User:Wouter.drucker/Notes

Family styles

Advantages of communal families

• The child can learn from different adults
• The burden of raising the child is shared by multiple adults
• Adults will take care of children throughout their lives, instead of once or twice
• Parents will have time to do other things and keep developing themselves
• Adults will have more opportunity gaining experience in raising children

Democracy versus the Scientific method, singularity versus multiplicity

Democracy is where 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'. We want to establish a meritocracy, where the best people determine the ways for example education is organized. The scientific method allows the best methods to float to the surface because their result will be superior in a way that can be proven. Here it is apparent where the difference between a Democratic system and a meritocratic Scientific system arise. The scientific system allows for different opinions to be compared, the democratic system allows for only one opinion. Singularity versus multiplicity.

Love

Love can be developed trough

• reading about people falling in love (the books of Agatha Christie, the books of Jane Austen), because the mind can learn through imagination.
• meditation, through activation of certain parts of the brain
• music ('if music be the food of love')
• certain life choices (following your bliss, the parts in our brains we use, will grow).

Love can be an important factor in education. We usually love the people we need. We love the people that have something to teach us. Love, procreation, learning are interrelated. Learning is procreation of the mind.

Settlement design

Settlement design should differ from regular design. Not only could we win in cost efficiency (shared kitchen, shared television room) but also in the way people interact and collaborate (shared ateliers, shared laboratories, shared living spaces). Of course there also need to be spaces for people to isolate themselves in. All in all design would be vastly different from regular design, and would be a major topic for us to think about.

Shared television rooms

Large rooms would have a projector, smaller rooms a led television. Voting on what to watch would take place on the internet, while one person would operate the equipment based on the voting outcome.

Shared ateliers

Because certain artists are expected to draw in more people (for either collaboration, or mere curiosity), ateliers of different sizes should be built, with popular artists moving to the bigger ateliers.

Lowered (telescopic) furniture for children

For example telescopic toilets. Lowered storage for bread, (plastic) knifes and foodstuffs, so children have to opportunity to learn making their own lunch. This is an example of architecture interrelating with education, and the way this would help alleviate adults could be said to be an interrelation to governance.

Driven from possibilities

In life it is the technical possibilities that drive our activities and wants. In education it is the human brain and it's characteristics that drive what education will consist of. We start with what we physically have, and let our goals flow from that naturally.

• We don't start with: we want ice cream, let's figure out how to make it. We start with: we have this amount of energy, a 3d printer and a bit of scrap metal, let's see what we can do with it.
• We don't start with: the child needs to learn how to read. We start with: the child asks these kinds of questions, is interested in this and this, let's see if it needs anything.

Dealing with the outside world

Humility

Be humble. Resolve conflicts you have with the 'status quo', forgive. Don't be a hippy. Be a regular person. IMO it's better if you wear a black business suit, or a clean pair of ordinary jeans, than if you were a robe, of hippy clothes. All that is ego, and you want to have as little of it as possible. Ego, and anger with the status quo (the bilderburgs) is at some point going to bring forth more negativity. The more humble we are, the more chance we have of succeeding. I know some of you are going to be sick, but what the heck. Luke 18:9-14. To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about[a] himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (it's history man, isn't it beautiful!:))

Reputation

We shouldn't try to prove things, or to show that we are abiding by our ideas. Always believe in yourself. The way to gain a good reputation is by not considering it in your decision making.

Technical ideas

• Get into upwards spiral, as you get better in putting natural resources to use, you attract more 'makers' who want to be of the grid and experiment away.

• Biologist: water purification ADVANCED (sewage, bacteriae) mineral extraction from seawater (bacteriae, see TedX) VERY ADVANCED

• Engineer

Maker community

• Iron casting.

• Melting iron (oven opensourceecology (?)). Use 3d printing to form molds. Let locals bring old iron.

• Water desalination. Use membrane or perhaps easier sunlight (reflecting surface, boil).

• Energy production: reflecting light, boil, steam.

• Construction: dirt brick (ose).

• Try to get to a point where you can make o.s.e tools out of old iron (melting, casting), and then out of iron we mine our selves, from earth or seawater.

• Begin with: some houses, solar panels, 3d printer, oven for melting. Eventually: produce our own houses, which would be made available for engineers or doctors (or the DIY equivalent).

Social ideas

• Trouble makers

Never punish. Try to establish a good relationship with the person .

• Talk less. Ask more (source: Alfie Kohn).

Education

Start from people and not from needs. Pre conditions for a high standard of living (technical know how) will automatically arise when people are allowed to develop optimally. Studies with rats show that a rich environment is necessary for optimal development (in the case of humans: books, art, a laboratory etc.) We always need to think holistically, and see how education interrelates with health, architecture and life meaning, among others.

Romantic notions

China currently educated 400,000 engineers a year. Compare this to Jacque Fresco's comment, that only 200-300 people form the basis of our industrial system. It appears our notions of education are too romantic, we are trying to educate every human being to be a second Leonardo da Vinci. The vast majority of people need to be educated simply to enjoy life, to be independent, loving and socially adjusted.

Education and Architecture

One of the major sources of learning are other people. Maximizing this potential means adapting space accordingly. Virtual space (the web) already allows for optimal collaboration, but normal space is generally extremely regimented (trough the concept of the 'house'). Design of the Rbe10K settlement can play an important role in (natural) education. For example if there are painters at work in the settlement, children should be allowed to freely walk in and out. Ateliers should be designed with capacity and safety (maximal visibility) and attainability (a high chance for people to walk in) in mind.

Education and Health

A forest doesn't need improvement from human hand, in fact such improvement will turn out to be detrimental. The same goes for a child. Adult humans will still try to improve a child any time they are bored. Boredom stem from lack of positive life direction (see positive psychology, Tal Ben Shahar). So the optimal educator for young children will be healthy individuals. This is one of the links between health and education.

Education and Love

Love between people

Children invariably invoke strong sensations of love. This sensation can be described as pleasure and sense of wanting to give care. Love is a force of attraction. Through the mechanism of love, children attract adults. This mental attraction can be a source of learning in both the child and the adult. The child needs to interact with many different adults to optimally learn from them. The child needs to compete for attention because adults have their own interests. This way the love mechanism can be seen as a weapon the child has to optimally learn. Different adults will want to share time with the time, and it's in the child's interest those adults each have a chance to spend time with the child.

Love, when it comes to children, sadly is often a sensitive subject. Child abuse is widespread, and the fear and hatred this instills in people will give rise to extreme protection and nervousness about the subject. This might damage the potential of child education. We should love our children and not let negative past experiences come in our way. Safety should come from rational measures. For instance individuals behaving in a suspicious manner (making weird sexual remarks, appearing socially maladjusted, appearing unhealthy) should be noted and discussed, possibly preventing them from spending time with children, or allowing them to spend time with children in a controlled manner, giving them a chance to heal, and other people a chance to better understand and map his condition.

Love for an activity

We learn best when we love what we do, or when we pursue something that can make us feel good.

Health

Reasons not to restrict intake of rich foods

Obesity is sometimes associated with taking in to much energy rich foods, such as fatty hamburgers or sweet drinks and candy. The other way of looking at it is to associate it with lack of exercise, physical as well as mental. It might be better to focus attention on increasing exercise instead of decreasing intake, because the community will be more productive. For example, heavy physical exercise (such as mountain biking for four hours straight) has great benefits for physical and mental health, but such activity might become impossible when restricting caloric intake. Children are well known for craving sweet foods. Depriving them of these energy rich substances might hinder their development, as their growing brains require large amounts of energy.

A second reason not to restrict rich foods is that there are no profit incentives to deal with.

Money and openness

About the article so far:

The starting point of the RBE train of thought is A. Abundance and B. Technology. All ideas in this article should be ignored as they don't provide good starting points. We should start with B. Technology. By implementing technology in the most appropriate manner we can ideally provide decent basic living standards and full or almost full time leisure. Those are the things a first settlement can provide. Step two could then be attracting (technical) know how. The atmosphere and living conditions, combined with the leisure time, should be such that the settlement can attract skilled people, who take the project to the next level. All the while the system should remain open to the monetary system, and decisions should be make on a per case basis.

Extra information, copied from 'agreements':

If the person in charge of the money thinks A is the best decision, and the majority of the participants think B is the best decision, the person in charge of the money should choose A. If he didn't he would knowingly make a bad decision, with the benefit of not setting a precedent for future power abuse. These kinds of abusive situations only arise when there is scarcity. Projecting an aura of consistency or ethical reliability shouldn't be a concern. What matters is taking rational decisions. Consciously making bad decisions in order to protect ones sense of integrity is a form of martyrdom we should refrain from. The same goes for whether to use money. If for example there is an overcapacity in energy production it may very well make sense to sell the surplus. This is just a rational choice, as letting the energy (or money) go to waste just doesn't make sense. The goal of the project is to get to a RBE, not to be one right away, and the consistency is in the belief of the participants in the RBE theory behind it. Proving to the outside world that we are consistent should not stand in the way of making rational decisions.

Extra point:

I find it likely that the first settlers will be more humanistically oriented (or alpha) and that the (more than) necessary techies (or beta's) will be joining later (likely a small group). Therefore I think it's smart to save part of the money for when these people arrive.

Notes solar updraft tower cost

Estimates of total costs range from 7 (for a 200 MW plant) and 21 (for a 5 MW plant) euro cents per kWh to 25-35 cents per kWh.

Estimate using own numbers (no heating, no lab, no machinery):

kw per day per person 0,6 x 365 x 40 x 0,25 = 2190 EUR out of total budget 7,000 EUR (0,6 x 3650).

General numbers:

Western European household = 9,5 = per person: 2,5 Off grid households = 0,2 - 6 = per person: 0,2 - 1,5

2,5 x ... = 9100 EUR

Average electricity use:

It's hard to predict how much energy consumption we could save, but it's clear this is an important topic. If we use anywhere near as much as normal household, the project is not feasible.

Beamers require extra (darkened) space, but they make up for it over forty years because their replacement cost is a factor 100 lower (3 small television per person = 1500 EUR, Beamer = 15 EUR, space for beamer = approx 1000 EUR but possibly much cheaper because of earthship use).

Ipads use incredibly little energy, but they are expensive to purchase. Also they are not going to last 40 years, replacing them at least four times = 4 x 400 EUR. Compared to laptops they save about 40 EUR in energy over that period so that's negligible. We should discern between access to regular internet and computers that can do other tasks. Money should be set aside to provide technical people with up to date computers. Most people already own either an ipad or a laptop, so a rule could be made that people use only those, and bring their own. Then it should be calculated what it costs to provide internet over 40 years. Computers should be as sturdy as possible, with good and sturdy software (Linux). Possibly lower capacity desktops could be under 40 Watts as well. Asus EEE netbook pc's will fail extremely quickly. Apple computers are known to be durable.

Ideally internet would be provided by having computers that only do internet, and that use a central computer. They would consist of a screen, mouse/trackpad, keyboard, wifi antenna.

Recommendations

• It seems to be important to get accurate cost predictions when talking to a contractor.
• Replace computers by ipads and televisions by beamers.