Team:Website
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This is the Team page for The Gaia Community website.
Contents |
Website content
Overview
- Cooperative and egalitarian
- First settlement will be experimental
- Fully sustainable and highly self-sufficient
- Free from trade, money or employment
- Free from bureaucracy and policing
- Free from authority structures
- Legally owned in equal shares by all members
- Built by members and financed entirely with the single and lifetime membership fees
- Emphasis in simple living, health and community values
Reasons for living in a Gaia Community
- Providing for future generations with a free, healthy and secure environment
- Social sustainability through equality, peace, respect and tolerance
- Plenty of time and resources for self-development and pursuit of personal interests
- Environmental responsibility and harmony with Nature
Characteristics of the Gaia Community
Values and Principles of the Gaia Community
- The humans species is an active part of the Earth; the Earth cannot be owned
- Environmental sustainability is of utmost importance, only superseded by inhabitants' basic survival requirements
- Every social contribution must arise from self-motivation, in a voluntary basis
- All members must be considered equals in every sense, except for the following:
- Dependants must seek the permission of their carers to act on every novel intention
- Access to scarce and/or dangerous resources must be authorised by the specific resource's custodian(s)
- Relationships in which a type of authority has been voluntarily granted
- Differences in ways of reasoning, ways in making meaning of reality, likes and dislikes, and values and principes, must be respected and tolerated
- Communal decisions involving use of resources must be based on sound empirical research conducted by the most relevant authorities in relevant field(s)
- Automation is paramount for sustaining this lifestyle, and for anything that can be automated, the community must seek its implementation
- Once a community has achieved stability, it must seek making available this lifestyle to others who request it
- Whilst abiding local laws and regulations, Gaians ultimately recognise no boundaries, seeing Gaia as an undivided single entity
- Gaians are to purchase resources for settling only, and rely mostly on sustainable local resources from then on
- Gaia Communities are to share their surplus resources with any other Gaia Communities who may benefit from them, without expectations for anything in exchange
Advantages and benefits of this lifestyle
- Zero cost of living
- Physical and emotional health (e.g. organic food, stress-free environment)
- Abundant time and resources for fulfilling everyone's particular interests (e.g. art, studies, technical, scientific, intellectual, physical, spiritual)
- Great environment for developing creative skills
- Satisfaction of emotional and self-esteem needs
- A University campus-like lifestyle
- A general spirit of love and care
- Rich environment for self development in any areas (body, mind, spirit)
Costs and requirements for migrating to our community
- Gaia communities organise as cooperatives, with a one-time membership fee of US$10,000 (used exclusively for the development of the community); a member must live in the community and cannot sell their membership for any more than what was paid for it
- Communities are limited to 10,000 inhabitants each
- All community-impacting decision-making must be done by teams of volunteers with the highest level of training available in the specific area for a decision to be made, and based on sound empirical research; dissent must have sound empirical support to be taken into consideration
- Activities performed by members must be ecologically and socially sustainable, peaceful and respectful of others' freedoms, bodies, and personal spaces
- Rights are only useful when they can be enforced, and since the community is unable to enforce any rights, no rights can be claimed within the community
- Authority must be willingly granted, and never requested or imposed; granting authority enables others to self-impose on oneself for a specific purpose and for an agreed duration, or until authority is revoked; authority is implicitly granted when seeking help
- In seeking social sustainability, each member must make an effort to transcend learned notions of the following:
- property: rely on notions of access to shared resources instead; property is socially unsustainable as it creates inequality and division
- competition: rely on notions of collaboration instead; competition is socially unsustainable whenever it creates division and inequality
- attachment: rely on notions of freedom of access and provide for abundance instead; attachment is unsustainable as nothing lasts forever, and can be a source of negative feelings to those who need or desire the object of one's affection
- blame: seek to soothe the pains of the afflicted by pain instead (no one in a healthy emotional state would want to harm anyone else); blaming robs individuals from the opportunity to resolve conflicts at their source, which is usually society as a whole
- judgement: rely on notions of humility, tolerance and compassion towards others' differences and perceived faults instead; judging takes an authority that has not been granted voluntarily
- self-imposition: seek permission to interact, give advice, or help (except when authority has been willingly granted); even generosity and best intentions may cross boundaries, or be burdening or offensive
- righteousness: seek to stress a personal stance instead; notions of right and wrong are always learned and subjective, and cannot be imposed on others
- self-effacement: seek to communicate anything troubling and rely on the community for support; harbouring fear, guilt, shame, spite, anger, or jealousy is unsustainable and leads to harming oneself or others
- label: seek to accept anything unusual as not only unthreatening, but also socially enriching and valuable instead; labelling is unsustainable as it creates division and fragments society
- duty: seek to be fully self-expressed and act from genuine interest and motivation; duty is unsustainable as it is often self-imposing, judgemental and blameful
- The Gaia communities are syncretic (the combining of different, often seemingly contradictory beliefs), and avoid any cultural privileges or favouritism towards specific beliefs or traditions; beliefs, traditions, and worship are to be either inclusive of all (such as festivities) or expressed in private or in shared purposely designed spaces (such as a communal syncretic temple)
- The Gaia communities must not harbour sectary or fragmentary beliefs, such as ideology, nationalism, or patriotism
The first Gaia Community as an Experimental Settlement
The first settlement, which is planned for implementation in 2015 in Ecuador, will be a first of its kind, and therefore it cannot guarantee its efficacy or capacity to sustain itself. Anyone willing to settle in the first community must understand very well the implications of living in an experimental community.
Characteristics
- Being a first of its kind, none of its members will have any experience in this particular kind of community, and possibly none will have experience with any kind of community either
- The experience can be dangerous as compared with traditional lifestyles, and there will be significant risks to physical and emotional health, resulting from a change in lifestyle, physical isolation from main cities, and lack of sophisticated resources such as operating theatres
Requirements
- Members are to be all 18 years of age or older (i.e. legal adults in Ecuador)
- Be willing to fully participate in the construction of the community's buildings and structures
- Be willing to educate themselves on physical and emotional health
- Be trusting, friendly and good natured
- Deal positively (e.g. seek support) with frustrations arising from the hardships and inconveniences of living in primitive circumstances whilst developing the community
- Prioritise doing what's needed as opposed to what's wanted
Goals
- Have all buildings constructed and operational within 6 months of the settlement
- Demonstrate empirically, after two years of trial run, that the lifestyle is conducive to physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing
- Demonstrate through testimonials that this lifestyle, even being simple living is worthwhile and desirable, conducive to freedom and great enjoyment
- Plan for safe inclusion of children at a later date or at newly developed communities, providing for all their needs and safety, including parenting strategies and education systems
- Plan for, and physically assist with, the development of a new community right after a successful two-year trial run, ideally with half of the population migrating to the new settlement to assist all newcomers with the adjustment to the new lifestyle
Risks
- Loss of life resulting from disease, poisoning, wild animals, drowning, accidents during the construction of the community, assassination by hostile travellers, or even manslaughter by accident or temporary insanity by one of the members
- Physical assault or rape by someone emotionally disturbed
- Physical mutilation or loss of senses resulting from accidents during construction
- Loss of part or the entirety of the membership fees
- Acquisition of infectious or sexually transmitted diseases
- Emotional or psychological breakdown due to hardships
Benefits
- Pioneering a lifestyle that could trigger a significant positive change in the world
- Once in a life adventure
- Gain knowledge and expertise in community building
- Develop trustworthiness and merit
- Take a brave stance for sustainability, equality and peace, and a source of inspiration for others
Long term goals
- Stimulating others to follow suit
- Create a social trend towards full sustainability
- Reduce the monetary costs of implementation of new communities as communities new communities are created
- Increase the reach of the communities to provide anyone willing with a chance to become a member
- Reduce the inequality and social turmoil that leads to poverty and war
Website features
User Registration
Registration of interests
Registration of skills offered
Links to social networking sites
Members
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Activities
Requests
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Description
Help with content and structure of the website
The RBE10K Multilingual Website is installed and ready to go. We need help with content and translations. Graphic designers, bloggers, teams willing to communicate their progress, and people with experience with CMSs (we use Joomla) will be very appreciated!
