Thank you to every one who has participated or has been following here. This has been an interesting and enlightening exercise in holding a conversation across forums and I have learned a great deal. I think, however, that I need to focus now on incorporating these new insights into the materials linked to Introduction to Three Dimensional Networking and on applying these ideas here in Denver.

I started a new discussion at NED, Working in Community, in the Network Weavers Group, for anyone who is interested in following developments as they occur. For those of you in the other forums, you can sign up as a NED user and add that discussion to your watch list. Then check into NED periodically – and if there are new postings – the link will appear in bold in your watch list. I am choosing NED because it already hosts people with a variety of interests – mostly social justice issues – but still broader than a single focus site. There is a learning curve to the formating tools but the site contains both threaded discussion and workspace features.

I do not expect that everyone who reads these materials will become a three dimensional networker/community organizer. Each of us has to do the first dimensional networking in order to make our way in life and if that results in running a business or non-profit, the second dimensional networking can be all consuming – I know that from running a law practice for twenty years. However, if you think we can design and implement production systems to heal nature and produce abundance – or, at least, think it is worth the effort to try, I would ask you to think about the ways you can contribute to the community sufficiency movement (how does that sound?):

• In your first and second dimensional networking you will come across people who are three dimensional networkers/community organizers and you can point them to me or me to them.

• If you are involved in a business or non-profit, you can “poke” those people who are making decisions to look up from the organization's focus to see how they “fit” in the larger set of system changes we require.

• You can support efforts in your community to hold a conversation across interest and expertise – and hopefully, eventually, support your local community investment enterprise.

I am also interested in spreading the debate about the consequences of certain beliefs, namely, 1) the belief that someone else (corporations or the power elite) is “responsible” for our plight, 2) the belief that resources are scarce, and 3) the belief that the “market” can expand until it solves all our problems. As you know, the conclusion I draw from the system function analysis I have been posting is that all three beliefs are erroneous. You do not have to accept my conclusions to agree that encouraging the examination of those beliefs might help us out of the impasse we currently face in decision making as a species.

Thank you again – I look forward to learning more from all of you as we create the future together.

From the Global Mind Shift discussion:

GP: We just got the Compendium part of our website up and running today. This is where people submit documentation via email, and we post it on the compendium pages for the different areas. We will hold the information contributed by people over the next two years, and it should be completely transparent and accessible to all who log into the website. We have a process where the people who are involved in the policy committee are engaging in the ongoing task of updating the proposals as they consider data and information that has been submitted. This is basically a constant editing process for the master documents being created.

It looks today as if IT has not quite yet got the links for actual submissions. At this point, we are really looking for people to begin entering into the discussion forums. Your ideas would be a wonderful contribution, in whichever area(s) you would like to post them

NextPractice, who is a partner from Germany, and is working on enabling the LAN forum capability, is even talking about open source and such, as are many these days. When the LAN forum capability is up and running, we will be able to engage many thousands of people simultaneously in online forums and engagement proceedings, again to collect more information and trends about how people see our world and the changes we need to create for ourselves.

KS: Glad you're there, Greg. You wrote: "Outside-of-the-box solutions need to be drawn out, and that kind of creativity will have to come from people who have no mixed motives or short-term goals for their interests." Why? Explain how you came to this conclusion.

DB: Greg said:

Your ideas would be a wonderful contribution, in whichever area(s) you would like to post them

I posted a preliminary message - so right now its me and the zero point energy guy. I posted at

http://www.global-commons.org/display/CGC2/Forums > Realizing Human and Social Potential > Empowerment and Self Reliance > How Humans Came to Live in Peace and Plenty

That seemed to be the most relevant description of a key element to what I am talking about - and - it is in our scientific cultural nature to want to break things down into easily understood components. However, the design I am promoting comes from understanding how individuals and groups of individuals fit in the flow of value through the one whole system - understanding how one thing depends on another and everything depends on everything else - because, you see - there is only one whole system.

My first suggestion is that you create a top level domain where we can each come out of our silos to contribute our expertise to understanding how everything fits together. When we understand that, we can start adding the elements that will start the one whole system on an upward complexity spiral .

From the Global Mind Shift discussion:

JH: the gears in my head have been very slowly grinding on an earlier comment of yours, David...:

We could build a world where any of us could take off on foot with nothing to our name - and where ever we stopped - we could contribute our labor or knowledge in exchange for food and shelter - realizing the dream of the "human family".

a manifestation of this suddenly appeared in front of me out of the fog almost fully formed... I think we could call it door-to-door networking (sorta like peer-to-peer). I've heard of musicians doing this kind of thing, but why not anyone? (Matt, I think you'll really like this). -say a bunch of folks on some kind of social networking forum all describe what they have in varying degrees of abundance or scarcity. I imagine at some critical mass there will start to be traveling and migrations, as those with plenty of free time and a willingness to wander and work will arrive at the homes and enterprises of those who need labor or even some special knowledge that the travelers bring. rather harkens to the times of artisans and innkeepers, I suppose, but I think it's also a good way to describe Extended Family 2.0. this came to me coincident with your starting this new thread, so I'm not sure how directly it answers your prompt.

Kimberly, do you think any of the networks you're on can facilitate this sort of thing? -and Matt, David, or anyone- are the implications of this setting fairly intuitive, or would it be worth exploring its possibilities in a story jam?

DB: Perhaps that would be a "Craig's List" or "Freecycle" for people with unused skills to connect with people with unmet needs. Another example of the that would be a local business directory. The Mile High Business Alliance here in Denver is developing one that will automatically search out links between "haves" and "needs". These are all examples of finding new places for people to "fit" in the system. We all have an interest in doing more of that within that locality that affects us economically and ecologically - so perhaps we can find a way to coordinate our efforts.

From the NED discussion:

CM: Exactly we are imo hurtling into an Orwellian world where the bigger the system, the more the superpower, the more the people with decision making and resource influence are likely to take wrong decisions in terms of the deepest community and sustainability crises

if we can get that far we could do so much with agreeing one synonym for the reverse system world

is it micro

is it community up

is it grassroots

what is it? unless we can get that far it seems to me we are arguing across each other's vocabularies even while we intend to identify and network with those who are prepared to stand up and solve vital stuff from the bottom up , and side to side across networking boundaries such as cross-cultural misunderstandings or professions which, because they don't talk to each other, simply go into their own box and charge more and more for defending their own case - with lawyers and the like whose costs spiral endlessly - one of the few groups who definitely gain the more crashes there are.

DB: Chris, when I review the choices, I like “the community sufficiency movement”. To me, that reflects the need for production systems that heal nature and produce abundance. I also think it reflects an acknowledgment that we are all part of the one world eco-economic system but, at the same time, an attitude that “we can take care of ourselves” despite what might happen at the planetary level.

I also want to be clear that I am not talking about a “synonym for the reverse system world” if I understand that to mean we have to choose between global organizations and local organizations. I think of it in terms of large complex systems need stable local components – as in nodes in the internet – or cells in the body.

In the first place, I do not see a way to eliminate global organization. Secondly, even if we could, I don't think we want to forgo the benefits that globalization has brought – and promises to bring - to the world. I think it is a case of globalization spiraling out of control unless we can balance it with an equally powerful localization – through the community sufficiency movement – or whatever turns out to be the common phrase to describe it..

This comment comes from the Ned discussion:

In all aspects of my readings in Buddhism, the philosophy attempts to strike a balance between the individual, society and the environment. One of my problems with classic and neo-classical economics and with your presentations has always been the denial of scarcity. To deny scarcity in a bounded environment seems to me to be at best delaying realization of the reality of the situation. The limits may be far greater than I have reason to believe but, there is only one earth. I think the problem is in looking at always trying to maximize the wrong thing.

I hear your point about scarcity. There are two aspects of that belief that, I think, hold us back, and that I challenge. One is what I was talking about above where "deep ecologists" take an anti-human stance. They advocate drastic reductions in the number of humans - humans prohibited from doing more and more things - and I don't think that approach is going to become a "popular" view. I find that confrontational, counterproductive, and inconsistent with what we know about all those things that we could produce in abundance (including food, clothing, shelter, education and health care). Further, when we start talking about "systems of production that cooperate with nature's processes" those look, to me, a lot like the garden of eden.

The other one is what I was talking about in Using a Better Map. So long as we believe that resources are scarce, we believe that life is about the struggle to get our share of those scarce resources.

In that respect I think I can characterize my view as "the middle way" and look forward to your thoughts.

There is a third point that you raise that I am unsure of how to approach. That is the beliefs we hold about human nature and the future. There is the one view that we can never improve humans so then we can never have a better world and the opposite of that - which is a belief that we can have a better world as soon as we produce better humans. I think there is a middle way there as well. That has to do with building a set of institutions that give every child the advantages that my family gave me - and I think the research shows that middle class kids have many fewer problems than other kids. The concepts underlying Spiral Dynamics support the idea that we will produce better humans when we create a better world. I look forward to your thoughts on that as well.

To me, limitations in both respects are best understood in terms of complexity spirals. We are at this current level of complexity - and at this level there is only so much we can produce. I agree with the analysis of the ecologist that we are currently decreasing complexity - and reducing our capacity to produce that which we need for humans to thrive. But, if we add elements to the system to utilize what we now waste in human and biological potential, we increase complexity and our capacity to produce that which we need for humans to thrive.

I would add to the story:

This is not impractical or a communist plot. In the same way that the stock market allows you to invest your money in publicly traded companies, a community investment enterprise allows you to invest your time in the wellbeing of yourself, your family, your community and the local environment.

But this next part is tricky. Most of us have to specialize in order to be marketable. That means we have in depth knowledge of a tiny fraction of human knowledge. For the rest of our understanding of the world we rely on something like a “common knowledge” that we pick up as sort of a faith from the people around us. These beliefs about the world can be hard to challenge because they are not based on an independent analysis of the information. There two such beliefs that I would specifically like to challenge in order to free us up to deploy these systems. The first one has to do with big government or big business being responsible. The people who make up big business and big government are just like you and me – and they are doing the best they can in the circumstances in which they find themselves.

From essential unity :

There is not a corporate conspiracy to oppress the poor and destroy nature. Rather, in the market, that which cannot be exploited for a profit and those who do not have "marketable skills" simply have no use. Those things are in danger of losing (or have lost) their connections/relationships/bridges to "the system".

If we believe that government or business is responsible it relieves us of our responsibility for our choices.

See: A Future Conducive to Human Life:

The other is the belief that resources are scarce and that human beings will have to live a diminished life style or perish. That belief prevents us for looking at all the ways we can change how we interact with nature that I would consider enhancement of our life style. And in fact those resources needed for humans to thrive on this planet are not scarce . 

Any ideas on how I might address those issues – or should I?

And I received a response in part as follows:

I think we are all ignorant of our complicity in what amounts to a conspiracy, and should make it our work to dissect each of our choices in search of laziness or casual abandonment of responsibility. also - speaking of skills and even people as "marketable" treads across the line toward human commodification... it makes my skin crawl.

We need not think in terms of what is wrong with the existing system. We can think in terms of what additional connection/relationships/bridges are needed to create an increasingly inclusive economy and an increasingly healthy ecosystem.

what's wrong with pointing out a system's flaws and calling them what they are? we can probably get where we want to go easier if we're not carrying around bags full of stuff that we won't be using when we get there.

In a way the global community movement (I'm not actually sure what to call it) is to corporate capitalism what the protestant movement was to the Roman Catholic church: e.g. "We shouldn't have to go through the Man to find fulfillment!"

And I responded:

If something is abundant, like labor in a town where the local factory work was outsourced, it has no "market value". Does that mean that people without marketable skills have no gift? Of course not. It only means that we cannot value that gift in "market money". What is it that we want to be abundant? Food, clothing, shelter, education and health care. If those things were abundant would they have no value? Of course not, but we would need a different way to measure contributions to that abundance. Is it possible that people without marketable skills could use their gift to produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care?

The point about believing that the "corporations and their government lapdogs" are "responsible" for people needing to be marketable means that people go out protesting at WTO meetings and don't stay home building community investment enterprises. 

“Okay, David.   I know you're trying hard to answer my short question, but I still don't get it.   Please give it another stab and force yourself to say it with a maximum of fifty words.   If you are passionate about your position, you will accomplish this Olympian feat.”

Try looking at it this way:

Think of any group of people as a family. As a family, we can go out to eat, or we can have a member of the family cook dinner for us, we can hire the house cleaned, or we can have a family member clean the house, we can send the kids to day care, or we can have a family member watch and educate the kids, we can buy all of our own food at the market, or we can have a family member grow some of our own food. The value of those services to the family is independent of the money cost for those services - and independent of the market value of the family member performing the services.

If any of us can always provide that kind of value there is no reason that anyone should be without that kind of value - or without something to do so long as someone else is in need of that kind of value.

In another discussion the following issues were raised and addressed:

“I read David's dialectic on bridges and the value of labor. It very much reminds me of bartering.”

by using the words dialectic and bartering you categorize what I am saying into that which you already know.  I am not offended by that - but the reason that I used the name Self-help corporation is to try to get people to think outside the box.  The purpose of an SHC is not an alternative currency supplement to the existing market economy - which is designed to maximize the efficiency of financial resources.   It is a different kind of organization designed to maximize the utilization of labor - and as such, it has the capacity to produce an abundance of basic goods and services - and anyone in the community could earn a share of that abundance - and still hold a job in the market economy.  That is converting financial resources back into living resources - in an organization owned by all those in the community that contribute to the organization.

“The sticky part in all of this is power. Even now there is a tension between proponents of different organizational or economic models. Resolving this tension is a very important and challenging task. Where does the buck stop on a global level?”

This type of community organization can bring the power of choice back to the community level.  Humans will still need a mechanism to make choices on a planetary level - but, if every community were self-sufficient in food, clothing, shelter, education and health care, there are fewer choices that need to be made at that level and more choices that will be made at the community level.

At the community level, I would think that we would want to use the best information -> knowledge -> wisdom available.  I do not like consensus models or extreme democracy for the reason that it produces decisions from the lowest common knowledge - and because most people cannot be troubled to educate themselves about the issues involved in a decision.  For that reason, I like the corporate model, in which the community - based on the number of shares that they own - elects a board of directors - to oversee the best talent that can be found - to oversee the operation for the purpose of:

"The more favors you give and receive, the more you get to know your neighbors and the higher your quality of life. We only need a way to keeps track of those favors, creating an incentive to do more of them, and accumulate tools and assets to make those favors easy to perform (convert financial resources into living resources)."

“. . . I must totally and completely reject your case against "consensus models or extreme democracy". These things, to me, are vital to have a vibrant community that is responsible and moral.”

“I can see the point to your argument, David, but the truth is no matter how clear these ideas and concepts are to you and a handful of other thinkers, they will remain marginalized until they can be expressed in even plainer, simpler language. Could you sum up your whole idea in twenty eight ordinary words or less?”

28 ordinary words or less . . . perhaps the key to this controversy is in a different way of looking at the forces at work in the world.  We already have extreme democracy in the sense that all political and economic power already resides in the individual.  The most powerful organizations in the world only exist because people choose to interact with them . . .

and I am already past 30 . . .

See Business as Bridges

but the solution is not to take power away from someone else and the problem is not that someone else has power . . .

the solution is to give less power away and exercise more power for ourselves . . . and that includes being smart about how we organize ourselves . . . have you ever been to a Homeowners Association Meeting? . . . why do I care who they hire to mow the lawn? . . . and can the lawn wait to be mowed until we reach consensus . . . all I need is the power to vote the board members off if they do something wrong . . .