Practicalities
Words and visions only go so far, so here we'll outline some of the concrete ways this effort will enable change. Following are the two parts of our creed, and how exactly we plan to make improvements in the near term.
"We are creating society run by mutual agreement, where more and more organization evolves naturally and voluntarily."
We have computer and systems expertise, so we have created the tool at TimeSafari.app to illuminate and empower community growth. If we'd like to do an activity or accomplish a goal, let's throw it out to our communities and see how much people are willing to contribute... particularly if others join. We enable direct time contributions, so we call it "crowd-funding with time". We allow people to start simply and grow:
- First, recognize others for anything they've given. (The basic act of expressing gratitude is beneficial to everyone... the recipient, the writer, and even strangers.)
- Propose plans for activities or goals.
- Offer time or money toward plans, which may be conditional upon other people participating.
- Once the project is accomplished, recognize work that was actually done – showing that gratitude on the platform. That stamp of acknowledgement is a credential which becomes part of a person's portfolio, signed by organizers and peers.
Build on that to organically grow projects with contributions of time. Then we can make even grander goals a reality... even replacing some of the systems of force that are currently embedded in today's societies and economies.
BTW, Time Safari has some other unique technical qualities: it is open source, built on recent standards for Verifiable Credentials, and it generates data that users can hold and selectively reveal to prove their connections with others – someday based on KERI & ACDCs. Users are able to manage almost all the data on their phone – and someday we hope to support even personal management of contact discovery, like Signal can do. (Can you tell this stuff excites us?)
We have connections with other groups and so we hope to grow this utility, help create other tools, curate content, and generate materials to support this principle.
"We are helping everyone pursue what they love, where less and less effort is spent on basic needs and fears."
One of the projects on the Time Safari platform is "Supporting Periodic, Basic Meals". This is a first step toward basic sustenance in all areas of life.
The end goal of this initiative is community-supported livelihoods. The intent is not to institutionalize welfare; although there are cost and efficiency benefits to such segmentation, there is also a tendency to disconnect people and become rather impersonal. We hope to make it so that the giving and receiving are personally rewarding, such that this kind of giving and receiving are more appealing than the alternatives. We hope that communities are involved in direct interactions that provide this for their members (local or remote). Someday, maybe we'll have more direct pipelines from producers, and someday maybe we'll even do it without money.
We do not envision that widespread needs would be met suddenly, so let's try some easier first steps and make it happen incrementally. We'll start with one meal at a time and then expand. So the first planned experiment is a single meal a day for a period of time. We have a couple of potential recipients who have estimated $2-4 per meal. We will run at least one experiment of $5/day for one meal for 3 months. We'll start with cryptocurrency. We'll see how the effects of giving and gratitude play out, with the hope that we attract more people to donate and participate in future rounds.
So... those are our first two concrete efforts. They're so concrete that people can contribute right away. To contribute to TimeSafari.app, connect with the person who introduced you because they can register you. To contribute to the "Basic Meals" project, respond to us on through this blog.
You'll see a fuller overview and some more initiatives listed at the main website, LivesOfGiving.org
Hopefully that is the driest post I ever write... it should all be much more fun from here on out. 😏
