Status Updates From Moneyless Society: The Next...

The Overton window can be moved, and it can be moved quickly, especially in times of crisis or great upheaval. Coming back to systems thinking, a large shift in the Overton window usually means that something has affected one of the highest leverage points for influencing change in a population.

We can all change many things in our lives to help our society grow in a more positive direction; however, we have only so many hours in a day, and using our time wisely is important if we are to make any substantial progress.

All the price mechanism does is tell us how much people are willing to pay in the monetary form to gain access to particular resources. However, prices has practically nothing to do with the resource's highest and best use, and often tells us little about the utility or ecological value of that item.

The real solutions are rarely mentioned as possibilities (they are rarely within the realm of thought, for that matter).

The concept of working without expecting a monetary reward seems alien to many people, so they have trouble wrapping their heads around alternatives to getting paid for work.

In stage 4, this model becomes the preferred economic mode of production and begins to eclipse traditional capitalist models and businesses. This will occur after critical mass is reached in the percentage of population that adopt this new and improved way of life. Past observances and studies have shown that the tipping point necessary for large social change usually takes place around the 25 percent mark.

The potential exists for an eventual network of cooperative communities to span the globe, so that if members wanted to, they could travel, and stay in various cooperative facilities, attend different programs, learn new skills, help with various projects, and develop new relationships-all while working within the system of networked cooperatives and receiving universal basic goods and services wherever they go.

As a strategy for transitioning to a moneyless society, cooperatives will begin to collaborate, which will contribute to a snowball effect. A network of thriving cooperatives, functioning without the constraints of competitive capitalist models, will also possess a much greater capacity to adapt, evolve, partner, communicate effectively, approach issues objectively, and correct internal problems.

If a caterpillar does not build a chrysalis and metamorphose into a butterfly, it will die. If we do not take the limited chance we have and transform our civilization into something that operates synergistically with our biosphere, then we as a species will die.

A nice side-effect of the revolution in transportation is that many fewer parking lots will be needed. Imagine what could be done with all that space? Eventually many places might not even have parking spaces - just pick-up/drop-off areas. Parking lots (garages?) will be places in strategic locations for fleets of automated cars to sit and wait until they are summoned.

There are currently numerous old shopping malls, abandoned industrial facilities, and other structures can be retrofitted and improved to become free housing and sustainable communities.

The only difference in a moneyless society is that the positive reinforcement will come from sources other than money - such as a sense of contribution or accomplishment, the development of personal or community relationships. physical benefits from the contributions themselves, personal gifts, favors, or accolades; we receive these today, but the profit motive makes all of these take a back seat.

if we can create the experiences money currently provides, minus the paywalls, the need and desire for money would be eliminated and money would become obsolete.

If workers had enough land and resources to sustain themselves, they would likely not submit to laboring in return for wages. In other words , the workers' lack of resources is one of the central mechanisms of how the wealthy acquire more resources.

The more we can look at all the interconnections, feedback loops, and strong leverage points, the more we can begin to see the unnecessary detrimental activity within our monetary system and how it makes the rest of the world revolve around it. The more we see these relationships and how they interact, the more can visualize alternatives to the current system.

It is to "get" at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny. - Donella Meadows

Emergence is the process of things coming together in a self-organizing way and forming something new that takes on properties not found in any of its constituent parts. Emergence is all around us in the universe, and we also have an opportunity to participate in creating something new out of the circumstances before us.

...we try to solve the problem of crime by throwing people in jail, but do nothing to improve the communities the perpetrators came from; we treat symptoms of diseases while not improving the environmental or nutritional circumstances causes; we try to solve inequality by putting in place a few new laws or regulations without addressing systemic issues.

If our planet were a household, our cupboards would be nearly empty and our trashcans would be overflowing.

The system continues to expand at breakneck speed. Expansion is often seen as a good thing rather than as a symptom of the dysfunction inherent in the system.

As a society we are constantly driven to consume, work, and generate activity. Clever marketing campaigns relentlessly condition and compel us to to keep buying and spending. When consumer spending grows, the economic system is relatively stable. When it declines, however..