timBoucher » Green Sustainable Technocracy

Green Sustainable Technocracy

I see strands of the metanarrative coming together into a tapestry that looks something like this. Conversations about healthy local economies rest on the assumption that a community can basically produce enough self-sufficiently to take care of its own immediate needs, and enough extra to trade with other communities.

Strong local economies are likely to become strong and stay strong because they keep an eye on their ecological inputs and outputs - what the land can sustain and how to use it optimally for all species. Local, alternative or complementary currencies may be a viable tool for local economies {see also: shared value community, community of meaning} to favorably manipulate trades and exchanges of value inside and outside of the community. Microcosm macrocosm. Urbanates and technates.

Dale is right:

alternative currencies could base value on a gold standard, a representation of work-hours, or whatever local convention might come up with.

We’re currently in the midst of an “energy crisis” or whatever the vogue term is right now. Our energy crisis isn’t just a matter of human greed, but Global Warming as a quasi-Nature-god type of phenomenon essentially can be read as a “Nature is mad at us,” or, by extension: “God is punishing our bad behavior” - ie, misusing fossil fuels and fucking up the balance of not just nature, but of the human world as well.

An energy crisis means that as national economies become flaccid and balkanize into regional and community currencies, you’re going to see economies which are based strictly on energy usage, “energy credits” as they call it.

People stop commuting as much, and communities start to produce their own food and trade goods: creating fresh new jobs and inspiring new culture of working together to make the region succeed after a time of extreme crisis.

Less commuting means telecommuting means people exist in multi-realm digital spaces, some virtual reality, some augmented reality, some text-based, some based on paradigms wholly other. Energy credits in such a locally-based society become less used for travel than for energy production to power simple electronic conveniences upwards to fully-immersive digital realms.