DO 180 - Towards a Fourth Generation Civilization with Michel Bauwens, Ashley, and Jason
Oct 26, 2023
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In this episode, Ashley and Jason talk with Michel Bauwens about his work developing ideas for a ‘cosmo-local’ society through the power of horizontal P2P networks, a reimagining of the commons, and crypto. They discuss descending civilizations, reinvigorating local societies, superlinear collaboration networks, combining traditional commons with new knowledge technology, the demise of organic intellectuals, the potential of crypto for collaboration, and transitioning to a new energy system.
Seed forms like the digital realm and open ecosystems are shaping a shift towards cosmo-localism, combining localized production with global connectivity.
Transition towards a cosmo-local civilization involves creating transnational alliances and cooperative models to support localized provisioning systems and protect the commons.
To achieve a more rooted and equitable cosmo-local civilization, it is important to balance open sharing with fair commercialization, counter selfishness in the crypto community, and establish anti-oligarchic protocols in digital environments.
Deep dives
The Role of Seed Forms in Transitions
Seed forms play a crucial role in societal transitions, serving as pioneers that invent new ways of doing things and solve issues that the old logic cannot solve. They create a subsystem within the existing system, gradually gaining strength and contributing to the emergence of a dominant new form. Examples of seed forms include inventions like the printing press and purgatory. In the present day, the digital realm and open ecosystems are becoming seed forms for a new system, challenging the dominance of the market and the state. This shift towards seed forms is part of the larger transition towards cosmo-localism, where localized, distributed manufacturing and production combine with commons institutions that operate at a global scale.
The Importance of Combining Localization and Super Linearity
While the market and state forms were once adaptive to geographical-based civilization, the rise of the digital realm and distributed knowledge sharing has weakened the need for physical agglomeration in cities. This presents an opportunity to combine localization with super linearity, where communities can focus on local resource management and commons institutions, while benefiting from the collective intelligence and innovation that digital proximity enables. This combination allows for relocalized, distributed manufacturing and production, while also ensuring connectivity to global networks and shared knowledge. It offers a potential pathway to move away from the traditional market and state-centric models and towards a cosmo-local civilization.
Promoting a Cosmo-Local Civilization
The transition towards a cosmo-local civilization involves creating transnational counterparts to the current international state and financial systems. This can be achieved by forming cooperative alliances at the local level, such as quintuple helix models that bring together city governments, commercial sectors, research institutions, and nonprofits to support mutualized provisioning systems and protect the commons. At the transnational level, ethical investments and support for NGOs can contribute to the development of knowledge commons and preserve and promote cosmopolitan practices. By fostering a combination of local resilience and global connectivity, a cosmo-local civilization has the potential to address the challenges of resource scarcity, sustainability, and cultural preservation.
The Need for Ethical Knowledge Sharing
While knowledge and technology have the potential to be shared as common resources, the current dominant model of open source software has often resulted in large capitalist companies benefiting the most. To address this, the concept of 'copy-fare' is proposed, which encourages cooperative alliances and licenses with reinforced reciprocity. This approach seeks to balance open sharing with fair commercialization, promoting cooperative practices and alliances while protecting the commons. Additionally, the importance of countering selfishness within the crypto community is emphasized, with a call to use crypto technology to serve local communities and bridge ideological divides in pursuit of a more rooted and equitable cosmo-local civilization.
Creating a peaceful cooperative digital environment
In a digital crypto environment, the concern of colonization and exploitation remains. However, it is possible to establish peaceful and cooperative digital groups that resist immoral practices. The key is to build anti-oligarchic protocols, maintaining egalitarian cultures similar to the city states of Europe and Greece in the past. Strategies such as fixed pricing, execution of merchants for food speculation, and hooded magistrates detached from the local population were implemented. Additionally, quadratic voting mechanisms and explicit mechanisms against allowing money to dominate communities, as observed in Chinese communities, contribute to preventing control and exploitation. By implementing these measures, they were able to protect their cultures for a significant period of time.
Transitioning to a lower energy availability and changing political landscape
As societies move towards having less energy availability and increased labor intensity, it is essential to prepare for the challenges that arise. Relocalizing and building localized systems such as food and energy production becomes crucial. However, the challenge lies in creating a healthy demographic structure in a top-heavy society. Balancing the impacts of overpopulation and resource strain, while fostering strong communities, becomes a wicked problem. Building deep relationships, relying on reading and knowledge acquisition, and engaging in local organizing are vital in navigating the unpredictable future and preparing for the counter power needed to address societal changes.
In this episode, Ashley and Jason talk with Michel Bauwens about his work developing ideas for a ‘cosmo-local’ society through the power of horizontal P2P networks, a reimagining of the commons, and crypto. Along the way they talk about ascending and descending civilizations, why he thinks we’re in a descending one, and what that potentiates in terms of reinvigorating local societies and provisioning systems through the power of superlinear collaboration networks
