User:Ziggy/Website/Introduction

Website Introduction

What is The RBE10K Project?

In a RBEM participation is open to everyone, because all issues are fundamentally recognised as technical. In it, the goal of the educational system is to produce the most intelligent and aware human beings, because in it everyone becomes a contributor, greatly affecting our collective social evolution for the better and improving the lives of all.

The RBE10K Project is defined by two characteristics:

1. a proposed well-defined strategy for the creating of medium-sized communities implementing the Resource-Based Economic Model (RBEM) socio-economic system, and
2. an initiative for creating designs and plans for such communities through crowdsourcing, relying on fundamental principles of RBEM such as equality and emergent decision making.

The RBE10K Project is not an implementation project, and does not define who or where will the planned and designed community take place. The implementation of the resulting designs and plans must be carried out by independent implementation projects. Each of these implementation projects can implement their own unique variations and preferences according to the characteristics of their participants' financial capabilities, culture, idiosyncrasies, and collective preferences and choice of objectives and focus.

Strategy

The RBE10K Project's key strategy is the project's fundamental characteristic. It can be considered that The RBE10K Project is its proposed strategy. Supporting the project, then, is supporting the strategy, and therefore criticising the strategy or attempting to change it can only undermine the project's integrity and identity. Supporters of the project are advised to, first and foremost, establish their alignment with the proposed strategy, and participate only if the proposed strategy resonates with them.

RBE10K's strategy consists of three elements:

1. Form: Implementation of RBEM through voluntary opting out from the monetary market and into self-funded, self-sufficient, medium-sized, minimalistic, simple-living communities
2. Function: Promotion of the lifestyle only by example, and through social networking Internet services and participation in international academia and open source projects
3. Goal: Having each settlement committing to producing a new settlement every two years, until no one else in the world seem interested in adopting the promoted lifestyle

The RBE10K Project's strategy does not involve a transition, and does not aim at a Global RBEM. Rather, it allows anyone willing to try or fully adopt the RBEM socio-economic system to do so through migrating into a new or established fully functional one. It also aims at being practical and pragmatic, thus proposing beginning with those who can afford the initial cost (those who are dissatisfied with the monetary market system itself or some of its practices, but have access to the initial required capital), and once established reducing the monetary cost of implementation of new communities through sharing of resources.

Designs and Plans

People will have a high propensity to become generalists, not specialists. Specialization is a limitation. [...] Who makes the decisions in a Resource-Based Economy? In effect, no one does. [...] Decisions are arrived at by the use of the scientific method utilizing computers [...] and our central database program coupled in with the central information database of all technical knowledge maintained by revolving interdisciplinary teams which assist in aspects of society that basically cannot yet be automated. The goal is to increase objective decision-making as much as possible.

The RBE10K Project's methodology for creation of plans and designs is also a project's fundamental characteristic, however, unlike the strategy, it offers significant flexibility and room for improvement.

The methodology for creation of plans and designs is based on the following:

1. Crowdsourcing: Plans and designs are intended to be the product of collective work, through voluntary and grassroots contributions, and in the spirit of Wikipedia
2. Self-assembly: Contributed information is intended to self-assemble through the implementation of well defined practices, principles and procedures, avoiding control and authority
3. Decisions arrived at: Decisions result from the objective and automated comparison of several proposals for solving a given problem, using comparative efficiency rankings on a number of relevant criteria, and relying on empirical information
4. Teamwork: The intended mode of typical contribution is through participation in one or more research teams, maintaining frequent group communication through Facebook groups, Google hangouts, Skype groups, Teamspeak voice conferences, online forums, Bettermeans, or any other platform or combination of platforms suitable or convenient for the teams' chosen participation methodology.

Different areas may choose the different tools for managing and processing contributions according to suitability, efficiency and convenience. However, the central repository for all the information, either detailed or summarised, is intended to be stored and organised in a Wiki. All types of participation require a number of skills, and any contributors will be required to gain these skills through training, tutorials, and practice. The wiki platform used is the same as the one used by the Wikipedia, and many of the procedures and practices are also borrowed by those implemented by the Wikipedia, such as stylistic standards, templates, maintenance procedures, etc. Teams are registered in the wiki, and multiple teams can cover a single problem, ideally collaborating and avoiding duplication of efforts.

Standard format

The RBE10K Project proposes a standard ad-hoc format for plans and designs, merely for the purpose of facilitating a starting point from where beginning to develop designs and plans for later implementation. The project promotes the creation of several plans and designs based on various formats, so that implementation projects have a range of options to select from and adjust according to the particular conditions and preferences of their members.

The standard format for an RBE10K community is the following:

• 10,000 inhabitants
• $100 million US dollars total implementation budget
• 200-400 hectares
• covering ongoing expenses such as Internet service using part of the budget for new settlements
• donating 1/2 of its inhabitants to each new settlement produced, as a way to help new settlements get started
• experimental communities (i.e. first of a kind, or without sufficient experience) avoid including inhabitants that require special care, such as children

Budget: Money vs Resources

The RBE10K Project proposes using a specific amount of money of a specific currency for defining the budget required for the implementation of a given design or plan. Meanwhile the implementation will only rely on resources and not money, any resources that cannot be sourced from other RBE communities must be obtained, acquired, or purchased one way or another within the monetary market system.

The purpose of using a monetised budget is manyfold:

• prevent stresses arising from unequal initial investment (i.e. all members of a new settlement are to contribute resources as equally as possible, and the use of money simplifies this process)
• flexibility for easily distributing resources in percentages for the different constitutive parts, such as food, construction materials and machinery
• access to standard resource administration services such as banking and commercial contracts
• economising through accessing or negotiating bulk prices
• allow communities form under protected legal structures such as companies