How might a Resource Based Economy playout, if it ever did?54 min read

Introduction

A. Genesis of Post

This is the second post (now ~9,000 words/~19 pages) of a 2-part post which ended up being the longest post I have ever written which was also written in just over about 12 days, so editing could most likely be improved. This 2-part post in total (19,000+ words/~50 pages) beat my previous longest post, Calendar Reform (13,510 words/~55 pages) which I wrote in a month, by 6,000 words/-5 pages (due to fewer pictures and tables), so buckle in!! The first part of this post is titled Capitalism and Resource Based Economies Q&A from Facebook (Dec 2020) (12,124 words/~31 pages), so feel free to check that out for the context for this post.

These 2 posts are an attempt to answer a slew of questions from someone in this Facebook post and this Facebook Meme post too, both of which have a great conversation going about Monetary Systems, Capitalism, and Resource Based Economies. If you want to see the explicit context of these questions you will want to check those threads. This post is here to answer just one of those questions which you will see below.

Here are all ~126 pages of my RBE posts which you will want to read in order to potentially understand all that I am referring to here if you are not already intimately familiar with this topic. You may also want to read these in this approximate order. In either case start with The Cancer of Capitalism since that is the one that starts them all off.

1. The Cancer of Capitalism (30 pgs)
2. Capitalism and Resource Based Economies Q&A from Facebook (Dec 2020) (31 pgs)
3. Productivity and Motivation? (7 pgs)
4. How will a Resource Based Economy work? (9 pgs)
5. Human Nature, Competition, Employment, and Housing (21 pgs)
6. Some Technical Steps Towards Implementing (7 pgs)
7. Benefits for Industries and Businesses (6 pgs)
8. The Cities of Tomorrow (15 pgs of mostly pictures)

Honestly, if I did not have to work for a living I would love to forge these all into a book and do even more research and writing in order to expand on this very, very important topic.

B. The Question?

OK, so here is that 1 question that this 1 post is going to try to answer in some basic way:

“Even disregarding the huge disparity between the most developed and the least developed countries, how would this work just in, let’s say England?“

OK, so the moment happened and the world magically said “Yes, Let’s do this RBE thing! Engage!” Now what? What will happen? I will give you a taste of how I think it could unfold. Keep in mind the Magic?? section from part 1 of this 2-part post which is super important, because this process will not happen magically over night and the process will take a LOT of time. You can always make arguments for approaching this process in a few different ways. I can think of a few more ways myself.

I. Interstellar Humanity

A. Need for a Resource Based Economy’s Values

When thinking about writing this second part of this 2-part post I found that it was interesting that it was much easier to think about how evolve Humanity into an interstellar species (which I write about in my Interstellar Humanity policies) than it was to try to think about trying to get Humanity to shift to an RBE. Why is this? Well, taking Humanity to the stars is merely a pure engineering problem whose process was almost fractal in nature (has a repeatable process through each stage). Whereas, shifting Humanity to agree to stop doing everything it can to destroy itself at the fastest rate possible, in order to become a globalized civilization drenched in peace and cooperation, requires something infinitely more difficult – something that is not merely a technical or logistical problem – something that is truly, at its core a societal values problem which is the the hardest thing to change. As I have been saying all through this 2-post document: we have the knowledge, technology, and resources to evolve into a Resource Based Economy today. The final real question then becomes “Can we evolve or develop the values needed for this to happen?”. An even better question is “Can do it quickly and safely?”

This is important, because of the long term implications of thinking this far out about Humanity’s potential future as a potentially interstellar civilization, which I also hope will help to reinforce the importance of shifting to an RBE for Humanity’s long term survival. Below I have excerpted the Interdependence and a Space-faring Humanity section from my Interstellar Humanity policy page, so you can read it for yourself which I hope will drive this home for you:

B. Interdependence and a Space-faring Humanity

As below (on Earth), so it shall be above (in space).

James O’Neill

Humanity carries it’s cultural, theological, emotional, intellectual, and social baggage with it wherever it goes which creates perpetual strife, exploitation, and conflict. If we cannot live in harmony here on our planet of origin then we will never be able to live in any semblance of harmony in a space station nor anywhere else in the universe. This is the Star Trek vs The Expanse conundrum. The only real way to accomplish peace in space is to create peace here on Earth. 

As a globalized species we need to advocate for a change in Humanity’s social, environmental, political, and economic systems so that we can save ourselves and our planet of origin from our own self-inflicted horrors and the systems and structures that created them, otherwise we shall NEVER know peace, even as much as we would like to idealize life in space and space colonies, etc. Nothing will change with Humanity in space if we do not ourselves change.

The entirety of the policies here on Interstellar New Deal are aimed at just that – creating all of those changes so that Humanity may finally know peace on Earth and wherever we shall find ourselves throughout the universe.

The Philosophical Pillars for Peace form that foundation for all of the polices here.

II. A Potential Process

A. Introduction

This process would happen in phases of sorts. I mean it has too, right? We have countries with various levels of food, water, housing, healthcare, sanitation, etc, right? – various forms of infrastructure that aren’t all on the same level – so equalizing all of that will be important. But, the most difficult part of this is not the building of an RBE, because, as we have established before in part 1 of this 2-part post, that implementing an RBE is not a resource, technology, or knowledge problem. It is predominantly a societal values problem, therefore once we solve the problem of shifting Humanity as a globalized civilization to embrace an eco-humanistic socioeconomic values system, then we can collectively move on to implementation with very little problem, especially when we are able to start pulling from the global brain trust to solve our various technical problems.

Even with those differences, the essential process will follow a similar order to which follows below. Keep in mind that anything I pose here will only be a vast oversimplification of the insane amount of changes that will have to happen, so take this for what it is worth. Also, there are quite a few ways to think of this process unfolding. The process I will present here is one that will take a bit longer and draw it out a bit, so we can see some more discrete phases.

This is just a thought experiment to give you an idea of how this all might happen… in 9 Phases:

1. Getting to the Transition Point
2. Philosophic Foundations
3. Engage! and Leadership
4. Harm Mitigation
5. Global Resource Survey
6. Research and Development
7. Systems Integrations and Resource Localization
8. Infrastructure Buildout
9. Enjoy You RBE Life

If you would like to read or listen to (like I did) a novel which is about this very topic consider reading: F-Day: The Second Dawn Of Man (Colin Turner, 2016).

B. The Process

1. Getting to the Transition Point

Introduction

“Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors that will avoid extinction.”

Buckminster Fuller (Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), pg. xxvii)

This entire section’s discussion will hinge upon the core concepts developed within the previous section How about Communism and Socialism? from the first post of this 2-part post which set forth the concept that Socialism and Communism have historically failed for 4 basic reasons, the most important of which, at least for this discussion, is not having the eco-humanistic values required for success. As a reminder, here are the 4 reasons from that section as well as what assumptions we will make regarding these as we discuss them in this section:

1. Tension and Monetary Systems – Frankly, evolving beyond monetary systems is the the entire point of this document, but this is hard to achieve without the appropriate values system, which is the point of this section. In the examples we give below they will all end in the eventual evolution of the appropriate values system needed.
2. Eco-Humanistic Values – This whole section is about Humanity evolving the appropriate values.
3. Violence – A violent revolution will tend to result in further violence, so a good result is not likely.
4. Technology – Currently, Humanity has the basic technology and resources needed to basically implement an RBE, so no assumptions needed. Although, there will be technological innovations and other things needed as noted below.
5. The United States of Terrorism – At some point the US, as the greatest global terrorist organization, will have to become part of the solution or no global progress towards peace and cooperation will ever be possible.

This section will look at a few ways that Humanity might evolve into a globalized civilization with the values required to unify Humanity which would want to successfully implement an RBE. The hardest part of getting the world ready to come together as a global (if not interstellar) civilization in order to implement an RBE is ensuring that we have the eco-humanist values required to make it successful. This is especially problematic because of the imminent threat of extinction posed by Climate Change which is accelerating faster than we can accurately predict, and whose harms will exacerbate geopolitical issues making this process even more difficult. Not to be a complete doomer here, (which I definitely am), but honestly, for most of this section’s discussion, Climate Change is the one thing that will realistically ultimate cut short any real progress towards any positive end for Humanity, so I will ignore this until the last part of this section where I will take it into account Climate Change and Humanity in the best possible light, at least for that limited discussion.

With all that being said, I will start by giving you 5 separate (although seemingly outlandish) movements as examples of ways we might reach the Transition Point with some bit of overlap between them as you will see:

1. The Arc of the Moral Universe
2. The Democratic Socialist Vanguard
3. The Hacktivist Movement for The Great Transition
4. The Eve of Annihilation
5. The Pan-African Decolonized Union (PADU)

Option 1 – The Arc of the Moral Universe

You can consider this first option as the condensed form of the other options.

I will quote Martin Luther King, Jr. here who reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” as the primary mode that we shall look at things here. This is a very, very long term look that would probably take over a hundred very optimistic years assuming that theocracies, competition, global capitalist exploitation of undeveloped countries, territorialism and expansion, violence, poverty, coups, nuclear war, bigotry, and Climate Change don’t destroy us first; and are all some how minimized globally through global action, cooperation, and progress. I know, it all sounds so magical and nigh impossible. =( This potential can seem like completely magical-rainbow-unicorn thinking because this would also mean that the United States would have to stop terrorizing the world and would want to work towards healing the world instead of exploiting it for fun and corporate profit, and I say this as an American. =(

It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.

attributed to both literary critic Fredric Jameson and philosopher Slavoj Žižek

More specifically, that ‘bend towards justice‘ would eventually have most countries effectively evolving into something resembling the Democratic Socialist countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands) whose values are humanistic and environmentally friendly which are the core values needed for global cooperation, peace, and sustainability, and a Resource Based Economy.

Option 2 – The Democratic Socialist Vanguard

The concept I will present here seems like an even longer shot than the previous option if you can imagine that, mostly because of the small scale. An RBE is perhaps impossible to implement on a small scale, but this process may provide the case study and genesis for conversation, cooperation, and eventual global change.

Here, we will again look towards those Democratic Socialist countries (Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden), who, while languishing economically under the auspices of the European Union (EU), specifically due to the socioeconomic harm caused by the loss of their sovereign currency, decide to restore their countries’ collective sovereignty, progress, and values by leaving the EU. Those Democratic Socialist countries also decide to unite into one collective Democratic-Socialist Union of sorts.

As part of that unification process and to more further unite these 4 countries ideologically with their collective eco-humanistic values, they hold a large convention and then come up with a values document as their primary cultural, economic, and policy guide (hopefully like my P3H), which results in radicalizing them, pulling them further towards socializing more parts of their society for the sake of Equity, Humanity, Justice, Compassion, and Sustainability.

Eventually, even with socializing more parts of their society they begin to see the conflict between the: negative biopsychosocial effects of money and even their minimal inequality, as well as their collective separation through the existence of national boundaries vs their stated eco-humanistic values, so they begin to minimize the use of money which then starts their conversation into money artificially limiting possibilities, and then finally asking “Why do they need money at all?”. This also begins to have them look at how money and national boundaries operates in other countries and how other countries relate to each other due to economic and competitive pressures which would then begin a global conversation on money and inequality vs a society with strong eco-humanistic values.

Collectively, they decide to say “Fuck it”! They begin to drop money altogether internally and begin to work with a few other nations who decide to join them in this socioeconomic experiment. Collectively they work to have an external Capitalist interface so they can attempt to operate an RBE internally (within their fellow RBE countries) as well as they can. This new Democratic Socialist RBE Union then acts as the primary experiential evangelist for ending monetary systems as other countries begin to be dwarfed economically, environmentally, and ethically, as well as through quality of life, productivity, and innovation. The rest of the countries begin to realize the advantages, and their lack of ability to compete, and then meet with the new RBE Union, sign the values documents, and then begin that transition to join the RBE Union. This process ends up being the global dominoes which ends monetary systems and capitalism globally.

Colin Turner‘s book kind of goes this way, although his novel’s RBE genesis country is Iceland: F-Day: The Second Dawn Of Man (Colin Turner, 2016).

Option 3 – The Hacktivist Movement for The Great Transition

With historic high levels of global inequality, violence, and exploitation, the veritable harms of climate change from fires and droughts to climate refugees and starvation going on while the 1%, the corporations, and bankers are living well while the people suffer, global hacktivist groups unite in a plan to end the horrors of monetary systems and Capitalism. They work together to perform a global hack on the banks and the various economic and political infrastructures to destabilize and erase them, while spreading news of the problem of monetary systems as well as to educate the public to create support for the Great Transition.

The process might follow something like this which may seem like a very bad hacker movie, but you get what you get when I only have a about a week or so to write:

1. Stage 1 (Expose the Corruption)
   1. publishing
      1. an examination of all of the problems faced by humanity and its root causes
      2. all of the corruption of the banks, corporations, the rich, the politicians, the governments, the cartels, and those who enable and benefit from it
      3. listing those who ARE harmed by these actions
   2. versions – The following versions of these documents will be published:
      1. in-depth report with all of the data, names, and addresses
      2. one for Dummies with pretty infographics so it is easier to understand
      3. a TLDR;/executive summary document
2. Stage 2 (Money is Meaningless) – Monetary inversion actions to make money meaningless:
   1. erasing global debt, loans, mortgages, credit cards, other debts such as World Bank and IMF loans
   2. deleting money from the governments, mega corps, banks, politicians, the 1%, as well as all of the offshore tax havens
   3. adding a near infinite amount of money to the 99%’s accounts on places like Amazon and all of the banks, etc…
3. Stage 3 (Global Values Reset) – Releasing a manifesto and values documents which could be like my P3H, DURH, UDRME:
   1. published – These documents will be published to every email and every major online account (social media and otherwise):
      1. newspapers as advertising, and all major news and corporate sites
      2. video sites and TV as advertisements
      3. social media as advertising too
      4. text everyone with message and links to it
      5. a bookmark directory to the various ways to access this info to all browsers
      6. as well as being available on their own website too which would require a massive amount of mirrors
      7. something like Wikileaks
      8. on Torrent sites too
      9. install an app on all mobile devices and operating systems with info and links, as well as the eventual ability for voting
   2. Versions
      1. pushed to the public just like above too with those versions too
4. Stage 4 (The Great Transition)
   1. giving the outline of a plan for a better world (RBE) – calling it The Great Transition
   2. setup an global online convention streamed through all TV and online sources, as well as in person in all nations to discuss The Great Transition with voting, etc

With this sort of a radical level of information with evidence supporting it, the bank accounts emptying and switching, as well as also providing a potential solution this will hopefully drive the world to making change, and to take action to make the world a more equitable, sustainable, and more free.

Now that the corporations, the governments, the 1% have been exposed and the economic system tanked and shown to be horrendously harmful, and a solution provided the people of the world can now meet, discuss, and decide to move forward to evolve Humanity a new stage in its evolution.

Option 4 – The Eve of Annihilation

I like to play with things a while before annihilation.

Emperor Ming (Flash Gordon, 1980)

Note: This option is essentially taking an unrealistically optimistic look at the Climate Change long game that we are currently in.

With…

• temperatures rising to record highs resulting in Wet Bulb temperatures making parts of the world unlivable;
• too much of the world is on fire too often creating more air pollution as well as creating a negative feedback loop which further increases the climactic extremes;
• ice melting at record rates causing ocean levels to rise, warm and acidify;
• massive biodiversity loss as species are dying off at unprecedented rates;
• the commodification of water on commodities markets and geopolitical skirmishes and tensions increasing due to water shortages;
• all of which results in more droughts and famine, and mass migration of climate refugees throughout the world causing food, housing, and general resource shortages;

…Humanity, specifically starting with a vehement and passionate youth led movement, decides that something finally needs to be done.

The youth groups and other related human rights and environmental activist organizations being determined to bring about the global change that will save Humanity from capitalism, meet in a massive international convention and hammer out an umbrella of universal values documents as their collective demands and expectations for global change (such documents could be like my P3H, DURH, UDRME).

The movement and the documents spreads quickly, as a truly global movement catches fire unifying the 99% vs the 1% resulting in massive global strikes, acts of solidarity, as well as peaceful and not so peaceful governmental coups; one (or more) of which acts as the driving force for international recognition and parley which forces the Capitalists to the bargaining table for the sake of Humanity. This then drives a global convention to talk about these value documents and the state of Humanity, which then pushes the acceptance of RBE by popular global demand.

Option 5 – The Pan-African Decolonized Union (PADU)

added: 22 Oct 2021

note: This option was completely inspired by this amazing article by Jason Hickel: How to Achieve Full Decolonization (New Internationalist, Oct 2021).

The African states having suffered from hundreds of years of exploitation, colonization, and violence of various forms from the Global North, especially the economic warfare through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, decides collectively to throw off the chains of their capitalistic imperialistic enslavement. They realize that capitalism and monetary systems contributes strongly to the separation of the African people by creating tribal lines and tribal competition, distrust, and exploitation of Africans… by Africans. Because of the sociopathy and inequality visceral to monetary systems, having the Europeans leave only resulted in changing white colonists for African colonists who settled into the power vacuum that was left behind. Working towards a unified, decolonized, and self-sufficient Africa means that Africa as a collective will have to cooperate for the good of ALL Africans which could NEVER be done within monetary systems which rewards competition, sociopathy, and exploitation, all of which is antithetical to cooperation, humanism, and environmentalism.

After many major large pan-African meetings, Africa as a collective decides to cast off money as way of doing business due to its inherent harms and exploitations. They start by shifting to focusing on trading with each other and towards sustainable food and energy production, as well as creating a unified Pan-African Resource Management System (PARMS). Next, they work on their internal infrastructure such as housing, schools, sanitation hiring only Africans. Then, they unilaterally default on all foreign loans such as through the IMF and the World Bank. Finally, they work towards creating an external Capitalistic interface to work with the external world while using an internal RBE.

Capitalism Imploding Through Cascading Negative Feedback Loops

Introduction

I want you to just be thinking about this potential, where a country which had strong eco-humanistic values and policies would effect things such as population, supply, demand, and profit, etc… which will result in a cascade of negative feedback loops which would result in the capitalism imploding.

a. Efficiency Requirements Reduce Product Demand

A byproduct of a shift to eco-humanistic values would be to bring about regenerative and sustainable policies such as:

• maximizing product life times (to end planned obsolescence)
• reduced unnecessary and wasteful non-variety
• modular, open sourced, and universal products, etc… (to ensure they are easy to upgrade and fix with minimum wasted resources)
• circular economy
• resource sharing (to end masses of wasted duplicate products)

…which would result in an incredible reduction in global product demand.

b. Automated Efficiency Reduces Production Costs

Concentrating on technology, automation, AI, and efficiency in production which would lead to:

• near zero-marginal cost for automated production
• efficient product creation with very little (if any) waste

…which means almost near zero cost for most products, which means profit potential is decreased.

c. Population Decline Reduces Product Demand

Most countries on the Earth would eventually shift towards becoming relatively first world countries (non-exploited) in infrastructure, values, rights, public services, etc…, which would result in:

• a declining global population due to all countries reaching high levels of equity and progress and urbanization (Check out Demographic Transitions for more info on this phenomenon and why this happens.).

…which would also result in a massive reduction in product demand.

d. Technological Unemployment Reduces Job Availability

With the massive levels of automation and AI being applied services and production, this will result in

• massive level of technological unemployment

…which means people will NOT be able to buy things, and therefore a massive reduction in product demand.

e. The Implosion of Capitalism and Economic Systems

With these factors happening we would start to see monetary systems and capitalism imploding due to not being able to support infinite consumption and infinite growth required by capitalism through:

1. destruction of planned obsolescence (product demand going down)
2. declining populations (product demand going down)
3. efficient production (profit decline)
4. technological unemployment (product demand going down)

This realization should come as a damning indictment of capitalism and monetary systems, because if a society with strong humanistic and ecological values was to enact laws to maximize a sustainable, if not a regenerative and circular economy, that the whole economic system would collapse. =O

2. Philosophic Foundations

Introduction

The above 5 potential options for societal evolution would be the sort of global values evolution that we would need in order to bring Humanity together into a globalized civilization. Hopefully, during that long process that something akin to the Philosophical Pillars of Peace within Humanity (P3H) as stated within my policies would evolve as our universal and overarching guiding principles.

Here are two examples of something similar that have happened historically:

a. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

First, was the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which was created under the Roosevelt administration through the United Nations in 1948 following WWII. If you have not read the UDHR then please do this now. It is an amazing document. I use this as the basis for my Declaration Of The Unified Rights Of Humanity (DURH) in the Philosophical Foundations section of my policies. At least, with being aware that this document exists and results from voluntary international cooperation of sorts through the United Nations, we know that such potential cooperation does really exist within Humanity when the conditions are right.

b. Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (2010)

Second, was the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (also a part of my policies) which was created in Bolivia in 2010 as a way to give rights to and to have a legal and political framework within which we could protect the Natural World.

c. Ties that Bind

The one thing that is missing with the above two real-world examples is a way to connect and unify them philosophically, which would hopefully end up being something akin to my P3H, as mentioned above.

These values, the Philosophical Pillars (P3H), would need to be integrated into every aspect of life: taught in schools, integrated as part of culture, as well as social, work, and government, etc. These should be the lens through which we think of everything. The Declaration Of The Unified Rights Of Humanity (DURH) and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, being informed and developed through the P3H, end up being policy guides as the world moves forward.

3. Engage! and Leadership

At every level (community, county, state, nation, continent, global) there will need to be Cybernation Process Facilitators (CPF) (or whatever title) to help keep things moving by facilitating decision making and making decisions during this insane process. Collaborative groups of Cybernation Process Facilitators, and it should be multiple people at each level (and never just one person), will need to be those who best embody the values found in P3H and that best understand the vision, scope, and breadth of what an RBE is trying to accomplish who will guide Humanity through this process. Hopefully, by the time this goes down there will enough people who will fit this description. The Getting to the Transition Point and its resultant educational paths may help make this a reality in time.

How will these Cybernation Process Facilitators be chose? Perhaps, for some positions there will be local, state, continental, or geographical elections or some sort? Perhaps through direct democracy, liquid democracy, or something completely different. Who knows what sort of voting or electoral options are available then. Maybe it can be done completely online or through normal in-person elections, maybe even a mixture of that and other options. We have no idea what systems will be used when this happens

Once the groups of CPFs are selected, then we can move into the meat and potatoes of what it means to implement a Resource Based Economy… Implementation!

4. Harm Mitigation

Introduction

The Harm Mitigation process should begin once the decision is definitely made to shift to an RBE because there are literally billions people globally (if not over half of all of Humanity) who are suffering that do not need to be.

a. Low-Hanging Fruits

Anywhere there are obvious deficiencies and suffering such as homelessness, hunger, lack of water, clothing, etc… which are all easily fixable problems (but that Capitalism does not care about solving because there is no profit in doing so), local resources will be used to satisfy those needs as is possible or will be used or imported as needed:

1. Lift Up the Suffering
   • Those who are homeless will be given empty houses, apartments, and hotel rooms.
   • Those who are hungry will be given free access to food.
   • Those without clothes will be given free access to clothes.
   • Those who are in lower quality living arrangements will be moved to higher quality equitable housing.
   • If we need to move people and they agree to it, then we can move them and their families to where the resources are available for them.
2. Bring Low the Affluent
   • Those who live in exorbitant and gluttonous extravagance shall be moved to more efficient and equitable accommodations.
   • Buildings which are exorbitant and gluttonous in extravagance shall be used as efficiently as possible, including housing the poor, as facilitation or cybernation centers or resource sharing centers, etc… until as such time as it can be recycled or be used more efficiently.
3. Build More
   • In areas where the above steps are not enough to solve basic deficiencies and suffering then we will start with whatever method will most easily solve the issue such as sharing housing or building temporary shelters, Earthships, etc or whatever method is appropriate.

In this stage we want to minimize excess new resource usage and resist the urge to build anything new if possible, because that insanity is coming in Step 8 – Global Infrastructure Buildout Plan. This process will be done for as long as needed until a newly constructed RBE city is ready for people to move into. You get the idea.

b. Resource Centers

i. Resources for Quality of Life

This will be easy enough to implement from the start because we already have stores and logistical supply lines. People will have free access to what they need, but there will have to be some controls to start because some people have really been suffering from and still have their brain damage from Capitalism and artificial scarcity, so they may want to start hording things out of fear. This first part will be to make sure people have what they need for general items so we can increase the quality of life for those who we can, especially for those who were homeless or impoverished, while we get this started.

We will want to include other quality of life services such as internet, cell phones and computers, as well as universal access to food, healthcare, education, fitness, entertainment, as well.

ii. Resource Sharing Centers

Next, we can start setting up Resource Sharing Centers where people can donate their unneeded stuff and so the masses can start to check out things that they need or desire. The app for that will hopefully be developed sooner than later, so resources usage can be more easily tracked. I am sure we already have such applications already in available. Libraries might be a great place to look for this or equipment rental places.

5. Global Resources Data

a. Common Heritage Resources

All global resources (natural, manufactured, information, etc…) will have to be claimed as a Common Heritage to ALL of Humanity – not just of one nation or one company, not just one family or person, but of the entirety of ALL of Humanity. Common Heritage Resources is perhaps THE most important part of the implementation process, and this step is what truly enables an RBE to even be a thing. Without this there is NO RBE. This alone will effectively end nations states and businesses as entities, as well as the rich and their extravagance, all of which are a major sources of global problems such as wars, exploitation, and competition. This most important step will focus the global conversation on how do we best use all of OUR global resources for the benefit of ALL of Humanity and not just the few.

b. Global Resource Survey

Then we will have the Herculean task of performing a Global Resource Survey (GRS) so that we know what resources we have. Once the agreement was made to switch to an RBE the resource data gathering could begin and then collected until the GRS app was ready, so that this information could be quickly added so we do not hold the process up. Read my post Some Technical Steps Towards Implementing a Resource Based Economy which kind of sets the stage for how the open source app might be designed on a small scale which could be scaled up module by module, community, by community, dataset by dataset in order to record this massive resource survey.

We will want to know:

• Resources Available – Every single resource that we have available such as:
  • natural resources (ore, minerals, water, land, lakes, seas, oceans, flora, fauna)
  • information resources (patents, data, sensors, designs, research, databases, computer clusters, online services) all of which will be open sourced
  • manufactured resources (buildings, manufacturing and production plants and types, living spaces, farms, products in stores)
  • human resources (demographics, skills, locations, living conditions)
  • pollution and byproducts (an overabundance of something which results in harm or waste) is an untapped resource and part of existing processes
  • current waste (such as potential resources thrown within dumps) which can and will need to be eventually dug up and recycled
• Quality – good, acceptable, or poor;
• Quantity – surplus or deficiency

How long would it take to do this? No clue. We have never done anything like this. However, I would think that once the app was created to record this data and every community was connected, then perhaps a year or two would be plenty of time to get enough of the pertinent basic global data to start working with the basic calculations and to start some general planning. Distribution of the app could be done through something like the various mobile app stores, or Steam, or through Torrent, peer-to-peer networks, or a centralized RBE process website with lots of geographic mirrors.

c. Sustainable Resources Calculations

When we have the basic global resource data then we have to calculate their sustainability level – how long will each current resource last at the current rate of use. This will also take into account usage, replenishment such as through recycling and replanting, and losses through those processes, etc…, and byproducts too.

For organic resources like trees or plants, this is going to be a plus or minus number:

• Unsustainable – This will be a negative number (-2) which means we are using the resource faster than we are replacing it.
• Completely Sustainable – The number will be zero (0), meaning we are replacing the resource at the same rate we are using it.
• Surplus – This will be a positive number (+1) meaning that we are replacing the resource faster than we are using it which may be desirable, especially in cases where there was an undesirable deficit previously such as will forests and green spaces.

For non-sustainable resources like ores, fossil fuels, water, etc…, this will be a calculation based on current amounts available vs rate of use while taking into account processing losses, so we know how long before we run out of this resource. Such calculations can spur us to find replacements for non-sustainable materials either through creating new materials, using organic replacements, or asteroid mining and the like, as well as looking to increase efficiency of current usage or its recycling processes.

Another important part of this process will be finding a way to automate construction as much as possible to reduce waste and to have it go as fast and as efficiently as possible. Technologies such as mega-machines, bots, and 3D printing will most likely be the center of this.

d. Range of Conditions that Humanity Thrives In

We need to dive deep into human psychology, sociology, and health to try to find out in broad conditions, under which Humanity thrives under – from housing, to food, to social contacts, to green space, and all of that stuff. Although, we will need to approach this research and data gathering in broad terms, because each human is different as an entity, but also that needs change throughout your lives too. So, here we need to find that range to see what the maximum needs are and the minimum needs are so we know what that basic academic range for resource needs are. This will also be crucial for the conversation in setting global resource access limits and sharing.

e. Quality of Life Calculation

Have you had enough of the math yet? Yea, me too! =)

Ok, once we have this insane mass of data – how much of each resource we have and how we use them – we can start to attempt to calculate what is the quality of life we can afford for each person. We will look at existing resources as well as existing structures and recycling processes to see where we stand. This will be a calculation that will take into account human psychology, desiring to maximize quality of life without wasting resources. We will calculate what is the variety of housing and other living conditions we can afford based on resource consumption and psychology.

f. Carrying Capacity of the Earth (CCE)

Once we have collected and calculated all of the above data then we can start to attempt to calculate the Carrying Capacity of the Earth (CCE) which is the calculation that will tell us: based on the current global resources and usage data at hand as compared to how many resources each person needs access to and sustainability calculations, how many people can we sustainably support on the planet. This number will be adjusted and refined day by day as new data comes in.

At the start of this process, this number is more of a reference, but it will act as a continuous indicator as to how well we are managing our global resources for the number of people living on Earth. If the the CCE is smaller than our current population then we have some serious resource sustainability problems and we will have to evaluate that and see how we can change that through:

• finding out what our bottlenecks are which may require significant sustainability changes, resource substitution and/or creation
• creating or modifying manufacturing and recycling processes

g. Calculations Overview

The amazing Peter Joseph goes over a general technical overview of the calculations for a Resource Based Economy in his work:

• The Zeitgeist Movement Defined (2014), Economic Model Defined (pgs 256 – 277)

Here is a video of the presentation he gave based on the information from his above book:

• Part 3: Economic Organization and Calculation: @ 1:11:01 (TZM Official Channel, Dec 2013)

Here is a slightly stripped down textual form of what was talked about in the above video:

• Peter Joseph on Economic Calculation in Resource-Based Economics (P2PF Wiki)

6. Research and Development

Introduction

Below, I will list a dizzying array of technological advancements and innovations that will need to be researched and worked on whose progress and development can take advantage of the global brain-trust that we will now have access too. It is no longer country against country, or business against business, but how can we collectively create a global human civilization that will benefit us all, and not just the rich or corporations. This fact will, hopefully, have such developments come fairly quickly.

I have a small article Benefits for Industries and Businesses which might start to give you some ideas on this potential.

a. Recycling of Buildings

This will require an insane level of research and development so we can find ways to automate the recycling of every part of the existing inefficient Capitalist structures, which is basically never done now, so that once a community is empty (or we find derelict or abandoned structures) we can set the autonomous bots loose to reclaim and recycle the building materials… and then rewild that space.

i. Sustainable and Automated Construction

This will also spawn an insane level of research and development so we can find the more efficient and sustainable ways to build new structures to make the best use of our limited materials. Although, in this world of tomorrow, in this world WITHOUT money, we will not have to worry about cost. We only have to really worry about the sustainability of the process or materials. How freeing will this be – to be able to do it right the first time and not have to worry about “costs”?

We will also be working specifically to create the technology to attempt to automate this process using mega-machines, bots, and 3D printing, etc… too, so that when this process hits in full force that progress can be relatively quick.

ii. Cybernated System

An entire new system will have to be created in order to manage and display ALL of the global data to manage this new cybernated RBE world. This will include massive distributed data centers.

b. Global Distributed Computer Platform

All computers should have a distributed computing client on it such as World Community Grid so that global or local research can utilize the combined processing power of all idle computers globally. The client can be different from project to project, and could be uninstalled if desired. Each person should be able to decide where their spare computing power is used such as to a local project they support or the number crunching of solving climate change. This is the global democratization of research and computing power.

c. Sensor Data System

A system will need to be created to accept global sensor and other data as well as an eventually providing a data access portal so everyone can access and process this data for the benefit of ALL of Humanity. This will be important for smart cities, trend analysis, and generalized research and problem solving.

d. Resource Sharing Center Management System

A system will need to be created to manage the global Resource Centers so people can check out stuff and so we can track it too. We already have entire businesses around renting things, so the most efficient or robust software could be repurposed to this end and distributed quickly to get this working.

…and sooo much more…

7. Systems Integrations and Resource Localization

a. Systems Integrations

While the previous steps are happening with all of that GRS application development, data gathering, math, and R&D going on there will be time needed to figure out the starting systems integrations in order to better monitor, streamline, and manage all systems globally. This would most likely be done first on system by system, industry by industry basis, for every industry and system on the globe until they are all integrated into one cybernated system.

We will take a look at all of the major systems which run everything from food production, product delivery, mass transit, product manufacturing, energy production… everything, and we will look to integrate each silo into one system and then the individual silo systems into the whole cybernated system (or something like that).

As an example: We will look to merge major global product delivery chains like Federal Express, USPS, Amazon, Walmart, etc… into one global logistical product delivery chain. We will have to evaluate which systems works the best and then combine, replace of upgrade, or replace them into one global system; and then recycle, upgrade, or reassign the other resources and infrastructure. At the very beginning it will be more like, let’s just hook them together so they can just all talk, and then we can upgrade and integrate them once that all gets figured out.

Once that process it done then we will be looking to create a whole new system from scratch to manage and coordinate a global resources. Then we will replace the old patchworked systems with the new cybernated one.

b. Resource Localization Plan

A huge part of Sustainability is trying to ensure that as much of the needs for a community are manufactured or produced as locally as possible (hyperlocalization). To start, we will want to know what surpluses there are and what deficiencies there are (which the GRS will tell us) in each and every community, and then we can realign local production to serve that local community and the surrounding areas as much as possible.

A great example of this process will be local food production. Most likely, especially on a county level, most food production is probably being shipped all over the state, country, or even internationally for processing and/or final destination because it was more profitable to do so; and are not used locally which is criminal, and a complete waste of resources too.

For all communities we will look to completely localize all production. Local food production will be realigned to serve their local communities as much as possible which will save an incredible amount of time, freshness, and resources. If there is a deficiency in some foods, then we will build urban vertical farms to help make up what food production was missing, which will also allow us to start to free up some of that farm land to allow it to be rewilded. This process will also work well with sustainable energy production too.

I hope you can kind of see where we are going with this. Obviously, this is not always going to be that easy for any given resource, especially those things which require rare earth minerals, or other ingredients which are harder to find or are geographically isolated. Some things might be best produced on a county level due to economies of scale or other such reasons, and then distributed locally. Somethings might still have to imported in one way or another, but reducing this is as much as possible is important for Sustainability and efficiency.

8. Global Infrastructure Buildout Plan

Introduction

Something to keep in mind is that this will not happen over night, this buildout will take decades (or a century or more) to complete. Check out the section on Magic?? from the other post.

So, since in this example, I was looking to have this be a slower process, let’s look at the previous 5 steps taking a decade to complete, especially with the R&D of new automated systems, completely new software systems and integrations, as well as evening out resource distribution to get the world communicating and everyone caught up to each other with qualities of life specifically in the developing world.

Once we have all of that information and planning done such as:

1. Global Resource Survey
2. Sustainable Resources Calculation
3. Quality of Life Calculation
4. Research and Development (automation, recycling, and sustainability) at least started with some innovations coming
5. Systems Integration Plan
6. Resource Localization Plan

…then we can combine that into a global buildout plan for each and every community in the world.

a. Priority Buildout

We should start with the places which have the worst quality of life because Human civilization has much more to gain by training and lifting up those peoples and countries that are suffering the most, so we would most likely prioritize Africa, India, and the Middle East for buildout first.

b. Technological Dominoes

As we start building our first sets of efficient and smart RBE cities in their isolated areas (perhaps 1 per “state/province”?), we would be looking to build them with excess food, energy, and other resource production (like 10 times what is needed locally) so that they can provide support for and accelerate the extensive global build out process with their new state-of-the-RBE-art:

• energy and food production
• manufacturing and recycling facilities
• research and development, and medical facilities
• education centers
• perhaps more importantly, the ability to research more advanced bots and mega-machines to help accelerate the buildout process

These first generation cities will be built near an existing community and then, when it is completed, the local population will be moved in, and then the old, inefficient, and sprawling Capitalist structures will be recycled and rewilded.

I have started to diverge a bit from some RBE thinkers as far as what form I think that RBE cities should take, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. The primary example of what RBE cities might look like is similar to what the models proposed by Jacque Fresco of the Venus Project, who is one of the pioneers and visionaries of Resource Based Economies. You can see examples of his concepts at the top of all of my RBE posts. I have also taken the time to aggregate some of those images in the following post: What Could the Cities of Tomorrow Under a Resource Based Economy Look Like? to get you started.

My thoughts on how RBE cities should be formed may not be the answer that Humanity decides on, but this is the basic form I currently like. We may want to build up or down using Arcologies as Earthscrapers or massive Skyscrapers. See Arcologies (2016) or Arcology Design (2021) for more information. Using these form factors will allow us to recycle those old horrible and sprawling Capitalist cities and then rewild that space which would greatly in increase the amount of green space on the planet, as well as global sustainability an biodiversity. With one rough set of calculations from the first Arcologies video, we could potentially house the entire population of the United States in individual spacious arcologies with populations of about 5,000 people every 1 mile along the coast, and then we could completely rewild the entire interior of the US. I talk about this a little bit in my Sustainable Communities policies.

I envision huge vertical (most likely cylindrical or similar), smart cities with mass transit, and masses of green spaces and amenities similar to a 4-star hotel. If you want to get an idea of the scale and amenities that I am thinking, take a look at project Neom (Line City) in Saudi Arabia. This video does a great breakdown of it and its many, many, many problems. This is an absolutely devastating form factor (a line city) and it is a complete vanity project by the Prince with no absolutely NO regard to the harm it causes to people or the environment. Ignore all of that because that is definitely not at all what I am talking about, because RBE cities will taking all of that into account the impacts on Humanity and the Natural World is integral to a RBE. But do take look at Neom’s scale. It is an individual city that is planned to house 9 million people. I applaud the scale that he is thinking. This is exactly the scale we need to be thinking, but, I repeat, its form factor (a line) is absolute garbage.

Once the first RBE city is built, then those first-generation machines and resources can move on to build a second first-generation city. These newly built (first generation) cities can then research and build the next generation (second generation) mega-machines or smart RBE city technologies, which can then be used to accelerate the building of more advanced second-generation technology based RBE cities. This will accelerate things even faster because all of the first-generation cities will be sharing their research not just with each other but with the rest of Humanity, and will even research different aspects of the building process. Older equipment can also be upgraded as we go to take advantage of modular design with universal components, and taking advantage of technological increases and acceleration. This process will repeat city-by-city, from advancing tech level through advancing tech level, until we have a critical mass of mega-machines and automation to accelerate the global buildout of this new RBE world to ALL of Humanity.

We may also want to start on building the foundations for an interstellar Humanity such as:

• tethered ring
• orbital loop
• power satellites
• Dyson swarm
• mining meteors
• stellasers

…and other such things too. You can check out my Interstellar Humanity policies for more info on these ideas.

9. Enjoy You RBE Life

During this process some people will be:

• living in an RBE
• living in a transitional state
• living their normal life with no money getting in their way, but with more support from society at large.

At some point large swathes of Humanity will be living the RBE life. Check out my post How will a Resource Based Economy work? and The Cities of Tomorrow for some more information on what that might look like.

Conclusion

Obviously, this is oversimplified and is leaving a crapload out, and yes you can make a case for alternative ways of doing things or whatever you think I forgot, which are not conversations I am necessarily interested in for this post, but, hopefully, this may give you and idea of the big picture of how an RBE might come into being and possibly be even built out.

Although, if you think I missed something or something like that and it is appropriate to the scale I am writing here, then please let me know. I will update this post as I can as ideas strike me.