building a house ecosquared style

How would I go about building a house if I wanted to do so using ecosquared protocols? I will look at three conditions of social saturation:

  • Red just starting with only you using the protocols
  • Green with teams of people connected in a network using the protocols
  • and Blue where a wide sector of people are sharing within ecosquared protocols

There are many factors to building a house and different ways to categorise its construction, let the following payments are estimates for building a three-bedroom house using traditional economics suffice:

  • land cost, buying land, £100k
  • labour, 40k
  • materials, £120k
  • selling of house £260k +/- whatever the ‘market’ price of such a thing is in the current market

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red solo

Because you are the only person using the protocols, their use is rather limited. Land will be bought, as normal, though you may want to consider the land to be ‘commons’. The materials will also be bought. However, it may be possible to phrase the contracts with suppliers as an MTTP contract. Certain resources may be accessed again in the future, and rather than thinking the money is for the materials, it is more for the relationship to the materials supplier. They just happen to be giving you the bricks, cement, cables, etc.

Labour is conducted as MTTP, whether people understand it or not, it does not matter. It may be possible to open up the potential for a ‘crowd-funded’ house. That is, when the house if finished, the distribution of it worth (if it was sold) would be shared by the value attributed to people’s contribution.

When the house is built, it is ‘open-source’. It is nominally, legally owned by you, but in your mind it is simply the place where you happen to live. Neither the house or the land on which it is built is owned.

Building a house during Red Conditions, means this is more a mental exercise, a thought-experiment, than anything else. It does open up the necessary mentality for future growth however, both in terms of the people engaged to build it, as well as engaging others who have self-built.

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green team

A team gathering to build a house is a little like a ‘barn-building’ community, or a ‘building society’. People are aligning to create a house together, and if they can build one, they may help others as a team so that everyone who contributes ends up living in their own home.

The land is ‘owned’ but is shared in a collective sense. Again, not much meaning here unless the team actually build on mutual, shared ground.

The labour can be paid for via MTTP, and if within the team, it is volunteered. Subjective enumeration is the basic means of tracking people’s contributions. This should map in some way to the current market costs, for laying foundation, brickwork, panelling, flooring, electrical system etc. It should be possible to estimate the ‘return’ to each contributor via SEA should the house be sold.

Resources are bought off market. Again, this is a standard ‘trade’ exchange, money for resources, however it may also be clothed as an MTTP contract, to invite suppliers into the ecosquared supply chain.

The finished house is owned collectively, but is occupied by whoever is living there. The current inhabitants are stewards of the building. This should enable greater flexibility in terms of movement should people want to relocate to other parts of the city, country or the world, by swapping households.

The ‘market-value’ of the house is in terms of traditional economics. In terms of ecosquared, the building has no financial value whatsoever. We may attribute subjective enumeration, presumably by the inhabitants, but this relies on allowing SEA to apply to things. The principle, the practice, is that once the house is built, it is ‘free’. It is a resource to be tracked, to be used, but not to be tabulated with a monetary value.

old fashion barn raising

blue network

Let’s assume that the ecosquared network has end-to-end chains of supply. This means that the build team are simply sharing their resources, as do the suppliers. There is no payment for anything. Materials are given. There may be MTTP contracts, and of course subjective enumeration, depending on the scale of the network.

If this is integrated with an end-to-end supply chain of food too, so that material suppliers and build teams are given food, then the system gets close to becoming fully self-sufficient. Of course, this is still within the current market place, with externalities like oil perhaps, or electricity from a central power grid, and so on, which need to be ‘paid for’. This is balanced by ‘income’ by the entire network as normal jobs. Some participants may take an income as ‘joiners’, ‘bricklayers’, ‘construction workers’, ‘farmers’, ‘teachers’ and so on. Such individuals sell to the current market, and this money is distributed via SEA to all participants within the network.

Because most of the daily resources are internally sourced, whether it happens to be the bricks for the newest buildings or the lettuce in the salad, there is no need for money, personally. Luxuries may be bought by individuals, but this kind of behaviour is frowned upon since the community is still paying for certain collectively required resources, such as electricity, petrol, etc. Once these collective requirements are covered, which is a calculation based on resource allocation and nothing more, the moneyflow which ends up with individuals is spent as each individual sees fit. Because of the way the system works, those who accrue the most money are those who produce the greatest value within the community. This may be related to jobs that people do not want to do, such as working in the sewars, or who happen to provide more invisible skills and services, self-development, social integration, educating kids, etc.

The point is, with the accumulation of material products, as houses, schools, farms, factories, enter into the ‘commons’, so there is no need to pay for these. These resources are shared. Their use is what is tracked using SEA as well as resource allocation economics. There are no owners, so no burgeoning externalities. People are being useful to one another, giving of their produce, whether it is planting a seed and then giving the resulting carrots to others, tutoring kids at math, or constructing bricks. Everything is given freely, and tracked with SEA. Money loses its internal necessity at the rate of which things are being produced within the ecosquared entity; money is no longer needed to ‘buy in’ resources.

 

challenging observation

You decide when these periods of time occur, when we shift from Red to Green to Blue conditions. The rate of social adoption depends on each one of us, individually and collectively, personally and globally.

At some stage, entire communities can become self-sufficient, where money is no longer needed to ‘buy-in’ resources, since they are all generated within ecosquared, food, materials, energy sources. This constitutes the Yellow Condition. Once these conditions apply to all communities globally, then we will have shifted from our current economic system to an economics based on giving, and GIFT will have been completed.

Could something like the Ha-ha’s be used to build a house? Current estimates are about 6 months to build a house. Would 1000 participants be willing to put in £100 to get a house built, using ecological designs, minimal electricity usage, etc — and that house be ‘owned’ by the collective? The current system for enabling ha-ha’s is not strong enough to support this kind of initiative because we can’t track SEA. However, one day the system will be more rigorous, and if participants put £100 per month into these initiatives rather than a mortgage, the world may look rather different in a decade or so.

collective objective ‘light-touch’

Co-designing the ha-ha’s is a good experience, there are plenty of lessons to be learned. Even in the ‘negative’ spaces of what is missed, what is omitted, what doesn’t happen.

I saw this post on a FB group, Campathos, run by Cynthia La Grou.

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My comment was this:

I am finding in our current co-design, people look to one another for perspective. That is, they are focussing on each other rather than the objective. I’d rather look at one another for value, which is inspiring, and keep my attention on the objective, which will enable us to achieve it collectively. Tricky to enable. The basis of human ‘flocking’ I think.

Does this make sense?

hard co-design versus soft co-creation

Co-designing is slightly different than softer, more open-ended creative collaboration. Co-design brings a certain specificity. It’s more like engineering. There are specific settings, parameters, that are demanding. We must obey the laws of physics when building our bridge. We must play with the tools we have. This goes for engineering a bridge, or coding, and — I propose — certain psycho-social dynamics.

The ha-ha’s are not a ‘get together’, a soft social gathering, a ‘feel-good’ event. The objective of the ha-ha is to create consensus with upto 1,000 or more — in an hour! That’s… like… crazy! Impossible, or at least very very demanding if we want to control, force, coerce, argue, etc. However, if we use Trust and we self-organise, I believe we can do it relatively easily — if we get the ‘social tech’ right. It has to be right from the get-go. Hence the emphasis on the Invitational-Protocol, an implementation of the ecosquared financial protocols, the methodology. We are reversing the current economic system. We are practicing aikido, we need to touch just the right pressure points for it to work. ‘Light-touch’ collaboration on a collective objective.

Are we going to co-design this social tech by being soft, looking at one another for instructions, or building community within our own group? I never pretended that we are ‘building community’ between us as co-designers. We see the lay of the land, we have an objective, and we make moves. We do what we can. We allow ourselves to think the impossible. We take courage in that our fellow co-designers are making moves. We see what they are missing and we fill in the gaps. We may support one another as we attempt the impossible! We are self-learning, co-dependent, incredible mutual beings. We are amazing!

the social feedback loop of ha-ha’s

Think about how the ha-ha’s will work, whether we get it right this iteration or not. In one hour, 1000 are not going to ‘befriend’ anyone. There is no time for ‘discussion’. It is not ‘community building’ as we know it. It is not reaching consensus by listening to each member. It is not about aggregating a network with 1,00o like-minded members. So what is the point of it?

Social impact.

That is, if something actually happens in the following week  — this is why we come back together. We managed to do something socially miraculous. We trusted one another enough with our £10 and our 1 hour to enable something amazing to happen in the world.

That’s enough for me. I will die happy if ha-ha’s are working in the world. I will look forward to doing ha-ha’s. I will start to recognise names, I will note quality contributions, I will pursue off-shoots, I will get to know other participants, I will take part more actively in the decided social action and work in more intense teams. All because there is social impact. It is social impact that defines my engagement with others. I exist relative to the social impact. Everyone who is playing ha-ha’s, and learning to humanly flock, is relative to our collective flocking.

Intelligent flocking. Self-herding cats. Heart-connected future-orientated collaboration. Courage and love! Courage to go forward not-knowing, and love as the bond between us.

second critical week of co-design of ha-ha’s

We had our second meeting on Monday, framing what needs to be done this week, namely working out the ‘Invitational-Protocol’, how we invite people to the ha-ha’s and what the tech required to enable a smooth player experience.

I’ve timestamped the first hour so far. There are a few framing bits to start with, framing piece, and then two conversational bits of about 10-15 mins between Doug, Mani and me which are very interesting.
I get the impression when reviewing this, the complexity of the space we are creating within. Amazing to hear Doug’s and Mani’s perspectives. Very revealing, of themselves and their trajectories, but more importantly the space. Doug has a remarkable understanding of the current corporate ecology, Mani is focussing on designing the player experience, and I am attempting to introduce ecosquared financial protocols. If I wasn’t locked into the objective of 1000 people by end of september, this is the kind of conversation we ‘should’ have had in phase 1. I believe our objective would have been different.

benefits of light-touch co-design of a specific instance

I still think we can pursue multiple strategies, which is the benefit of working as lightly as we are. By creating a prototype, by fulfilling our commitment:
    • we have something to show eg reddit or quora which is along Doug’s lines
    • we’ll be able to tighten up an experiential tube to fulfil Mani’s method
    • we have experienced a way of working which is light, and yet fulfils our objective

That is, we have something concrete to take forwards, as well as the experience of trying to integrate our thinking in a specific instance. A second iteration may emerge as a consequential result, either directly through the ha-ha’s if they turn out to be successful, or as a separate trajectory if not.

this week’s co-design focus

So, let’s apply ourselves to the co-design for this week: creating the ‘Invitational-Protocol’. The default is running much like a crowd-funding site. Can we include a loop that binds people through trust? Can we include a financial movement when we invite friends? If we manage it, this increases the chance that the ha-ha’s will work. By binding value, trust, and moneyflow at the dyadic relationship, in the ‘Invitational-Protocol’, we create an ecological economics equivalent to ‘marketing’ and ‘sales’. Check out the MTTP animation, since the IP is a version of MTTP.

Remember, though, it is not sales or marketing, since what we are inviting people to is ‘not-known’. It is a genuine invitation to co-create. Amazing potential — let’s see if we can apply ourselves this week and crack it!

 

financial health and steve jobs

I tried to create a financial projection like you’d find in a business plan, expected revenue, for the ecosquared entity last year, based on a starting fund of £30,000. Silly thing to do since the entity is not a business, however I’ve gone back and stuck in a column called health. It may be a useful thought-experiment. ‘Health’ indicates how many week’s ahead the entity would live without growth and simply honouring MTTP contracts. That is, if no more people were invited, how long would the MTTP contracts be honoured (and this is without considering any money attracted to the value co-produced). Ignore all the other numbers, just the coloured columns have meaning, and the addition left hand ‘health’ column.

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instant health-check

If we are tracking MTTP contrasts as they happen, it should be possible to see how long it will live, at any instant. The spreadsheet above is done weekly. On week 17, for example, the entity will live for another 14 weeks before it dies.
An observation: everyone is responsible for the entity as a whole because the rate of invites will effect the longevity of the entity. Too many invites at a lower period than the current health will further shorten the life-span of the whole entity. Hence the need to invite people at a longer period. Thus, at the level of the whole entity, the notion of competition is redundant. There is no competition at the highest level, since all our well-being depends on the health of everyone.

steve jobs and apple’s responsiveness

One of the reasons Apple took off was because they used their computers to track their accounts. Because of their speed, Steve Jobs was able to see the state of his company on a weekly basis. Thus, he could change rates of production etc based on sales etc on a weekly basis, thus he could out-manouver other companies which relied on quarterly or even annual cycles. This meant he could respond to the market faster. Apple, as an organism, had greater responsiveness and thus a competitive edge.
If the entity forms because of the number of MTTP contracts and people agree to track SEA, it will have the fastest response time ever — instant info — as well as having a completely responsive interface — everyone! Of course, there may be people who are more like Steve Jobs within the network, and hopefully if we recognise them and value them, their input will allow the entity to grow while producing amazing value, whether it is in the form of computers, products, services of experiences.
I like to think of Steve Jobs as a social artist. And though Apple has taken on a monolithic form, the products are very much designed with aesthetic and the people who use the computers have a pleasant disposition. Will MTTP and SEA encourage a similar pleasant disposition to us?