work in progress, thinking in public
Some seeds take the form of words. They grow through use. So use them. Attend, evolve and add to them. Ideally a seed idea should be self contained, clear and transparent – Simple. Yet iWe have surrounded them here with the contextual fruit of their use, that they may better grow and take root. Better still would be to include them in stories, songs and artworks which help them travel faster. i-we hope to do this in future, and invite youUs to do the same.
idea-seed: an idea seed is a distilled idea. Often we make the mistake of trying to transplant entire trees of ideas which are rooted in our own gardens of ideas and giving them to others where they wither and die. An idea-seed can and should evolve and mutate, and use new terms, words and metaphors to describe itself. What sticks in the mind, sticks in the mind. Care however should be taken to ensure it doesn’t become an idea-weed.
idea-weed: an idea-weed is an idea that potentially limits the growth of new ideas within your garden of ideas. It may be useful but out of place, if it is preventing other fresh growth from taking place.
iWe: iWe is a more truthful description of the collective me. iWe is not an single I individual, but a multiple I plural. iWe is not capitalised not even at the start of a sentence, the capitalisation of the W indicates that the We is the more important part and clarifies pronunciation. iWe is consciously humble, rather than unconsciously self agrandising. Using iWe instead of I requires continuous presence and awareness, a call to the collection of self, away from the illusion of separation, whilst maintaining the usefulness of distinction.
youUs: youUs recognises the same truth as iWe.
Story Sigil*: A sigil is a symbolic representation of a wish. A story sigil is a sigil in story form. The universe doesn’t distinguish between unconscious sigilisation and conscious sigilisation. Every story calls itself into being. It grows from our attention. It shapes the technology we develop, and the ideas we dream of. So we need to read, write and amplify stories which reflect the world we wish to live in, or ideas we wish to nurture.
Examples of positive story sigils:
Culture series, Iain M Banks
Foundation series, Isaac Asimov
Walkaway, Corey Doctorow
The Island, Aldous Huxley
Earth Seed, by Octavia Butler (unfortunately incomplete series)
The Dispossessed, by Ursula K le Guin
(there are many stories to add here, please share your recommendations – i’m well aware of my own biases, so help me by expanding my exposure to a wider variety of ideas and cultures).
*This an element of Grant Morrison’s Hypersigil concept, which incorporates multiple art forms in its creation (eg. a comic which features art and story sigils).
Placebo High: A placebo high is a story sigil embedded in consumables and ritual consumption, allowing for self suggested experiences. Knowledge of Placebo highs, and respect for ones own agency, can allow the user to self prescribe their own experiences. (science and personal research link)
The Enablement: The opposite of government. The Enablement creates an ecosystem that supports and nurtures all beings. It recognises, assists, rewards those who create and maintain habitat and assist with the flow of resources to those who need it.
Polytopia: One humans utopia is another’s dystopia. Polytopia operates at the cultural level but not the survival level. The Enablement, described above may even be Authoritarian in its defence of shared access to natural resources, however it’s authority is limited in control of cultural expression. Express yourself as you wish, fuck who you want and how you want (as long as its between consenting adults). Pockets of different approaches to life exist side by side.
How you raise your children is up to you, with caveats:
When they hit their teens, kids will be free to explore other communities and ideas. Kids may then opt in to which communities they live in. Communities may set their own boundaries, and rules for who comes in, however teens are always allowed to explore (the Rite of Passage), and adults are always allowed to leave (Right of Passage), though they may be shunned from a community they are never shunned from the Enablement).
Mayfly Businesses: businesses that deliberately create Labor Obsolescence to build products and infrastructures that last and are easy to maintain, reuse, recycle and repair. Mayfly businesses use Fab-Factories and Demand then Supply technologies and economic principles.
Fab-Factories: A fab factory is an expansion of the Fab Lab concept. It is a factory space that can adapt to supply and meet the needs of a population, producing a batch/mass of products as needed with a set of industrial machines that can be adapted easily to different purposes (with tooling placed or removed from library as needed). A fab factory also includes machines that allow for creation of tooling, and includes a fab lab as a means of prototyping and product development. The seed of a fab factory might be a fab lab, plus precious plastic machines. Fab Factories provide infrastructure for Mayfly Businesses serve communities to meet Demand as it arises.
Demand then Supply Economics: Demand then Supply Economics dramatically reduce waste by producing products in response to global and local community demands instead of speculative production of goods, storage in warehouses, and creation of demand through marketing.
Early examples of Demand then Supply Economics include crowdfunding sites like kickstarter. Demand then Supply Economics allows for the creation of Mayfly Businesses, removes the need for Planned Obsolescence – itself a form of slow motion rent seeking behaviour.
Demand the Supply Economics over time can also tune in and respond to Frequencies of Need, removing much of the daily cognitive load of self maintenance.
Frequencies of Need:
Every Need has a Frequency, to which a pulse responds. Blocks to the flow of a need to be met, are a form of social disease, that leads to the malfunction or even death of the collective self. Your heart beat is the sound of a frequency of need being satisfied as nutrients and oxygen to your body’s cells. Each breath taken is a Frequency. A cycle of satisfaction. Other Needs have slower frequencies, like how many times a day you need to drink, eat, or sleep. Any block to fulfilling a Need results in temporary or permanent harm, or eventually death.
Lifestyle Subscriptions (AKA Big Mother): Lifestyle Subscriptions allow for individuals to opt out of certain decisions in order to decrease their cognitive loads without their life becoming a dreary and mundane existence (eg. Soylent, or wearing the same grey shirt every damn day). With a lifestyle subscription, you can create infrastructure demands and Frequencies of Need, including your Values and Preferences, whilst also allowing for novelty and discovery according to your preference. A lifestyle subscription, frees up cognitive load to focus on what matters.
ExistSense: ExistSense
Sybiotic Intelligence (AKA SymbI)
SkinSense System
Death Broker (aka death doula):
System Upcycling
Zeit-highs: Zeit-highs are the drugs of the age. Most important are the Zeit-highs of the powerful. What the powerful are consuming, directly affects their behaviours, and should be carefully regulated. Nazis on Meth, and Neoliberals on Cocaine are particularly dangerous. Mandatory microdosing of mushrooms, and regular MDMA sessions, however could well lead to a more compassionate class of leader.
Council of the Unborn: The council of the unborn is represented by Babies in the meeting room. For any decision affecting the future
Circus of Seeds 