Disadvantages of grass roots approaches to cultural speciation

Grass roots initiatives are naturally appealing to anarchists and all lovers of freedom. They are great for getting things done that people mostly already know how to do. But if a project requires a high level of expertise, and a complicated level of coordination of many people, another approach is needed. A combination of a hierarchical system and a grass roots system may be more appropriate. Information can flow in both directions: from one (or few) top coordinating person(s) to many experts and from the experts back up to the coordinator(s).

A grass roots approach to culture change is somewhat like a "random walk" or diffusion in physical systems, or random mutations in biological systems. It takes longer to find the mountain pass with a random walk than if one is able to see the fitness landscape and the direction of the pass and head that way. This is a kind of conscious speciation, where a master meme (the direction of the pass) is identified and then selected for consciously, not by natural selection (which would select against it before it made it through the pass). Natural selection/genetic algorithm/random walk/diffusion would eventually work, but it might take too long, unless the fitness landscape changes significantly so that the  fitness or entropic barrier becomes small.

To bring it back to concrete reality: The culture of empire is not going to change by grass root approaches unless something drastic happens (economic, political or ecological collapse, or a slow decline of industrial civilization due to peak oil or such). If industrial technology and capitalism are master memes, then changing them in a small, coordinated group with the help of expert craftspeople and farmers is a more pragmatic and quicker  approach then letting a craft/agrarian based technology evolve by a grass roots approach (what the Possibility Alliance is doing). Hence the Luddite Manhattan Project. Imagine trying to build the atom bomb with a grass roots approach--it won't work. A craft/agrarian-based technology and a gift economy are even more complicated tasks (more memes are involved that need to be coordinated in a network). That kind of technology evolved from earlier technologies over many generations because there was a path almost always going downhill, but the path to it from where we are now has a large fitness barrier. No single farmer or craftsperson can get there.

The problem right now is to convey the meme of creating a local technology ecosystem. It is too much for most people to understand this--crafts are for art and luxuries and technology is magic and not to be tampered with in any drastic way in most people's minds. Rather than understanding it, it might be possible to pay some expert craftpeople (not tradespeople, like plumbers, electricians, builders, etc. since these are too tied to the current industrial production) and farmers to just figure out what they need in order to produce what someone else needs and enlist the help of a computer program to do the necessary computations and display the missing links. Some pre-industrial crafts do not have any more living practitioners (e.g. coopering in certain places). Most people have no knowledge of these crafts. The few pre-industrial craftspeople that exist can't make a living because they don't have a supporting infrastructure (other craftspeople and farmers), except making foo-foo artsy stuff for wealthy people. Also, they are using much industrial infrastructure in their craft because it is more readily available. To create a local technology infrastructure is a challenging networking problem.

There are those, like Charles Eisenstein, who think that the whole technological question can be bypassed with economics. But technology underlies economics. A global, centralized technology that devalues human craftsmanship, nature, relationships and creative work will create a global economy with the same values, even if the values that people want are different. We can give lip service to a gift economy, but our technology does not support it. In the production (less so in the consumption) of the goods we need to live, we produce slavery, war, toxic waste, alienation, a gross misuse of human creativity, destruction of nature.

Communal Tragedies

We've all heard of the Tragedy of the Commons, where people don't take good care of common resources because they assume the responsibility for a shared resource is not also fully theirs (or because they don't have good systems for sharing responsibility, or because they only want the benefits and not the responsibility). But there are 8 other tragedies that are not as well known when people seek to live in intimate community.

The first is what I'll call the Tragedy of Artistic Freedom. People have different ways of expressing their creativity. The problem occurs when people assume that their way is "what needs to be done" and expect other people to have the same ideas about what they want to do. If I have a certain amount of time in which to express my creativity, then the work will expand to fill that time. I will do certain things that I may consider necessary, that someone else might think are silly, inefficient or arbitrary. If someone else is under my authority and they need to express themselves differently, then they will feel burdened and unfree. I have harnessed them to my plow instead of setting them free. I may think they are lazy, or unreliable.

The solution is to free people to contribute in ways that are most meaningful to them, while having a minimum of agreed upon tasks that everyone wants to happen. Ideally people's gifts can be matched to the community needs, so that artistic freedom can flourish. This contrasts with a socialist vision where everyone works in the community business or factory. If everyone can work at something they enjoy and are good at, then not only artistic freedom, but deep interdependence and efficiency can happen. Alternatively, if people's gifts can't all be matched to community needs, there should be enough free time where people pursue their passions even if the community does not benefit directly

The second tragedy that makes people not want to live in community can be called the Tragedy of Unrealized Communion. Humans have a need to transcend their ego and merge into a higher collective, whether it be nature, a spiritual world of ideas, a mystical union with a beloved, union with other musicians, singers, game players, dancers, or simply people sharing a nurturing activity. Some come into a community looking for this experience only to find that the fear of others prevalent in the mainstream culture is also there in the community, and instead of mystical union there are monotonous meetings, drudgery and power-politics.

The solution is to give high priority to creating ego-transcending, communion-producing activities. In the US, the supposed land of individual freedom, most people only want to be around each other to have sex and/or when they are drunk. Communities where people enjoy each other have lots of activities, such as dancing, singing, playing music (not for show, but for communion), friendly, spirited discussion, study groups, workshops, and common work where banter and laughter abound. I suppose protest fills this role for communion for some.

The third tragedy may be called the Tradgeoff (attempted pun) Between Communion and Freedom. Groups have to figure out ways of ensuring smooth communication and operation, what sociologists call normative behaviour enforcement.  This can be done through carrots or sticks externally, and more effectively through internalizing beliefs and norms. I don't know if this Tradeoff is a law of sociology. I seem to remember that Ben Zablocki in The Joyful Community thought it was. A corollary might be that the free spirits leave after a while, and the control freaks stay in a community that lasts. I would like to believe that it is possible to have communion while respecting other people's needs, especially the need for autonomy/freedom, aloneness and communion with God, nature or other people. What would make this possible seems to have been articulated and lived by Jesus long ago and maybe others. It is not something that one could believe, but something that must come from each person's soul, in a holistic way. It is something that is rare, but I have seen glimpses of it in at least two intentional communities.

The 4th tradgeoff is one that is found in nature between progeny producing activities and activities that further the interests of the current generation. Children in community take much resources and can’t give them back till many years later. Mothers instinctually get satisfaction from children, but not only do the children drastically reduce the mothers’ capacity to build infrastructure, in the post feminist era, the fathers also take a big hit. The result is that the infrastructure gets built very slowly or not at all, and in order to gain more safety and comfort for the mothers and children in the short term, the community moves more towards the mainstream culture or dissolves altogether.

The solution is to send the men ahead first to build infrastructure, perhaps with a few women who are either menopausal or willing to wait for children.

The fifth tradgeoff is between families and community or families and individuals, or families and other families. The need of families to focus much energy on their children has already be mentioned. But there are other needs that families have such as spending quality time together. This is a generalization of the artistic freedom tragedy, where the tradeoff is between individuals’ differing needs, or between the needs of individuals and the community (which is not just the sum or average of the needs of the individuals in it).

The solution could be to make the distance between the family needs and the community or individual needs as small as possible. And when this has been minimized, to have discussions about it when conflict between needs arises, so that people could make good tradeoffs, instead of wreaking either the family or the community.

The sixth  tragedy is when the community is either too liberal (and therefore not cohesive enough) or too conservative (and therefore not joyful and dynamic enough). A good mix of the two is necessary in order for the community to be “in the zone”, or in a state of “flow”.

The 7th tragedy is when people don’t bother to study what the obstacles to community are before joining or starting an IC, not just the ones mentioned here, but also the tragedy of the commons and the ways to address it such as Ostrom principles.

The 8th tragedy is the tension between wanting to do what is in the best interest of the group, but not be taken advantage of. This is similar to, but not quite the same as the tradeoff between individual liberty and communal cohesion. Game theorists are well aware of this dilemma and they have simple models for it. Their conclusion is that if the group is to be maintained, there has to be trust developed, but trust is not enough. There also has to be a way to monitor and punish freeloaders, or people who break the trust. The balance between being generous and being taken advantage of is hard to achieve. If one wants to make sure that one won't lose the energy put into the land and infrastructure in case the group decides to kick one out, or shun one, or just do something totally different than what was agreed upon, one needs to have private ownership of some of the land and infrastructure, or be able to be compensated if one has to leave. However, now the temptation is to not be to dependent on the other members of the community, who also have private ownership of some land. That temptation is hard to resist especially in the environment of the global economy, and then we're back to status quo, individual land ownership with very little communal interactions.

Most groups at this point go to far in the direction of not enough interaction with each other, and too much interaction with the global economy.

We can address this by either not allowing private ownership,  or requiring the commitments we asked for in the mission statement 

Luddite Manhattan Project, first stage

Here is an appeal to a programmer at Dancing Rabbit ecovillage regarding an initial step in the implementation of this bigger project full proposal. There are 3 motivations for this project:
1. A better relationship between people and their natural environment (ecology)
2. A better relationship between people (community/sociology)
3. A better relationship between people and their gifts (economics).

The basic ideas go back to Gandhi and  Peter Maurin, but here I propose to tackle the technological part of the problem, which I believe will enable the ecological, sociological and economic goals above, perhaps with some other ingredients which are not part of the project. The project has a Luddite bias towards technology, or in other words it assumes that industrial technology is not serving the goals above and that other ways of producing goods and services that have worked in the past might work again, perhaps with appropriate modifications.The project is for using whatever technological means, including the fruits of industrial production to figure out better ways.

What I have in mind is a sort of “SimVillage” that might eventually
evolve into a network of villages. It is a game, but also a serious
attempt to figure out how to do things sanely and sustainably “in
silico” and hopefully followed by real life attempts. The way DR is
doing it is one possibility on the road to sanity and sustainability.
It may take a long time (and we may not have a long time), and this
project might be a way to speed it up, to do some of the evolutionary
process in silico instead of in real life. Another difference I
envision between this simulation and DR is that there will be a
constraint of locality: until the village is sustainable, no exchange
is allowed with the rest of the economic world,(though there are
initial tools and materials allowed). The reason for this is
threefold: first, once you allow commerce with the global economy, you
have to simulate the global economy (if you want to ensure
sustainability), which is too hard. Second, it makes it honest, as
there is no way to hide unsustainable practices in externalities.
Third, there are evolutionary reasons to believe that new
species/cultures such as homo sustainabilis need some degree of
reproductive (or memetic in case of cultures) isolation in order not
to be swamped by genes or memes from the mainstream species or culture
from which they arise: memetic boundaries. I supposed it is possible that only very large
villages are sustainable, like the whole earth. But this would be an
output, not an assumption.

Here are some more details: There will be different possible
locations, each with their natural resources. Junkyards are allowed to
be part of a village. There will be players comprising the village, or
just one master player who can choose how to populate the village with
different characters/producer-consumers and make other decisions.
There will be three areas that are kept track of as far as needs that
have to be satisfied to win the game (there are global needs-that are
not specific to any one individual, and local needs-that are specific
to individuals):

1. Ecological--Is the soil replenished of nutrients, is the land, air
and water kept clean, is diversity maintained? How much soil is being
used?

2. Technological--All materials, energy and tools have to be
maintained and manufactured on-site (with the initial conditions
exception mentioned above). A network of local needs, both satisfied
and not yet satisfied are constructed by the players. For example the
blacksmith needs iron or steel (and coal and other materials) to
satisfy the tool needs of the farmers and other players. The cooks
need cooking tools and stoves, etc. Each player satisfies some local
and/or global needs, has some local and is part of global needs.

3. Physical Human--Nutritional needs (calories, vitamins, minerals,
protein), shelter, clothes, clean water, sanitation/”waste” recycling,
short-distance transportation, medicine. These can be assumed to be
global needs at first, for simplicity. Each time a new player joins,
the program has to increase the global needs. How many people are
needed?

Two more areas could be added in an advanced version:

4. Psychological Human--a diversity of cultural activities such as
song, dance, music, learning, communion with other beings contribute
to global psychological health. Stability and opportunity for change
can be quantified. Meaningful work can be quantified.

5. Economic--how are goods and services flowing. There could be
several standard scenarios such as a gift economy, free trade, or
socialism. But other scenarios could be devised by the players
themselves. Each player could choose how much he wants to work and how
he wants to exchange goods and services with the rest of the players.
There aren’t any economic needs (unless the need to trade is a real
need, which could be simulated), but the way the economy works
interacts with all the other areas.

These 5 areas interact, as already mentioned above. As in some
technology contributes more to mental health than other technology
(e.g. a complex craft is better than being a cog in a factory).  Using
coal to produce electricity pollutes more than using sunlight
(assuming either the solar panels and infrastructure can be maintained
indefinitely or produced on-site with little pollution).

So the outputs would be:

1. A network diagram showing the flow of goods and services

2. The number of people needed

3. The land area needed.

4. The initial inputs needed to win.

Sado-Masochism, Addiction and Empire (draft)

JMG has done a superb analysis of the structure of empires and in particular the US empire: 

http://www.thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/. But his analysis neglects the psychological dimension, and the effect of the psychology of empire on people in the inner sanctum of the empire. This is an attempt to fill that gap.

I will keep updating this entry, not waiting to publish it.

"The various aspects of masochistic personality structures provide a useful model for examining familiar elements of ordinary religious life. Overall theories of masochism can be divided into six general categories which trace masochism to 1) a distortion of love, 2) a need for punishment, 3) a payment for future rewards, 4) a strategy of the weak or powerless, 5) a flight from selfhood, or 6) an effort to be an object for others. In each case, religious analogies can be found exhibiting the same dynamics. Thus, certain religious phenomena may provide cultural or collective responses to the psychological needs at the root of masochism." from Stuart L. Charme, Religion and the Theory of Masochism.

In number three, we may substitute the word “sacrifice”, though as will become clear below, there is more to sacrifice than a payment for future rewards.

In number six above, we might add that to be an object involves giving up one’s freedom and will.

The missing link of Charme's analysis is the connection between religion and empire. He sees a connection between masochism and religion, and between masochism and early childhood psychology. But he missed the connection between masochism and the almost universal sociological phenomenon of empire.

Before we delve into the connection between sado-masochism and empire, let us consider the question of human needs, free will and the nature of evil. One theory of human needs is that they are all benign and that evil is a pseudo-phenomenon. This is more or less the position of humanistic psychology and many pop-psychologies which sprang from it (e.g. Re-evaluation psychology, and Non-Violent Communication). The purpose of human life is to satisfy the benign needs. Evil arises from misguided strategies for satisfying benign needs. Free will allows us only to choose which strategy to employ in order to satisfy our benign needs.

Another theory is that there are both benign and malevolent needs, but that we need not strive to satisfy them because if we believe in God, he will provide for whatever we need. He is omniscient and all-powerful and can predict the future. This is the position of mainstream Christianity.  The purpose of human life is to OBEY God. Buddhism has a twist on this, saying that the source of suffering is the striving to satisfy needs (malevolent or benign), the past determines the present through the law of Karma, and salvation comes from a radical acceptance of what is.  The purpose of human life is to give up all desires.

Neither of these theories admits free will for humans. Either God decides what happens (and any apparent decision of ours is a pseudo-phenomenon because it can be predicted by God), or it is all determined by Karma. In Christianity evil is seen as both internal (as in original sin) and external, as in the devil and Empire. In Buddhism it is all internal.

A third worldview is that there are both benign and malevolent needs and it is up to us to satisfy the benign needs (and help others satisfy theirs), but that we must confront, integrate and transform the malevolent ones so that we could live in a society where everyone can be happy and also so that we can become better people.  Rather than solely satisfying needs, this worldview seeks to assist and create balance. This is the position of Jungian psychology, and some versions of Christianity. Free will is not in this worldview just choosing between two possibilities (good and evil, God and Lucifer, etc), but developing one’s inner nature, and from that spring creating balance. Balance is not always orderly or harmonious.

Freedom and free will are difficult for our species. We have replaced the obedience to instinct and the necessities imposed by nature (find food, warmth and mate or die out) by obedience to the hierarchical, sado-masochistic social order of empire. In empires, to do what one is expected, to obey, to command, are regarded as virtues. Curiosity, collaborative decision making, spontaneity and deep joy are regarded suspiciously and termed rebellion. And so it is no surprise that most people are afraid of freedom and choose to be enslaved, and to enslave others.

In both Buddhism and Jungian psychology, what makes a need objectively malevolent is not absolute but relative; malevolence is an imbalance in either a social system or an individual consciousness. Too much selfishness is malevolent. Too much altruism is not good either.  A balance between the two is optimal. Integrating and transforming is balancing. Similar things hold for ecology.

The crucifixion:sadism, masochism and altruism

From the point of view of the first theory, the crucifixion is about satisfying the need to serve life, willing to trade off the need for comfort and pleasure. This is a form of masochism because it involves a flight from selfhood, but emanating from a benevolent need.

From the point of view of the second theory, the crucifixion is also a form of masochism: suffering to annihilate oneself. Because God is omniscient, he predicted it and hence Jesus had no free will (while he was human). It is a giving up of Jesus’ free will, as Jesus himself is purported to have said. The crucifixion is also in this view a need for punishment. In addition, if he knew that he would be resurrected, then it can't be a sacrifice that he made, but one that was done to him, again objectifying him.  The cross is a form of torture and sadism. Empires institutionalize torture and sadism.  We should not be surprised at its current manifestations in the US and the US representatives in the military. If Jesus came to the US, many would want to torture him again. Empires have a way of disempowering  and objectifying their subjects, especially those who resist and speak truth to power. Direct resistance is futile, but masochism as a strategy is effective in some cases.

There was a sacrifice from the point of view of the second theory, in the sense that Jesus suffered so that others won't have to as much. That kind of sacrifice is not masochism (payment for future reward, but not for oneself; close, but not really fitting Charme’s definition above), but altruism. However, it doesn't really work until others do what he did, which is to confront and integrate evil within oneself before confronting it in Empire. Humans will continue to suffer and inflict suffering no matter how much they believe in him, because the dark side can't just go away. We seem to need to humiliate, hurt and control each other. This explains the crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, wars, child molestation in the church, wife abuse, genocide of native peoples, slavery, disdain for the body and for nature, and small everyday acts of dominance, submission, sadism and masochism prevalent in the Church and Christian nations (the Buddhists, somehow have avoided this, probably by confronting, integrating and transforming internal evil). Masochists become sadists, victims become abusers, as is well known from the abuse (sexual and otherwise) data. The masochist loves their sadist, the abused wife or child loves their abuser husband or parent, not only because these fulfill the need for punishment and ego transcendence, but because often they are in a powerless position and their survival depends on the husband or parent. The idea of integrating and transforming the evil within is originally a pagan one. Unfortunately, mainstream Christianity adopted another pagan idea (thanks to the Greek writer of the fourth gospel), that of sacrificing an animal or human or god to atone for sin and get right with the gods. Wearing an instrument of torture around one's neck is a graphic illustration of mainstream Christian sado-masochism.Why not wear a symbol of transcendence, as in Christ floating above the cross, or something which doesn't involve the cross at all, like a dove, or an infinity sign?


The psychology of survival in oppressive situations
Inside of an empire, there is no way to opt out, or rather no easy, obvious way. One must participate and hence be complicit in exploiting people, destroying nature and waging war.The soul deadens in a typical mainstream urban life, with work that is not clearly useful to one's community or even to some abstract community on the other side of the globe. With recreation that is more aptly called distraction and addiction (more on that below). Whereas on the periphery (and in the past even in the interior) empire wields power through the threat or use of military might, on the interior it wields its power psychologically through power-over type interactions, and economically, through "participate in the economy or die".

Power-over psychology is everywhere where people have to work closely together. Most interactions where people work closely together are dominant-submissive. Power-over and under poisons human interactions that could be a paradise (Jesus was trying to model a different way of interacting).

Economic power is both concentrated in the hands of a few, and distributed in the hands of many. Everybody participates in the game of controlling resources in order to control people, not just the elite.  A psychological coping mechanism (#3 in Charme’s analysis) arises of accepting suffering for a future reward in heaven (e.g. mainstream Christianity), or post-enlightment (e.g. Buddhism).

Ways to escape and their pitfalls
The people who have historically started rural utopian communities (such as the Essenes and early Christians) have not done so out of escapism. They have done it in order to create an alternative to empire, not just theorize or write about it. They have done it out of a genuine love for life, wanting to show by example how good life can be and make that alternative possible for all, not just for themselves. They have done it as an alternative to either totalitarian utopianism (which tries change on a grand scale, and sadistically imposes it on others), fatalistic resignation to the status quo (which is a form of masochism), or reformism (which tries small changes that are usually insufficient to get out of the meme network of empire, as reformists well know). The basic theory of small utopian communities is that they could be seeds (that could propagate) of another culture. Instead of trying to stop a massive train, one plants seeds and offers them to the conductors (which unlike in a train, is everybody participating in the culture). Part of the reason the seeds didn't propagate is that they never matured into a good culture. And the reasons for that are either insufficient cultural isolation or because of a few master memes that are hard to change, as discussed previously in this blog. Those of pride and selfishness that are often blamed on human nature, but that find encouragement in empires, with the most prideful and selfish rising to positions of power. And the seeking of power over other people is a major meme, one of the founding memes of empire. It has a concomitant meme, that of wanting (not just having) to submit to the power of other people, or other beings. Are these basic human needs? I ascribe to the third theory mentioned earlier, so I think they are, but they are also sometimes substitutes for other needs.
Real Human Needs and Addictions
What happens when a need is not able to be fulfilled? People either  become neurotic or they try to fulfill it with substitutes. This is a big part of what an addiction is: trying to fulfill a real need with a substitute that doesn't really fulfill the need, but can work temporarily, perhaps with less and less efficacy (tolerance building). Real needs and their external satisfaction do not exhibit the  phenomenon of building a
tolerance and needing a more or bigger fix: food, water, warmth,
stability, security, good work, sex, deep emotional bonding, a
coherent worldview, a sense of belonging and usefulness, nest
building, ego transcendence, ability to take care of oneself and
family in adulthood, etc. The needs to dominate, hurt, submit and be hurt, do they exhibit tolerance building? I think they do when they are substitutes for other needs, but sometimes they are not. They can be satisfied, for a while, just like real benevolent needs. Perhaps one way to confront ,integrate and transform them is within a consensual sexual relationship. Another is to channel the energy into constructive, creative projects. And a third is to infuse them with compassion.

Real needs are renewable, one doesn't get tired
of them, their satisfaction does not decrease in efficacy over time.
Note that some of them can be substituted for others and then they
become addictions. For example the need to belong can be partially
substituted with eating. Or the need for emotional bonding can be
substituted with sex. The need for sex can be substituted with domination or submission. Other examples:
1. Relationships with pets instead of humans or wild nature
2. Power over (people and pets) instead of power with, self-mastery and self determination.
3. Mood altering (anti-depression and anti-anxiety) drugs/alcohol or expensive therapists instead of self-mastery, understanding, communion, right livelihood, and ego-transcendence.
4. Sado-masochism instead of intimate, honest, divine and primal relationships.
Now, there are other aspects to addictions besides tolerance building.
But these aspects are shared with real needs. One is the desperation
of an addict that doesn't get his need fulfilled. The person who is
deprived of food (unless they are on a fast, knowing that the fast will
end) usually feels the same desperation. Another aspect of addictions
is that they have power over the addict. Again, this is also shared
with real needs. A person who is thirsting is under the power of her
thirst.
So the way to distinguish an addiction from a real need is not by
measuring desperation or power over the person, but whether or not a tolerance is built up, and (more difficultly) whether the external
"object" craved by the person satisfies a real need or not.
Now it is not easy in this culture (and in any culture of Empire) to
satisfy all our needs. So we know that addictions are quite common.
In an imperial culture, some people at the core end up sucking
resources from periphery states. How do they do this? The most crude
way is with brute force. A more effective way is to make the people
who are being sucked dry to think that they need the empire to provide
some services (sanitation, protection, roads, education, governance
and entertainment are the most common) in exchange for the resources
they are providing the empire. That they are incapable of taking care
of themselves without the empire. That accepting the empire is for their own, and the empire's good. This mode of thinking is eventually believed by the people in the interior, not just at the periphery.
Note that this is already an
addiction because it substitutes for the adult human need for
self-determination, spontaneity and autonomy, the childish need for being taken care of by a more powerful entity. There is security in a  childhood where the parents take care of the children. There is a comfort in not having to make decisions for oneself, and having ones parents or some other external higher power or moral code make them for us. There is eroticism in being vulnerable and at the whim of the higher power.


Christianity and Buddhism co-opted by empire
This is one of the great ironies of history,
that Christianity (and a similar story for Buddhism, but instead of the Roman empire, the Chinese empire, maybe an Indian precursor. See http://www.brill.nl/buddhism-and-empire ), which arose in response to the Roman empire, ended up being co-opted by that empire and being used for its own purposes. (There are still Christians who have not joined the mentality of empire: http://www.jesusradicals.com/book-review-come-out-my-people-gods-call-out-of-empire-in-the-bible-and-beyond-by-wes-howard-brook/ )
Instead of the addiction to the empire, a new substitute was found for
the need for self-determination: God, Spirit, the Church. This new way
of looking at the world also sometimes substitutes (the real needs of) communion with
other people or communion with nature for communion with God, where
God is seen either as a paternal figure, or as a fuzzy benevolent
intelligence larger than us (it's tricky because that can also be a
real need, perhaps better described as ego transcendence). I am not
denying the existence of either of these (I lean towards the second
though), but I want to bring your attention to how we interact with
either of these and how it can be an addiction.
Before mainstream Christianity, the strategy used by empire involved only one step:
1. Acknowledge your helplessness in the face of the empire (and pay tribute).
With the advent of Christianity, the first step was sometimes modified
by substituting empire with "God", "Kingdom of God", "Spirit", or
internal foundation, and a new step was added:
2. All your other needs are secondary to the need for the first step.

Before the roman empire co-opted Christianity, change was not to be imposed on a person. A person would be helped to change either by asking for help or being moved from within by seeing an example of change (offered freely) that worked in another person or community outside of himself. 


After Co-option, Christianity was to convert people at the sword or by use of other imperial techniques.


Sado-masochism
There is ample literature on the connection between Christianity (and Judaism) and sado-masochism. I claim it is only the imperial version of these religions that is sado-masochistic.

I think masochism could be an attempt to experience vulnerability and trust at the same time. Vulnerability is essential for the basic need of intimacy, whereas trust is essential for the basic need of security. But why does it need to be combined with pain, possible violence and objectification? Somehow these intensify the experience in a culture where intensity is rare and mostly vicarious (The Image is the idol partially because that is where intensity happens, but the reality is mostly "vanilla"). But it is more than intensifying, what happens (or desired) is ego-transcendence, which is another basic human need. I think Fromm didn't quite get how important ego-transcendence is for humans. This is different than ego annihilation, or maybe only a temporary ego annihilation.


Sado-masochism is useful for hierarchical organizations like the military or most corporations. Meme networks have evolved into hierarchical structures because this type of organization offers both stability and ability to make large adaptive changes (through changing one or a few master genes/memes, instead of the impossibility of changing lots of genes/memes). I don't think masochism is the only way for complex organizations to operate, even if they are partially hierarchical. Wholistic interest (as opposed to self-interest or masochism) might be an alternative, where every part is conscious of the needs of the whole without losing its integrity.


Those people who seek to satisfy their
real needs are called addicts by the addicts to the empire (who usually
manage to fulfill their "secondary" needs by playing the game of empire). Similar to a man swimming in water telling a man dying of thirst that he is addicted to
water and should pray to God, see a therapist, or take a class, and denying him access to the water. Jesus would have just given the thirsty man water, but some of the followers of Jesus are sadists.


Now the pleasure aspect of masochism is somehow related to the erotic instinct, which is also related to the altruistic instinct, which is also related to the need for ego transcendence. None of these are bad things. The dysfunctional thing about masochism is the fatalistic powerlessness to make any changes beyond one's own psyche and the sublimation of primal needs for self determination and power with/within, which get expressed as sadistic outlets instead (another example of addiction as need displacement). The masochistic mentality increases the fitness of the empire meme network.


Here is some more background on meme networks:
http://www.youtube.com/user/iuvalclejan/videos?view=1


It is interesting to me that both Klaus Barbie (The Nazi torturer) and Dietrich Bonhoffer were Christians, one (the sadist) allied with Hitler and the other (the masochist obsessed with obedience) tried to assassinate Hitler. Also, Fromm analyzes the masochistic tendencies of Luther and Calvin. Anne Rice, who wrote a few books on sado-masochism is also a Christian.


Newsweek article

This week's Newsweek (by coincidence?) had an article about modern female masochism, which wasn't impressive in the depth of its analysis, but did remind me of one of my favorite subjects, gender. I suspect that masochism IS more common with women than with men. Even though modern women may no longer be oppressed, some might fantasize about not needing to think and make decisions for themselves, consistent with Fromm's “escape from freedom” hypothesis about masochism. For most men this escape might be more natural with sadism rather than masochism. But I think for both men and women, much of this way of dealing with the issue of freedom is reinforced by living in a meme network of empire. Also, if someone has to be dominated and submit, the needs for self-determination and ego-transcendence are both being repressed. The need for ego-transcendence is being suppressed because there is a difference between being forced to submit, and voluntarily accepting submission. With the former ego-transcendence is much harder than with the latter. The need for ego-transcendence can be achieved for real with either sadism or masochism, and so in this sense neither is an addiction. But the need for self-determination can't be achieved with either sadism or masochism and so it might surface in an addicted way, that is by substituting sadism or masochism for this need. This is especially true in a culture where no other choices are known or easily available. The motto of empires is: dominate or be dominated, and if one can do both so much the better, though it still won't satisfy the real need for self-determination lurking underneath. So the man who is dominated by his boss, comes home and dominates his wife and family. The woman who is dominating her husband at home or her employees at work, wants to be spanked.

I am not saying that gender or early childhood experiences have nothing to do with sado-masochism, just that these influences are all regulated by the master memes of empire. Even the term that was invented (initially for genes-”master genes”) is indicative of sado-masochism and (in feminist-speak) power-over relationships. Genes and memes organize themselves in hierarchies, but these hierarchies do not have to always exemplify a sado-masochistic, power-over relationship.

Are there any biological ties between power-over dynamics and sex? This is suggested by the writer of the article. There are simian societies where males are dominant and females are submissives, but also at least one (bonobos) where dominance/submission is not the main mode of interaction. There are human societies where dominance/submission is not the main form of interaction, but empire is not one of them. But still there is a biological association of power with sex, not just a cultural one. One can feel this power in a sexually dominant position, by "doing" one's partner, but this is not necessarily a gender-specific experience, nor necessarily a sadistic (or masochistic in the case of the partner being "done"). Dominance and submission in sex is an example of the mingling of power and sex, but it must be distinguished from sado-masochism. Perhaps the biological element comes from the anatomical differences between males and females and the evolutionary remnant from the submissive position taken by females of ancestral species. But sex in humans (and bonobos) did evolve into other positions and other more collaborative, communicative and nurturing forms. It would be interesting to study whether there is a correlation between the frequency of dominant/submissive sex and imperial cultures. I think empire is a factor, but not the only factor. Biology is another factor.

Pros and cons of diversity in genetic and memetic evolution

Diversity has become a liberal buzzword. But is diversity always a good thing?

Diversity is good in a biological or cultural ecosystem because it implies resiliency. Some of the resiliency is due to redundancy and some to complexity. If one pathway fails, another can be a backup. There are many sources of food and each species or culture has many functions

Diversity is also good for getting out of a local fitness maximum which is not global, in a very specific way.

But the resiliency/inertia of diversity can also mean being stuck in a rut (aka local but not global fitness maximum), due to inertia. In order to get from the rut to a better place, one needs not diversity within a group but unity of purpose. A small population with a single mutation (or epigenetic change) in the right direction is more likely to overcome the  entropic or (negative) fitness "barrier" than a large population with a diversity of mutations. Many diverse groups (but internally genetically or memetically similar) have a better chance for at least one of them to find the right mutational direction for getting over an entropic or a (negative) fitness "barrier". Diversity helps to provide many possible mutations, but they must not interact, because they will most likely effectively cancel each other out.

Diversity not only reduces focus of direction (which is important for finding the uphill direction, or in some cases the mountainpass direction in fitness space), but reduces the ability of a group to improve its internal as opposed to external fitness, something we can call nesting. When a new direction is focused on, an incipient culture (even more so than an incipient species) is able to provide an internal environment where that new meme or gene, and all the ones networked to it, are selected for, while the external environment of the mother culture or species most likely selects against these genes or memes. Diversity would be harmless for either directional focus or nesting, if the genes or memes that are diverse within the population are all part of the same network and are acting in tandem even as they are different than the unmutated ones in the mother species or culture. But this is extremely unlikely, as gene or meme networks impose stringent constraints on what changes are selected for or against. Independent changes of many genes or memes are almost certainly going to be selected against, internally. Changes in one gene or meme have a better chance of being internally selected for. And if that one gene of meme can adaptively control other genes or memes (non-mutationally), than it is possible for many genes or memes to change, but that is not an independent change in all of of them, just in one.


The most successful sequence for getting out of a rut, finding a better fitness maximum and then being able to be resilent and responsive from there, is:
1. form many groups, each having a single mutation within the group, but different than all other groups.
2. Once the group gets over the fitness or entropic barrier, reintroduce memetic or genetic diversity into the group, perhaps through reduced isolation and interaction with other groups.


There are many examples of groups that were united in one meme and able to get out of a cultural rut into a new culture:
The Amish, the Bruderhoff, the Hutterites, the Hare Krishnas. Whether these groups are resilient or not remains to be seen and depends on how much diversity they introduce.

There are also examples of groups that have not made it out of cultural ruts because they are paralyzed by  premature diversity.

A proposal for funding a blueprint of a village-based technology ecosystem

Newer version: incentives
The following is a proposal I submitted to a few authors and foundations. So far no takers, despite my belief that it is a "no-brainer" thing to do. My working hypothesis as to why this proposal is not getting funded is that it falls outside of two of the main conflicting worldviews today. One is the Religion of Progress(first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth) which appreciates experts, but thinks industrialism is just fine and that all our social and ecological problems will be solved by more of the same. It is inconceivable in that worldview to challenge industrialism. To those in that camp I say that the outcome of the project could be that industrialism is the only technological ecosystem that works under present population and environmental depletion conditions, though I doubt it. The second is the emerging world view that we are deeply entwined with the natural world and each other, but with a suspicion of all experts and top down, non-evolutionary approaches to our current problems. This worldview also holds, thanks unwittingly to Gandhi, that large systemic change is only possible at the individual level, one individual at a time. This is what Neal Stephenson called the Seed approach, to distinguish it from the Feed approach that mainstream politics and economics is about. However, who says that seed has to be an individual? Why not a small community of elite people who get something working? It is true that a cell will not be able to be a seed, but there are many more possible levels between individuals and Leviathans (such as the global Economy) at which seeds could be sown.  To those in that camp I say that the experts needed for this project are mostly craftspeople, not PhDs of industrial/scientific disciplines and coordinating such people is possible and much easier than coordinating whole governments, corporations or other Leviathans, in analogy with the Manhattan Project. The project does have an evolutionary component, but it tries to avoid the situation of only acting seriously when we run out of fossil fuels, by which point more benign evolutionary paths which are now still open may become closed.

I think the ability to produce one's basic needs has been the missing link in most intentional communities. There are other problems (such as communication, and inner demons from the culture) but solutions are nowadays available. Having to get basic needs from the culture that one wants to leave is the downfall of any community that solves the other problems and this is an attempt to address that.

When Jesus was alive and shortly thereafter, industrialism wasn't around and Empire could be resisted by communities that provided for themselves, though taxes were preposterous. The Empire slowly collapsed, but the meme of Empire (domination, information suppression and violence) somehow infected the Church. Despite that there arose a competency in the ability to provide for one's village (and even the non-productive members thereof, namely the lords and some of the clergy, who got much more than anyone else, as well as young children and the very old)

When Gandhi was alive, at least in India there was still the possibility of resisting Empire with local craft and agricultural production despite the onlaught of industrialism. This kind of local tecchnology and economy was what Gandhi and his compatriot J.C. Kumarappa were advocating. Unfortunately Gandhi got killed and Nehru went the way of industrialization. Also unfortunately, Gandhi is remembered only for his nonviolence, not his Luddism (which is related, because industry is a violent system of making stuff and employing people)

When MLK was alive, the Religion of Progress was going strong and he thought that it could provide decent jobs and dignity for all (with no environmental cost). Towards the end of his life he started seeing that this is not so, and had he not been assassinated I think he would have become a Luddite too, like Jesus and Gandhi.

Creating Local Economies for Basic Goods

Project Summary

This project will focus on providing the technological tools to enable a small (in terms of land and number of people) LOCAL, democratic, agrarian and craft-based economy as an alternative to the global, factory-based economy.  The emphasis is on the local constraint and on planning. Local is defined primarily with regard to basic needs and services, which are defined as those associated with food, water, shelter, clothes, and health care. The project will test the hypothesis that individual freedom, creativity, healthy human interdependence, initiative, intellectual discourse and ecological sustainability can better exist within the context of a basic needs local economy than the current global economy. After an R&D thinktank stage, a village of about 200 people will be built, tools and land bought, but after two more years all basic goods will be produced and maintained in the village. Alternatively, an existing third world village will be given tools and training to produce all their basic needs locally in a way that encourages the above desirable qualities, Expenses not related to basic needs will be paid for by profitable businesses developed in the village.

Background

The industrial revolution has enabled a large growth in population and was partially motivated by ideas of a better standard of living for more people, but it has led to several problems.  These problems manifest as lack of time to pursue creative endeavors (with a few exceptions), lack of ability to provide for one’s basic needs without having to sell one’s time in a non-democratic work environment, a widespread automaton-like conformity and lack of critical thinking abilities,  lack of ability to have deep relationships with people on a village, tribal, family or community level, an infiltration of market values into all human relationships, an interest in power more than in truth, a host of environmental problems, and manipulation of the masses by the most economically powerful.  The latter two have existed prior to the industrial revolution, but have been enabled to unprecedented levels by the industrial revolution. Though some of these problems are political, we claim that they can be partially solved by localizing production of basic goods.

There have been many critiques of factory-based industrial global economies, but few pragmatic proposals for alternatives (or proposals for piecemeal engineering, in Karl Popper's words).  Before the industrial revolution in Europe, most people participated in a local craft and agrarian-based economy, at least for basic needs. There were serious problems with feudal governance, healthcare, and with the relative lack of individuation of medieval villagers. While not romanticizing such periods as the Middle-Ages, it may be that a modern adaptation and improvement of their craft-based production system could solve some of the problems that have been generated by the global economy.  Local, craft-based economies have been proposed by Gandhi, Michael Schuman, Lanza del Vasto, Peter Maurin, Erich Fromm,  E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry and many distributists. These proposals have almost never made it to the implementation stage, partially because of a technology and information gap. Given all that the human race has learned in science and technology since the Middle Ages and even since the time of Gandhi, it may be possible to improve on the technology of the Middle Ages while avoiding some of the social, psychological and environmental problems due to our global technology and economy. This is expected to require an initial investment of capital before a local economy can compete and offer an alternative to the global market economy.

Need for local economies

It is conjectured that a local, craft-based basic-needs economy may have the following advantages over the current, global economy:

• Transparency, leading to humaneness and connection: It is harder to hide what one is doing when the activity is in one's town rather than in a far-away land.  There is growing evidence that much of the wealth of western countries is at the expense of the well-being and resources of third world countries. Rationalizations for the mistreatment of those people have been made, but they will be harder to make when one is confronted with exploitation in the concrete rather than in the abstract.  It is expected that people will want to better treat their friends who share work and vision with them, than anonymous, abstract humans who are seen only as a labor pool, and that better treatment of one's land or back yard is a result of production on one's land or back yard rather than someone else's far away. So we reverse Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY), to Produce In My Back Yard (PIMBY) (but do it responsibly and beautifully).
• Ecological Responsibility: as Wendell Berry argues, the ecological crisis is due to people not being in touch with and powerless to change the consequences of their economic actions. NIMBY has inadvertently led to abstraction, irresponsibility and phenomenological dissociation. Having production and consumption happen in one's own backyard is the antidote.

• A healthier democracy: It is hard to do good experiments in a system that is too large and complex. A healthy democracy needs experiment, not just bickering about theory. But if people are nationally and globally economically dependent, it is hard to disentangle the factors contributing to any phenomenon. Another way to say this is a shorter, more direct    feedback loop between theory and practice, between action and effect. State and regional rights only makes sense when the states or regions are mostly independent of each other. But this cannot happen in the current global, industrial economy. A craft and agrarian based economy is local and provides the technological and economic foundation for a healthy democracy.

• A solution to the agency problem: A local, basic needs economy avoids middle-men who are usually the agents referred to in the agency problem. Resources are directly produced and consumed by the participants of the local economy, with no need for an agent to allocate them, automatically avoiding the agency problem inherent both in global market capitalism and state socialism.  It is proposed that the basic needs local economy will have a planned aspect (thus small scale socialism), and still allow participants to engage in the global economy for non-basic needs. The rise of self-interest conflicting with public good in large scale bureaucratic institutions possibly originates from the tendency of humans to not care about each other as much in the abstract as in the concrete and be able to hide immoral behavior behind large institutions.

• Psychological well-being: Though a few people today are engaged in a livelihood that requires creativity and/or craftsmanship, the majority of people earn a 'living' as cogs in a machine, having work that is not conducive to psychological well-being. Their production is usually not beneficial to their community in obvious ways and their work is not something they can usually share with their families because its purpose is too abstract. Having an abstract job is better than being unemployed, but meaningful employment that produces basic needs and that can be shared with one's family/community even better. Ideally, people could participate in basic needs production and have a more abstract specialty if they desire. In contrast, a local economy can contribute to and support collectivist needs that are present in most humans and avoid the temptation to satisfy those needs with fascism, state communism/socialism or primitivism (see: http://culturalspeciation.blogspot.com/2011/05/open-society-and-its-enemies.html)

There is also a need to nurture and take care of people that can be satisfied better by producing directly for one's family and community than going through the intermediate of money. It is a balance to self-interest that stabilizes the larger institutions (family, community) necessary for humans to flourish.

•  Freedom: If one is dependent only on one's skill, work ethic and one's neighbors for a livelihood, one is harder to control than if one is dependent on an impersonal market which is unevenly controlled by large corporations and governments. If one owns the means of production and has a significant voice in production decisions, one is less easily enslaved.

• Minimizing Uncertainty/resiliency: Being a much simpler system than the global economy, a local economy is easier to understand and easier to influence. It is less prone to disruptions from efficient but fragile supply networks and global financial speculation.

Other similar efforts and charting new terrain with this project

There are many current small efforts to produce various components of local economies, mostly centered around local food, though these tend to be underfunded and disconnected from each other. The main shortcomings with the local food movement are that production is limited to a small percentage of the population who owns relatively large chunks of land, or a few inner city folks who do not have access to enough land to  grow grains and beans or graze livestock. . Many inner city people are not very attracted to community gardens, which provide mainly vegetables. They are able to get cheap, salty  processed food, consisting mainly of meat, grains, beans, dairy and fat, which are usually not possible to produce in community gardens. Community gardening is typically a hobby, and at best can only catalyze public interest. The farmers who are supplying local food are operating as part of the global economy and in order to survive in that economy have to charge more than what most people are willing to pay. In order to create a local economy that offers full democratic and meaningful employment, more land must be made available in order to practice extensive ecology-based agriculture, food processing has to be included in the economy, as well as maintenance and manufacturing of tools and equipment. Other aspects of a basic needs economy besides food have to be included. There are already some efforts at local manufacturing at Factor E Farm and Aprovecho as well as many individual inventors, but as with local food, they are underfunded and not well connected to each other. Rather than abolishing disempowering handouts and cheap processed food, it may be useful to create an equivalent "Manhattan Project” (not for building a nuclear bomb, but for building local economies in a serious, concerted way), bringing many current efforts together, funding them well and demonstrating a vibrant, ethical and environmentally responsible economy and community, leading by example.

Details and Timeline

During all stages, decision-making will be hierarchical, but with feedback from all, and weekly meetings for strategy, brainstorming and coordination of different departments. Each department will be assigned a manager, and each department will have daily or weekly (depending on need) meetings every morning to discuss what work is to be done that day and report on challenges from the previous day and anticipated challenges in the next few days.

In the initial stage (estimated to take one year), the goal is to research and plan a self-sustaining production and consumption system that does not need any more inputs from the global economy besides the initial ones described below. Engineers, craftspeople and tradesmen, entrepreneurs, farmers, game programmers, historians of technology and artists (about 10-20 people) will be hired as consultants. A team headed by Iuval Clejan and Chris Theal (see page 9, “Project Management and Location”) will devise a plan for food, housing and other basic needs from local energy and materials, starting (but not ending) with tools, land, seeds and food that is bought from the global economy.  

This step could be done with a collaborative project management software, and it could be web-based (a game?), so that some expert contributors do not have to be physically present. The software would impose the locality constraint as well as "global" (meaning for every person in the local village) goals, such as food, shelter, etc. It would keep track of needs and outputs for each producer in the village and display these in a graphical form, and make sure that each arrow eventually pointed, through a network of other arrows to one of the "global" goals. 

Examples of typical problems to be solved include:

-planning of a local agriculture that provides optimal nutrition and variety in a sustainable manner.

-how to employ both draft animals and  simple machines

-how to efficiently make and maintain the tools and machines

-how to provide irrigation.

-how to preserve and store food,  how to make the best stoves for cooking and heat.

-how to cut wood with hand-saws, and how to make them.

-how to make natural herbal medicine, and whether it is practical to purify antibiotics and other medicines.

-how to find talented people and get them to cooperate in a democratic, hierarchical, not-for-profit corporate environment.

- Evaluating the tradeoffs between hand tools and different machines.
Existing crop optimization software will be used to maximize nutrition and soil fertility, and to minimize water and labor.

Unlike the approach of Factor E Farm, this project will initially eschew electronics (except in calculating and simulating during the planning stage), high energy consumption and materials requiring much infrastructure and will only build tools that directly contribute to production of basic needs. It will start with pre-industrial technology and attempt to improve on it.  It will start with food, shelter, medicine, clothes, and water, and branch out to technologies, tools and materials to support these. This is in line with Popper's idea of piecemeal engineering, except in this case what one starts with is not the current technology, but a pre-industrial technology which was already largely local. One then makes incremental changes to reduce labor, and distribute ownership of tools and land, based on criteria mentioned below. This approach is different than state socialist planned economies because it is local and hence not subject to the abuses of bureaucracy (abstraction, agency problem and one-size-fits-all). It is also different than current global free market capitalism for the reasons outlined above.

Though the initial stage is largely a theoretical, planning stage, there will be some experimentation with both hardware and software.

Next will be an implementation stage (estimated to take two years) for production of basic needs, recruitment of about 200 people, buying land and tools, and maintenance of tools. A portion of the initial consultants along with additional people will be recruited, trained and put to work in production of all basic needs (described above) for the community of participants. Though initially paid a conventional stipend, these people eventually will be paid by what they produce and enjoy (basic needs), not with money. Production goals will be established from the previous stage, based on a rational evaluation of nutritional, housing and other basic needs, with the goals of minimizing time per person spent on production (an initial goal for  yearly average labor per person is 20 hours per week), full employment, democratic participation and encouragement of individual creativity and initiative. The basic needs economy will thus be distributist with some planning on a small village scale.

The next stage (2 years) will involve continued meeting of production goals set during the first stage, but also implementation of  maintenance of existing tools and housing,  as well as building new tools and housing from locally available materials. Some technologies may need to be abandoned, some rediscovered and some invented.  During this stage it is expected that no support will be needed from external sources, but that income will be generated from businesses and that income could be used for personal (non-basic) needs and for funding replica projects.

The last stage will be the propagation of the technologies used for the previous stage (ongoing) to those who might want to participate in such an endeavor.

Project Management and location

The project will be based at the Open Space Community in Atlanta GA (a non profit corporation, EIN number 271518327), and the Possibility Alliance in La Plata Missouri.

Alternatively, after the R&D stage, it can be based in a third world village.

It has so far been funded by private donations.

There will be three project leaders, members of the board of trustees:

Iuval Clejan, the Chief Science and Engineering officer, has been a physicist, an engineer, a molecular biologist, a farmer and an inventor. His experience has trained him to easily navigate between the big picture and details of implementation. He was born in Israel, which gave him a taste for the pros and cons of collectivism.  He travelled a great deal in the US, which gave him a taste for the potential of freedom and individuals. He has started a household that gets electricity from solar panels, water from the rain (hot water from sunshine and wood stove), heat and cooking from wood stoves. He is trying to make a career by combining his love of science and technology with his love of people and nature.

Chris Theal, the energy, water, and ecological advisor, has been the facilities manager for Southface Energy Institute over 10 years. He has experience with many alternative technologies and the compromises that sometimes have to be made between vision and current realities.

Ethan Hughes, the director of human resources, has had much experience managing people in democratic work environments. He lives at the Possibility Alliance in La Plata, MO.

Metrics and Impact

This project does not seek to eliminate global trade and communication. Its scope is limited to production of basic needs on a local scale, in order to further individual freedom and vibrant communities. Metrics for evaluating success of the above proposal  will be developed . The easiest kinds of metrics to  quantify are calories produced and consumed from the land, how many other basic needs are provided by the land, how much food still needs to be bought, how many hours are contributed for the satisfaction of basic needs.  

If the project is successful, it can be advertized by word of mouth and over the internet (minimal funds), so that besides an impact on US middle class society, there can also be impacts on "developing" nations which see an example of something sustainable they can replicate from the first world.  Besides citizens of developing nations , an example of a vibrant life can impact disenfranchised people in the US, who can be incorporated into village economic, social and spiritual life, rather than being disempowered by handouts, or expected to join an economy that is partially creating the conditions that they find themselves in.

Possible pitfalls and solutions:

Pitfall: The project takes over people's lives and becomes a cult or company town

Solution: There is a 40 hour workweek (max) so people have time for other aspects of their lives. People have individual or familial living quarters when they are not working on the project.

Pitfall: The project employs people who can't work well together.

Solution:  Careful applicant screening and reference checking of participants, and a probationary period.

Pitfall: Participants tempted to buy basic goods from the global economy (e.g. clothes) because they are cheaper than basic goods manufactured by the village.

Solution: A prerequisite for working on the project will be that all basic goods will be produced and consumed (except for surplus, which may be exported) on the premises. This is a social or even religious contract (which is why the community could be thought of as a monastery or a "concent"  (Neal Stephenson) which will be mostly self-regulated, but the director of human resources (or head priest/mother superior) could fire anyone who breaks the contract. The same mechanisms of government regulation and individual self-regulation operate when people in the global economy refuse to support slavery, even though products manufactured by slaves may be cheaper than those manufactured by wage earners. Market values have to be subordinated to ethical/moral values, not the other way around.

Pitfall: Participants do not have enough financial incentive, especially after the initial stages, when they stopped getting paid.

Solution:  If the project is successful, the incentive for continuing to produce and consume basic goods locally is more time to pursue creative activities, deeper human relations, more individual empowerment and more connection to nature. If people want to make money in the global economy they will be free to do so as far as luxury goods (or surplus of locally manufactured basic goods), and may be subject to the financial incentives of the global economy.

Pitfall: Some people perform in a substandard manner.

Solution: Just like in any company, there are performance evaluations and opportunities to change direction. In the initial stages, people can be fired, but later substandard performance will be corrected by economic means, that is by participants not bartering with or buying from the substandard performers, just like in any free market.

Pitfall: Interpersonal conflict.

Solution:  Conflict is unavoidable, but there are ways of dealing with it gracefully and these will be studied and implemented (e.g. Non Violent Communication). Also friendly competition can stimulate creativity.

Pitfall: The initial group may be exclusive and isolationist.

Solution: An attitude of service, philanthropy and social justice will be cultivated. Some initial isolationism and exclusivity is necessary to start the project, but will be detrimental if continued after the first few years. For more about why isolationism is not a bad thing for the initial stages, see the hyperlink on page 4.

Pitfall: Economists will balk at local economies because they think that they do not take into account comparative advantage, even for basic needs like food.  

Solution: http://culturalspeciation.blogspot.com/2011/07/comparative-advantage-and-local.html 

Pitfall: Strictly Local Production of the basic goods of food, water, shelter, health care and clothes will not be possible.

Solution: Some technologies are better than others when the strictly local constraint is imposed. If a technology leads to non-local production, it will be abandoned in favor of one which can be kept local.
Pitfall: The project sounds like socialism.
Solution: The project does involve a planned aspect. But this planning is for a technology ecosystem, not for an economy. The economy that evolves from this technological opportunity is unknown. It may involve market economy, gift economy, coops, etc. The other reason this is not a socialist project is because the planning (and implementation) is on a village scale, not on a notion-state or more global scale. Also, thought the initial planning is partially hierarchical, the governance of the village is not determined at this stage. I hope it can be run by consensus.

Conclusion:

This is an opportunity for x to fund an innovative quest for solutions to some entrenched ills of the industrialized global economy and to preserve that which is best in our civilization in the face of dwindling fossil fuel supplies.  With the risks of widespread social disruption from a financial or economic collapse, it is essential to develop diverse, local safety nets, which will protect and empower resilient communities of free individuals.  Luxury lifestyles notwithstanding, the basic needs of a small group can be met with local, appropriate, environmentally benign technology.  When this foundation of Local Economies for Basic Needs is laid, a society is more likely to stay open than slide into fascism.