Dante’s Blog

Interesting graph on growth inequality, for US :

http://stateofworkingamerica.org/who-gains/#/?start=1985&end=2008

( with sliding scales )

Between 1985 and 2008,
the richest 10 percent got 95 percent of the growth ;
the bottom 90 percent shared 5 percent of that growth

also see :

97% owned present serious research and verifiable evidence on our economic and financial system. This is the first documentary to tackle this issue from a UK-perspective and explains the inner workings of Central Banks and the Money creation process.

When money drives almost all activity on the planet, it’s essential that we understand it. Yet simple questions often get overlooked, questions like; where does money come from? Who creates it? Who decides how it gets used? And what does this mean for the millions of ordinary people who suffer when the monetary, and financial system, breaks down?

Produced by Queuepolitely and featuring Ben Dyson of Positive Money, Josh Ryan-Collins of The New Economics Foundation, Ann Pettifor, the “HBOS Whistleblower” Paul Moore, Simon Dixon of Bank to the Future and Nick Dearden from the Jubliee Debt Campaign.

Political philosopher John Gray, commented, “We’re not moving to a world in which crises will never happen or will happen less and less. We are in a world in which they happen several times during a given human lifetime and I think that will continue to be the case”
If you have decided that crisis as a result of the monetary system is not an event you want to keep revisiting in your life-time then this documentary will equip you with the knowledge you need, what you do with it is up to you.

I feel that the context and process described by some of the people interviewed in this documentary seems to correspond somewhat to an intentional approach I d like to support with a shared narrative process aided by a linked-data interface :

“Political Parties give the opportunity to people not to think by themselves”

“Political Parties and politicians maintain their own interests”

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/iceland-after-the-meltdown-what-we-can-learn-from-their-realdemocracy-movement/2012/07/24

“In Iceland, the first European country to wake up to an economic crash, people became aware that they could and should intervene in society and started demanding more democratic participation. The payment of bank debts by citizens went to referendum. The government was forced to create a Council to write a new constitution: a citizens’ group – without politicians, lawyers or university professors – who opened the discussion process to everybody and managed to approve by consensus a draft proposal.”

From: Dante-Gabryell Monson
Date: Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 9:09 PM
Subject: Leipzig ? Social Design – “critical networks” : requirements and development practices ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_design#Strategic_thinking

As Amartya Sen writes, poverty is seen as deprivation of capabilities. By focussing on capabilities, rather than e.g. income, Amartya Sen suggests that development within various social aspects of life can contribute to general development.

extrait – de Dante 😉 :

” In addition to development practices,
I wish to outline all of these requirement into modules,
that help define the costs on a context based approach for
“business plans”, packaged and sold as “use value insurance” … ”

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson
Date: Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 3:33 PM
Subject: “critical networks” : requirements and development practices ?
To:

Hi Michel, Hi p2pf’ers

did you come across materials laying out a synthesis of very specific characteristics and requirements
around what I am tempted to call “critical networks” ?

Perhaps there is some other name for this ?

I think of “critical network” as distinctive from, yet potentially including , the concept of “critical mass”.

In the way I envision it,
“Critical Network” where the required “critical” properties for an operational or emergent networked system may not merely be a mass of users,
but specific properties ( such as measurable forms of reciprocity, physical location, resources, knowledge and skills, or other variables ) related to the constituents and context for specific intentional “process economies” to be enabled.

Including the mode of access to resources required for specific kinds of emergence.

I want to understand ( and have access to examples of ) various characteristics required to facilitate and multiply “local process economies” for viable and convivial living systems

http://p2pfoundation.net/Process_Economy

as to document step by step strategy proposals,

not merely in a “enclosed” / monetized approach,

but rather within a larger wealth acknowledgment system
http://p2pfoundation.net/Wealth_Acknowledgment_Systems

towards communal sharing in intentional economic networks.

I put an emphasis on understanding “starting points” for ( at first small scale )
“critical networks”.

I can find inspiration in homebrew revolutions ( and examples such as e-farm , open manufacturing, … ),
but also recommendations related to the set up of “transition towns”
( http://www.transitionnetwork.org/resources/transition-primer )

I can also find inspiration in ( reading excerpts online )
of books such as

http://www.integralcity.com/

and the p2p urbanism and p2pf blog , wiki and lists.

/////

What I wish, is to define requirements more accurately,
offering post-industrial alternatives to sometimes publicly supported “gentrification urban development models” ( which I observe here in Brussels too ),
that seem to be aligned or inspired by Richard Florida’s Creative Class approach of development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_class

I am also particularly interested in converging such understanding into building up “games” ,
and use such games as a form of synthesis practice to empower “critical networks”
for a intentional information and communication framework,
with incentives and related metrics, empowering collective intelligence and collaborative action.

I am aware such question may open up a large conceptual map, including the ones already layed out by you and p2pf peers.

I am interested in condensing it, into specifics, specific step by step examples.
e-farm may offer an example.

I want to know where and how to focus/aggregate attention as first steps,
and bring it into “real social” ( http://p2pfoundation.net/Real_Social )
“real games”.

For the moment, I consider “Housing Cooperatives” and “Group Purchasing Organizations” as starting points in post-industrial frameworks, as some first aggregator layers, on which to build other relational dynamics around food and housing.

Food production, food logistics, but also food as aggregator, such as http://sharewiki.org/en/Semantic_Kitchen ,
and then alternative currencies and wealth acknowledgment systems supporting more and more complex transaction potentials.

I also like the approach of learning spaces as aggregators for bringing together “Critical Network” requirements and development practices, such as the “University” project promoted by Dougald :
http://dougald.posterous.com/day-27-help-me-start-a-university

Perhaps some of you read ( I did not ) the “integral city” book.

Is there a comprehensive list of requirements set out ?

Also , what are the capital requirements for such kind of “ventures”,
as to converge or purchase infrastructure requirements to enable the functioning of a critical network for a p2p resilient and convivial civilization of collaborative individualists?

In addition to development practices,
I wish to outline all of these requirement into modules,
that help define the costs on a context based approach for
“business plans”, packaged and sold as “use value insurance” …

April 21 2011 , Dante :

I meet some other young people from Brussels or Belgium who,
in some cases, like me,
have access to a very rich opening to various realities,
either through direct experience or through
parents from two or more different cultural backgrounds,
and/or parents who themselves have inherited from a rich cultural experience and world view.

In some cases also, their families exploded, with parts of their family all over the world,
and in some cases also, their parents separated.

Often very intuitive and artistic friends, who have a great sense of empathy and a lot of love to receive and give.

When compared with other interpretations of “individualism” I read on the net,
I could say that we seem to be “very individualistic” persons,

yet when I mention “individualism” to certain friends sharing such characteristics, there seems to be some kind of rejection of it.

Perhaps I can understand such rejection of the concept of individualism by some ( collaborative ) individualist friends who seem to share some contexts in which I evolved in too :

there seems to be a sense of longing for re-building, of convergence, where love can be.
“individualist” does not feel like a place of love, in a context where all pieces of, at least my life, seem to be scattered around the whole world. People I shared pieces of experience of life with are scattered around the world, and there is no place of return to converge and feel safe , feel one can care for, feel one can be cared of,

except for “the entire world”, which are not easy to experience in a shared way,
except when one can find access to openings for spaces of shared reality in other persons.

In the case of some of my friends, even the remains of nuclearized nuclear families do not enable a return,
as self-actualization lead to finding oneself, which apparently often seems to threaten the old memes remaining within , in some cases, the accumulated and often unconscious scars within family members in addition to socio-cultural patterns of society imposed on us through their own fears to requestion their own security and sense of meaning.

In some cases also, when building on my own experience, increased monetization and speculation on scarce resources such as housing has made it difficult to build up any prospect or even hope to engage into a space of security within the urban space I grew up in,

as it requires to give up on aspects of self actualization or selfless actualization,
conforming to dominant memes and norms which have power over activity which can be monetarily supported,
an approach in which my deconstructed, intuitive ,aspects – and possibly that of some other friends –
do not , or do not want to conform to,
by sense of lack of meaning, and lack of love.

What alternative is there for us ?

I sense in me, and in some of such individuals,
a huge strength, built through experience , empathy and sensibility,
yet in some cases, such as with me, also a great pain and feeling of lack of loving environment.

One of my friends told me yesterday that she wants an apple tree.
She is ok with the fact that this apple may not at first have a lot of apples, but she wants to take care of it, so that it can become a beautiful apple tree, an apple tree that enables her to give away a lot of apples.

She is tired of chasing after apples… even though they may be beautiful apples.

And I understand the image she is giving.
I try to find roots in shared feelings.

Paradoxically, finding roots in shared feelings may lead to greater empathy of persons between each other,
while “nationalistic or patriotic” roots may have lead to wars…

Feelings and creativity , and a sense of finding spaces where there is love to build on and build with,
with an often broad systemic understanding of various deconstructed elements,
somehow can lead us to create our own realities,
for me, potentially in some festivalist approach.

Yet the moments of festivalism are all too often restricted into temporary autonomous zones,

and , for me at least, a lot of time seems to be spent on converging pieces of the puzzle and synchronize them into TAZ.

Hence the potential creation of new spaces – totally new spaces, such as ecovillages, or “Leipzig Projects”
http://sharewiki.org/en/Leipzig_project

yet – until it is built up, it still feels like a cold place… and somehow, the ones I can share a sense of identity are… the ones that , like me, experience this deconstructed world, and multiplicity within oneself.

A connection beyond some material connections – a spiritual connection, through feeling, joy, pain.

flashback, three and a half years ago…

I also knew, back then, that “aggregators” in the form of spaces where important.
A “cooperative” urban space seemed important to me – it is still on my list 🙂

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson
Date: Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 3:54 AM
Subject: brainstorming dante options and strategies
To:

I m now thinking about different strategies. I was thinking it would be good to try to stay longer in Brussels and find a way to converge pieces of the puzzle of a more holistic process , and the hub is a good place for the continuation of the creative holistic collaborative approach that I have been working on in the last years – actually , since I left school and left to Asia ( after turning 16 ) , or even before , when I was elected on the school board when I was 14 years old , more then 10 years ago.

In the last years , my strategy ended up being the following : spending much of the time on the move , and live with almost no financial income ( in average 100 euros support – first from my mother , then from a good friend ) , but move city every few days and hitch hike one or more days a week ( a thousand kilometers or more ) – in the last months of these last years , I started to get tired of feeling stuck in the ” in between ” , and have no space to build other then on the internet , and was lucky in the last months before coming back to Brussels to have the opportunity to stay for two and a half months with my Estonian lady friend in Estonia , and one month with my German/Polish friend in Switzerland. They love me inconditionally , and I know they will welcome me , share care and feed me with their care and also with food ( although they themselves live with very little – Kadri earns around 450 euros a month and Sebastian , in Switzerland , lives with about 800 euros a month – and both also pay rent ) , and provide me the moral support so that I could further my research in good circumstances. But somehow I am not sure that these places are the best for me on a longer term to meet other people to build with.

These last years of nomadism on a european scale was a interesting spiritual exerience , going beyond physical and psychological limits ,
yet at the same time having the special kind of ungoing transition energy , having different flows and feeling one with a broad world and a diverse set of realities , through detachment.

The nomadic spirit is in me , and I also feel it could be a interesting strategy and lifestyle to experiment with in a more local approach to nomadism , having time to build networks of friends and build on projects in one geographical region. ( or a few geographical regions , but with a longer time to build ).

I imagined that at one or all of the following bigger Hub related meetings , as I look forward to spend more time investing myself as a volunteer in the development of the hub ( until we can apply for more funds for some other projects and that i could make a living out of such funds )

that I could make a call to offer people to host me for one or two nights , so that I have the opportunity to talk with them , be a mirror for them , and have them as a mirror for me ,
understanding or eventually facilitating the further understanding of their situation and what they would be interested and intrinsically motivated in doing , what intention they might want to pursue ,
and connecting their interests and networks with other individuals and networks I am in touch with , and vice versa , as to serve as a boundary spanner and facilitate the creation of synnergies towards a broader shared intention. I can also serve as a spokesperson for them to other people if they wish , or simply update them about developments at the Hub Brussels and other Hub projects , inspire them with some of my insights , ideas , experiences , … or put them in contact with other friends that could inspire them according to their interests.

My google calendar can then be used as a tool for people to see what days I have a host , or still need a host , and what days they would want to host me.

Although this would also mean that I would not be able to work for money in the evening , and other solutions would need to be found.

The advantage with the nomadic approach is that I would not have to pay for a room , for which I anyway dont have the money for unless I work full time in a job that I dont like ( at least until I have time to find a job I like and goes well with my interests and the broader meaning – but I already know what job that is , I am creating it , but if I work full time I can not create such value as easily )

The advantage of a nomadic approach is that I could stay two or three weeks in Brussels , and then one week in London , one week in Berlin , and then back Brussels , and this would make it possible to serve as a Boundary Spanner beween several Hubs in Several european cities – hitch hiking as I already did in the last years , but having a more dense network of hosts that share some of the projects and revolve around certain cities.

I want to work on multiplying practices that work , creating value by mixing ideas and building on them , and connecting human ressources pools and extending the collaborative commons , or at least , try to increase its effectiveness.

Yet another strategy some people perhaps too easily resort to ,

could be to go to the social services of one of the communes of Brussels , convincing them to grant me support to pay for a room while having the status of a ” trainee ” at the Hub or at some other organizations I know in Brussels and have been involved with at some point or another over the last years – although I m not sure if I can do that if I dont have a domicile fixe ( which is my case ) – or perhaps I just would have to choose one commune and ask them to give me a domicile fixe . But I heard its not good energyto ask social services , and anyway it would limit my flexibility and my freedom , as I would have to stay in Brussels , tied to the conditions they would apply to me.

It is also not easy to convince social services to sponsor me.

I dont have the right to receive unemployment money as I did not work more then one year in my life. ( another way of getting unemployment money is to sit on the benches of a school until you get a piece of paper … although I visited a lot of schools and it seems I would get bored to death before getting such paper )

So anyway , it is a challenge , and as in the last years , when sometimes ending up without money , it is also important that I find some strategy that other young social entrepreneurs can also adopt as to further continue their activities and project building , networking , and learning. – until they get the network , or the prototype , or both , that makes it possible for them to get further access to other sources of financial revenue. The problem today is that it is possible to get some financial support , but mostly for very specific and limited projects – for a ” entredoneur” ( extract ” neologism ‘entredoneur’ refers to a ‘giver’ who works between, or with others’. ” ) , who spends time managing and facilitating convergence , synnergies , and ” synthese “, the picture to define is so broad and complex that no grant really seems to be adapted. A Grant in itself being centralized , it actually promotes most often centralised structures too – with a legal structure , and a hierarchy of individuals with defined positions.

Therefore , I have been thinking in the last years that a good way of support for such kind of value creation would be micro sponsorship. A platform with full transparency where social entredonneurs can have a profile with info about everything they do ( or want to share about their activities ) , and being transparent about everything they need money for , how much money they need ( for example 5 euros a day for food while they are working on a project in a school in eastern europe ) , and with all details everyday about the money that has already been sent to them . so that people can visualise through some kind of video game like life bars that in two weeks there is no more money to feed your “entredoneur” – engaging the microsponsor , allowing him/her to donate one euro or more , and allowing him/her to choose to who to give support , for what specific project , and on what day.

The entredoneur can also engage other people in providing other sources of support – human resources , council , or … hosting…

It seems to be a pretty simple tool to set up , and some of my programmer friends like the idea , but somehow they seem to be too busy working on a million other social projects , next to their other money making projects , that it has not been developed yet – probably I first need to learn programming myself , so that I can set it up.

So anyway , the point is – lets see what happens , midst options.