[liberationtech] Decoupling from current power structures

[Bruce Potter at IRF]

Decoupling might have been a feasible option in Thomas Jefferson's time (although they DID create the UNITED States after experimenting with the more decoupled "Articles of Confederation), but somehow in a nation of 300 million, and a global system heading for 10 billion, I don't see it. At least until we can start colonizing asteroids. Afraid the answer is finding ways to "humanize" big systems.


On Jun 18, 2013, at 8:01 AM, phryk <input at phryk.net> wrote:

> I am pretty sure that I am not the only one thinking that we
> (colloquially known as "we, the people") need to make ourselves
> independent from current power structures ie. governments and
> corporations.
> 
> Even if you are not an anarchist or similiar you will have to
> acknowledge that a centralized government poses a single point of
> failure. If the government collapses it's fuck-all for the people
> living in that state.
> 
> At the most basic level what people need is food and shelter.
> 
> In our day and age the obvious way for giving *everyone* access to
> something would be automation.
> 
> So, in essence, my question is this:
> 
> What efforts for automating the supply of food, shelter and other
> things needed to be independent of our current, centralized, power
> structures do you know of?
> 
> 
> I know of the urban farming community but think they are a bit too
> low-tech. Automated vertical farming[1] seems interesting, but I don't
> know of any project trying to do this open-source or even just
> proprietarily…
> 
> What seems very interesting in terms of shelter is a technology called
> contour crafting[2] which was inspired by 3D-printing and could
> revolutionize how we think about architecture.
> 
> Last but not least I know of the Global Village Construction Set[3]
> which is a promising project, but seems to depend on classical,
> inefficient, agriculture.
> 
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
> [2] http://www.contourcrafting.org/
> 
> 
> Greetings,
> 	
> 	phryk
> --
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