User:Ziggy/Website/Introduction

RBE10K Project Introduction

Project presentation in a broad view.

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

For simplicity, contributions will be requested in US currency; however, for those who can contribute directly with required resources as specified by the project, and it happens to be more economic contributing with those resources than selling them and using the cash, this can be accepted, discounting from the share the market value of the resources donated minus any possible associated extra costs from special handling and transport. Contributions will be requested in US dollars; however, to reduce monetary resources wasted on exchange commissions, some contributions will be acceptable at market exchange rate if such currency is useful for some of the planned expenses (e.g. currency of the host country for paying land taxes).

Concerns about being a cult or a scam

Considering the unusual purpose and aim of the RBE10K Project, it is reasonable to entertain the possibility that it is a cult, or even a scam. Any cult or scam would obviously deny it being so, therefore it is pointless to deny it. The following information may provide some clues for anyone with doubts; however, in the end it will be up to each person to make their minds about it.

• The RB10K Project is, at this stage, a documentation project, aimed at producing designs and plans for implementing this strategy. All documentation is licensed as Creative Commons (see RBEMWiki:Copyrights, or click on the (0) Public Domain logo at the footer of any page in the RBE10K Project wiki)
• No participant or contributor will be requested to provide any money until such time there is a sound implementation plan created by the community of participants, and with every last detail publicly available for scrutiny to ensure no one can take advantage of anyone else
• All information contributed is meant to be contributed directly to the RBE10K Project's wiki, becoming automatically in the public domain, therefore any attempts to profit from them would be futile, as the information can be accessed freely by anyone, either directly or through Internet caching services such as the Wayback Machine, mirrors, or copies
• No one within the RBE10K Project is meant to tell anyone else what to do, nor follow orders; some rules are in place to facilitate cooperation and organisation, however all rules can be challenged by anyone, and sound arguments (as opposed to personal preferences or points of view) proposing solutions to flaws or inadequacies in terms of effectiveness, will be addressed promptly
• The implementation of the project will not be possible unless the project succeeds first in creating a sound design and plan; the design and plan will be contributed by people all around the world, mostly as a result of an interest in having an RBEM implemented and trialled
• Handling money is expected to be a very delicate matter, and cause distrust and concern; a critical part of the plan will be devise a way for moneys to be handled with complete transparency and by trusted entities such as large experienced banks; the whole plan will be publicly accessible for the scrutiny of anyone interested
• Whilst at this point the project has not defined how moneys will be handled, the draft proposal is using a trust account from a bank with experience in international commerce, associated to the project's list of purchases, and a number of trusted people from different locations required to approve each expenditure; this may be too bureaucratic or overkill, and simpler standard practices may be devised instead by contributors with experience in international commerce, banking and trust accounts.
• All purchases will be owned by either a cooperative or a non-profit company, and each participant contributing with funds will become a member of the cooperative or a shareholder of the company; there will be rules applicable to shares or cooperative membership to ensure that members or shareholders are required to be residents, and that membership or shares cannot be sold privately (they can be sold only back to the cooperative or company upon leaving the community, and then resold to someone wanting to enter the community at the same original amount).
• There will be no leaders nor concentrated authority in any individual or group; there will be no required religion or beliefs (actually, these will be requested to be kept personal, as the community per se will be multicultural and secular); no orders will be given to anyone at any point, and no coercion will be tolerated either physical, psychological or emotional, by any member onto any other member, either during the planning, or during the implementation