it hopes to not only avoid further landfill, but completely empty its existing landfill — 4,300,000 short tons (3,900,000 t) of waste collected since 1978 — within 18 years. The plant was scheduled to come into operation in 2009. However, no permits as yet have been submitted for construction. Backers have announced that the facility would produce 600 short tons (540,000 kg) of solid rubble from around 3,000 short tons (2,700,000 kg) of waste per day at 5,500 °C (9,900 °F). Uncertainties have arisen however regarding the safety of such a facility. The public and environmental threats from incinerators coupled with the uncertainty of the community's ability to produce such large quantities of waste consistently have led GeoPlasma to submit a new proposal for a much smaller facility that would convert 200 short tons (180 t) of waste per day.

Out of the trash with art

As old alchemists, we could obtain gold from trash. One man is doing more than that. Edouard Martinet (1963) is capable of turning mounds of disgusting garbage into beautiful peaces of art. Martinet was born in Le Mans, France in he studied art at ESAG, Paris and graduated in 1988. From 1992 to 1995 he lived in Charente before moving to his current location in Rennes where he teaches art at L'Institut des Arts Appliques. He uses a series of common metallic objects that could be considered trash, such as old typewriters, car lights, rusted kitchen pans, etc, to create intricate and outstanding sculptures.

Challenge your creativity

Based on Edouard Martinet art try to create a frog out of an umbrella.

I did mine with peaces of an umbrella and two spoons. Take a look.

Good Luck