I’ve just come across your Substack and am enjoying it immensely. I’ve bought your book, but haven’t yet had a chance to read it. I’m not sure if this is the place to post this, but I am looking for some feed back. 2 friends and I came up with this concept for local currency based on art and advertising.
STEAL THIS IDEA!…PLEASE.
ART WORKS for COMMUNITY CURRENCY
K-TAW = Kindly-Tizing ArtWork :: a kind of funny money
ArtWork backed by community spirit of exchange
MISSION: We are artists banded together in partnership with businesses and community to exchange Art-Works in support of the local economy.
De-centralized. Organically local. Open Source. Bank on yourself.
PURPOSE: Dollar-sized ArtWorks used as advertising and gifted into the local economy. To be used by businesses and citizenry … to trade.
CONSUMER Instructions
1. Use ArtWork as you would cash for dinner, coffee, soda, tips, a massage, health care, child care, & more. Ask the community business if they take the ArtWork.
2. You may receive ArtWork in your change when buying a product locally, as a gift for a birthday, as a tip for a job well done, & more.
3. Closer to the expiration date (find date on the ArtWork), turn it back to the owner of the ArtWork and they will give you cash or more-than-equivalent services or products.
4. The more ArtWork is passed for exchange in the community before it is turned in, the more sustainable the community economy!
Get real…. Spend ArtWork…. Go local.
___________________
OWNER::BUSINESS instructions
Why use ArtWork as local exchange in Advertising:
--Get people talking about what you are doing.
--Use your advertising budget locally.
--Subtract the cost of your ArtWork as advertising.
--Watch people smile & laugh when “playing” with your “funny money”.
How to get started:
--Pay a small amount to a local artist for the ArtWork. Or make your own.
--Set aside an amount of cash to pay the “reward” for the return of the ArtWork. (You also may barter for the ArtWork with services or product.)
--Write or pay a writer to add:
1. Your business & slogan & offerings.
2. Your area of “good within ___miles of your place of business”.
3. Expiration date. Usually 3-6 months.
--Give your ArtWorks away.
1. You can only spend ArtWork other than your own.
2. Offer as a thank you to: Regulars, High pay customers, Bonuses &
Perks, Friends & Family, Lovers.
When the ArtWork is presented back to you
--Give cash or
--Give services or
--Give a product.
Keep gifting it out until closer to the expiration date.
_____________________
ARTIST instructions
1. You may
--Make your own ArtWork to advertise you and your business. OR
--Be commissioned to make ArtWork for someone else to advertise.
--Do one or the other because the Kindly-Tizing ArtWork is Open Source, meaning the ArtWork is not copyrighted. K-TAW believes in a gift society and a healthy local economy.
2. If you are commissioned to produce an ArtWork for someone else:
--You may sell your labor and supplies. Once a business, person, or a not-for-profit owns the ArtWork then the ArtWork totally belongs to them. They must set aside the “reward money” to exchange by the expiration date.
3. If you create the ArtWork for yourself to advertise yourself:
--You are the owner. When you own the ArtWork, you are the one who must set aside the “reward money” to exchange by the expiration date. The Owner must give ArtWork away as a gift to the community economy.
--You may take the cost of ArtWork off your income for advertising.
4. The Owner of the ArtWork must give/gift it away during the time period.
Astrid, thank you for buying my book! I really look forward to you reading it and responding! And I have to ask how you like my cover artwork? It went through multiple iterations but I'm inordinately fond of it.
What a very well thought-out idea! You really approach this from a number of different angles. It's so great that you're thinking through the details of how to make an alternative happen, that also brings joy and celebrates our creativity. I'm in complete agreement!
And great minds and all that, because I have a similar idea on p. 230 in an imaginary town called Perseverance, Kansas. They want to encourage sending money to places where it can do the most good in buying back lives. So for $50 that's donated to an int'l charity, they give a dollar-shaped certificate with art that's hand-colored and signed by a student called a Fair Trade Ten. It has the name of the charity that $50 went to and is good for local exchanges tax-free. In addition the place that donated the space for the fundraising event gets a deduction on their property tax. And each time the certificate changes hands, someone puts their initials in the box around the margins. So by the time it's 'retired', it will have generated $500 of local exchange.
In my book, however, this is a fun little program on the side of the credit system that gives us all control of our time so we can all be artists but no one's just doing that for a living. In addition, we all participate in food production and we do something useful in the community that other people value (care-giving, teaching, home enhancement, food preparation). That frees our art from needing to be commercially viable and instead being something more akin to a gift economy, as a thank you or sign of love and appreciation. It's worth more than mere money!
Thank you for your stimulating and well-developed thoughts on this! I hope you take my comments in kind as building a collaborative vision and telling me why yours might work better.
I’m really looking forward to reading your book. I’m reading 3 books right now and it’s next in the stack.
I’ve been sending out our information in every comment section of pertinent articles. You are the first to respond. Thank you!
I’m a two bit dog groomer and a ceramic artist. The dog grooming makes it possible to be an artist. My friend Nancy, a semi retired doctor who does alternative medicine and my friend Lauren who is a photographer came up with this concept after realizing that the whole Covid debacle was most likely going to lead to societal collapse at some point. When that happens it would be a good idea to have options that were local and not tied to any centralized system. We wanted something that could quickly be put in place if need be. Most of the local people I’ve talked to have thought it was an interesting idea but can’t conceive that it would be necessary. We will see.
Yay societal collapse but don't quote me on that ;-) My Perseverance example uses a potter, in fact. And combining an ordinary service (minus the subservience part) with a passion is a time-honored tradition. Manual labor is way underrated, imo. They should both be part of our lives.
Astrid, delighted to make your acquaintance I have two friends in your area. One is running a regenerative farm, The other one is an old, old friend (from high school) of my spouse.
I'm confused. You ended the YouTube you posted on 9/18 with a pitch for signing up for substack, but didn't actually post it here. I want to comment, but prefer to do it on substack. Anyone looking to comments on Ben Franklin or the original Constitutional convention, my apologies in advance these comments, which relate to Third Paradigm's YT titled "Changing Hearts, Winning Minds."
Wow! So many ideas to respond to. I'm afraid this is going to meander:
First, Weddings/Marriage - When Jesse, a very sweet young man from my ACIM study group, got married, he said something that surprised me. I gave him the same advice I give everyone. He said that Joan and I were the only people in his life who gave advice about marriage.
Like so much in today's society, people assume everyone else "gets it" what ever the topic is, and no-one talks about how hard a given task might be to actually accomplish it.
So here is the advice for your daughter: Take some time to imagine everything that you dislike, annoys you or is humorous in a mildly annoying way about the beloved. Imagine that, and exarate it until is like a cartoon parody of the person. That is how they will look, (really!) at the 7 to 10 year mark, the so-called 7 year itch or the low points in the relationship. If you can look at that today, and still want to marry them, then do so ... Honestly, life is really sweet on the other side of those lows. But those lows are inevitable ... It's just part of the whole process of a long-term relationship.
Tereza, you daughter was smart to spend time living with him - 10 years, wow! I hope she is in the first "after phase". There will be others - but cherish each one and all the time together.
I hope for you, Tereza, this means grandchildren in the next few years. Many a time people have shared with me that NOTHING compares to the emotions. I am not speaking from personal experience but from more than a dozen stories from clients and friends.
New Topic: You indirectly referenced ACIM Lesson 135, David Hilt's favorite. I'm taking the liberty of quoting 3 lines : What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life.
Next topic: Is there a central place where people are talking about changing economies to be more local, regional and resilient?
These ideas are in the air, but your YT sounded like there was a central forum or a computer model. I'd like to tap into that.
Your comments regarding Switch reminded me of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, Happiness (by Richard H. Thaler) which still resides, unread, on my kindle. Change can happen through people planning and discussing ideas - Look what happened to Chile under Augusto Pinochet.
No, not the violence he's remembered for now, but the economic change.
For years, the economic grad students at the university in Santiago had done their thesis on how they would change one part of the economy. Pinochet was a military leader who overthrew the government with no clear plan except seizing power. The next day, a book was delivered offering him a roadmap for restructuring the economy, Within a few weeks, the Chicago Boys were on the ground, learning Spanish and implementing free market ideas. By the mid-1980's the average Chilean had more in savings than the average American.
Still Pinochet was horrible, drunk with power and the oligarchy reclaimed power.
Sigh, I don't know if people are as good as you think. In my life today, I agree with you, but then I think about history and I waiver. Robert Heinlein once he wrote "I have nothing to fear from my friends. You have nothing to fear from your friends,. But I have everything to fear from your friends and visa-vera." Which makes me think of Polish pogroms, the history of Jews in Prague and the carbon copy of this that has occurred with the ethnic Chinese communities of Southeast Asia.
You re right, you change one thing and the balance of the system change. Perhaps the best description of that comes out of psychologist who describe family systems. Especially examples of the change in family dynamics with the alcoholic or problem child changes out of that role.
The ideas of how we are being manipulated, by social media companies and other media companies, actually originated with Everett Rogers - you would know these concepts from Geoff Moore's Crossing the Chasm. But originally, these were the tools used to convince farmers in the Midwest to use fertilizers (which were created by the same German scientist who created the gas used in the gas chambers. Fertilizers are actually quite chemically similar.)
I have meandered. I suppose, it is best to end with my personal vision. For anyone who read this, I have a huge bias. I am chronically optimistic.
I believe that for humans to survive, we we need to get out of the I/me/individual way of thinking and processing information and into an I/me/collective part of a species - which I believe will start with resilient neighborhoods where we see our survival is tied to our neighbor's survival.
I think this is already happening and will accelerate with the riots this winter and the changes in the environment which are already underway. (We have only begun to feel the impact of the carbon that went into the atmosphere in the 1990's, which is now, following its natural process, being released by the oceans). We are going to need each other to help one another to survive.
As you know, I believe trees for shade, water filtration, oxygen are essential for cities to be livable - and they really have their greatest impact when they are 7, 8 or older - so we're past 2030 in terms of preventing what is coming. And the US has about 20% of the nursery capacity it would need if we were to move as quickly as necessary to get the tree in the ground by 2030-2032. (More herehttps://medium.com/@symsoil)
A few days ago, I watched Hans Wilhelm's YT Raise your Consciousness on listening to others. https://youtu.be/D4ZBrfejLjo It was 9 minutes well spent and I've been mulling these ideas for a few days.
I promise to not respond to another comment or read another blog until I get that episode on Substack (she says sheepishly). When I do, cut and paste there and delete here, and I'll answer on the right one. Thanks for the prompt!
Sorry I haven't been keeping up. On my 2nd day at this particular Jr. High this week, and had gone for a late summer fishing-camping trip until last Sunday. Just gave this a quick skim and remembered Malone's post about the JB Society. I think the last time I had even thought of them was in reference to 'Nobel Prize' recipient (ha) Bob Dylan's song. Turns out they were just a bit ahead of their time.
Still so stuck in catching up on a backlog of substack mail, it will take some time to get to videos ... and meanwhile the gears of Japan Inc. are grinding me to dust. From where I am sitting, this looks like a world-wide meltdown, and most of the people over here are so conditioned to compliance ... no laws or mandates are necessary. Most will just do 'as suggested' or propagandized.
Stuck as mostly a pronunciation model / foreigner-stage prop, I am frustrated to the point of losing myself in a walk through the woods, or music from another present era.
Oops, lunch break just finished .... on to 8th grade English class.
I'm glad to hear from you, Steve. Yes, this post has some long quotes from my book. I think the take-away is that we want to do the opposite of everything Hamilton wanted, in the same way as the opposite of Klaus Schwab. It's not really that we were handed this wonderful fresh start as a new nation, and we've blown it. Our ancestors knew exactly what they wanted and how to implement it, and that was intentionally taken away from them.
I posted on Malone's comment thread today "that this will not end until the interlocked systems of government, money and ideology have been completely and absolutely discredited, and every person knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were never designed to be on our side. It's worse than them not caring if we live or die--it's the intention that we die, and that's been the reality for the 3500 years of 'civilization' since the invention of coinage and the way that it enabled blind obedience to their manipulation. Since there's nothing we can do to change this, and since nothing else would ever have changed our obedience to the system, I'm thinking we should be planning for what we want to replace it when that moment of realization hits the world, all at the same time."
So I'm with you on that worldwide meltdown. But really, how much longer could we stand the slow death? Thanks for sharing your lunch break with me!
Just finished a VERY fun class of 7th graders, and though the spirit is willing ... the body can barely keep up.
Still reading Lobaczewski's book on the 'who' behind this, and have yet to read Desmet ... but was just wondering where I can find a digital version of your book to start triangulating on the 'how' to survive this mess.
Time for a coffee break.
At the risk of being politically incorrect, Tokyo is having an 'Indian summer'. 🤣
Will check with you again later this evening Japan time.
Oh yes, I was meaning to send you a digital copy, Steven, as I did for Maria in Australia and Colin in NZ who also can't get a paper copy. I will be honored for you to read it and look at the 'how'. Feel free to pass on anything you find out about the 'why'.
There's been a lot of controversy around Desmet lately, some of which you've probably seen. The Breggins, as I understand it, posted an article saying he was blaming the victims. Malone invited Desmet, who was staying with him, to respond on his Substack. I posted there that his response actually convinced me of the Breggins' point. Tessa Lena offered to host a debate on hers, although she's squarely in Desmet's corner. Margaret Anna Alice hasn't weighed in, but her mom is visiting after her stepdad's sudden death. CJ Hopkins posted a vitriolic attack of Desmet that was pretty snarky.
Here's how I'd characterize the debate: People are sheep vs the oligarchs are evil. In fact, Robert, Tessa, Margaret and CJ have all explicitly stated both are true and the latter only objects that Desmet's theory doesn't damn the oligarchs as the primary movers.
My objection to both theories is that I don't see the strategy that emerges from them. Kill the oligarchs? Replace them with Trump as a new leader of the sheeple? Neither actually looks at the policies that we'd want to be implemented, only the people. And I think that insulting people isn't an effective way of 'waking them up.'
I'm glad you had a VERY fun class and it's not all a long slog. I'll send the book!
Great summary. I've been so busy, that I'm still near the beginning of Lobaczewski's book, but have yet to catch a false note to his riff on the melody. I'm looking forward to comparing his take on the who behind this evil with Desmet's, but suspect there will always be a lot of undefinable-unquantifiable grey area there, and to really get to the core, we have to go beyond scientific approaches and into the fine arts to catch the essence of this horror story unfolding before us.
But better yet, we need the quantifiable nuts and bolts of tactical survival (if not flourishing), and art as therapy and a voice for life on the menu's main course.
I guess by definition, a divisive aspect of partial individualization and maturation (as opposed to atomization and isolation) that comes with those opposing a common, but blunt evil, has always been a problem with would-be progressive movements ... and the evil knows it. That is a particularly frustrating aspect of this forever war. While we need our down-time for rejuvenation, repair, and co-ordination ... evil never rests. It is always planning, by definition - even from birth, and is usually a step ahead of us. It is far easier to smash a finely tuned wristwatch than to build one..
Gotta yet wake up, pump another couple of cups of coffee into me, make my living for the day, and hope I have enough energy to concentrate what I have left into defense and attack in this forever war.
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but since you brought it up…CJ Hopkins’ post about Desmet was, I thought, off base. He really doesn’t like Desmet (because Desmet lied about eye-witnessing surgery using hypnosis rather than anesthesia) and that seems to have clouded CJ's objectivity in understanding mass formation. (The lying episodes bothers the hell out of me, too, so I get where CJ is coming from.) Desmet caught a wave, and, imo, he’s mainly a popularizer who stands on the shoulders of many giants who studied mind control, my favorite being Joost Merloo. Desmet’s book was mostly a disappointment. I wonder if he received some editorial interference. Anyway, I wrote a very gnostic comment to CJ’s post that I thought was harsh, but CJ responded very thoughtfully, though he really made some unnecessarily defensive comments to others. I think he was probably in overload and may not have anticipated the the number of comments and the pushback he received from his own fans. There may be a lesson in there somewhere. In my comment I accused him of creating “horizontal conflict”—the psyop method of keeping the small folk fighting with each other (horizontally) instead of fighting the archons (vertically). I spend so much time writing comments on substack about how the left/right spectrum is an example of horizontal conflict that I now find myself tedious. (And there I just did it again.) Actually, I appreciate CJ's post, and it reminds me not to invest too much loyalty into any idea and to choose gurus carefully (if at all).
To tie in the CJ post with yours, I find nothing in your post to disagree with, while I very much disagree with CJ, so I commented at length on CJ’s post, and I’m just noticing the obvious that I generally don’t comment on posts I agree with. So now I can’t compliment you on the post because I feel obligated, and I have a quirk of avoiding all obligatory things. The commenter’s life is filled with such complexities. So, sorry. Maybe, instead, I can stir the pot a little. As you may recall, I’ve lived in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and there is a sadness in the place, like too many forgotten dreams and failed expectations. PA could have been a natural paradise, but It became an internal American colony, and was ravaged. So—and I only bring this up because we’re all anti-imperialists and contrarians here—one strange idea your post prompted was that PA might actually have been better off under the British Empire than under the Non-Federal/Federal government. It’s been many years since I read Franklin’s autobiography. I wonder if he ever had second thoughts about the Revolution?
[BTW, and just FYI, Youtube placed a "Third Paradigm" video in my recommended list titled “Modern obsession with butts | Evolutionary psychology | Philosophical anthropology”. It was complete with a very provocative cover photo. I thought, wow, Tereza is really changing this up. It turned out to be very anthropological and academic. But I was surprised that YouTube would allow duplicate channel names. I know it caused me a bit of confusion, and might for others as well, especially if Youtube is confused, too, about which Third Paradigm channel is which. Or, who knows, maybe there could be some cross pollination between the two Third Paradigm channels? The other Third Paradigm video is at https://youtu.be/KhJW_0y_2r4.]
Tangent away, Jack! It's funny that you bring up only responding when you disagree. I will now take any time I don't hear from you as a good sign! But I have the exact same tendency, even when I'm in 90% agreement, I zero in on that 10%. The episode I'm working on talks about that.
You may have seen CJ's post today, where he includes several comments from the Desmet thread but not yours. In fact 'sour cherry' picks the most vicious, I'd guess, and his own most clever put-downs--including a final FU to someone who may have been a tad patronizing but most likely was wanting to reconcile the sides. He's burning some bridges and I doubt this will work out well for him. He could have been the perfect person to take up Tessa and Margaret's offers to host a debate on the ideas, if he'd given Mattias and those who'd found his concept useful (not 'fans' as he derisively calls them) the benefit of the doubt for their intentions.
It's interesting that, even though Desmet's critics say he blames the victims, you're right that CJ does too. He blames people for being obedient to something they know is a sham, like airport 'security'. That really misses the psychological component of cognitive dissonance and the need to convince yourself it's not a sham. So both are right--it's mass psychosis and it's being intentionally imposed for mass manipulation, not self-forming.
I really know that sadness you describe in PA. It permeates Cumberland, it's in my bones. A despair of no choices. I'm sure Franklin agreed with you, pre-Currency Act. And England had just abolished the transatlantic slave trade, so slaves in England were free, yes? And they had made treaties with indigenous nations limiting western expansion. I don't think Franklin was vocal in instigating the Revolution, as I remember, I think he just chose that side when forced to choose by the bankers who'd usurped the British gov't. I don't take his final speech at the banker-usurping Convention as humility, but as a diplomatic way of planting 'I told you so' in the records.
That's funny about the other 3P, my dance teacher keeps joking that I should title a video 'How to Grow Your Butt' and keep my same content just to see what happens ;-) It's working for them, who have 13.5K subscribers and their content looks interesting. I think I could only benefit from the cross-pollination.
ps I suspect you got sent the other 3P because you'd mentioned in a comment that you were researching paganism. I've noticed that my YT recommendations pick up on what I post. But his one on Modern Paganism has 290K views and goes up every time I click back, so I'm going to hold my YT 3P lightly and keep steering viewers to Substack, where the subscriber list is mine to download.
I’ve just come across your Substack and am enjoying it immensely. I’ve bought your book, but haven’t yet had a chance to read it. I’m not sure if this is the place to post this, but I am looking for some feed back. 2 friends and I came up with this concept for local currency based on art and advertising.
STEAL THIS IDEA!…PLEASE.
ART WORKS for COMMUNITY CURRENCY
K-TAW = Kindly-Tizing ArtWork :: a kind of funny money
ArtWork backed by community spirit of exchange
MISSION: We are artists banded together in partnership with businesses and community to exchange Art-Works in support of the local economy.
METHOD: Beyond permaculture currency. Barter. Banter. Build.
De-centralized. Organically local. Open Source. Bank on yourself.
PURPOSE: Dollar-sized ArtWorks used as advertising and gifted into the local economy. To be used by businesses and citizenry … to trade.
CONSUMER Instructions
1. Use ArtWork as you would cash for dinner, coffee, soda, tips, a massage, health care, child care, & more. Ask the community business if they take the ArtWork.
2. You may receive ArtWork in your change when buying a product locally, as a gift for a birthday, as a tip for a job well done, & more.
3. Closer to the expiration date (find date on the ArtWork), turn it back to the owner of the ArtWork and they will give you cash or more-than-equivalent services or products.
4. The more ArtWork is passed for exchange in the community before it is turned in, the more sustainable the community economy!
Get real…. Spend ArtWork…. Go local.
___________________
OWNER::BUSINESS instructions
Why use ArtWork as local exchange in Advertising:
--Get people talking about what you are doing.
--Use your advertising budget locally.
--Subtract the cost of your ArtWork as advertising.
--Watch people smile & laugh when “playing” with your “funny money”.
How to get started:
--Pay a small amount to a local artist for the ArtWork. Or make your own.
--Set aside an amount of cash to pay the “reward” for the return of the ArtWork. (You also may barter for the ArtWork with services or product.)
--Write or pay a writer to add:
1. Your business & slogan & offerings.
2. Your area of “good within ___miles of your place of business”.
3. Expiration date. Usually 3-6 months.
--Give your ArtWorks away.
1. You can only spend ArtWork other than your own.
2. Offer as a thank you to: Regulars, High pay customers, Bonuses &
Perks, Friends & Family, Lovers.
When the ArtWork is presented back to you
--Give cash or
--Give services or
--Give a product.
Keep gifting it out until closer to the expiration date.
_____________________
ARTIST instructions
1. You may
--Make your own ArtWork to advertise you and your business. OR
--Be commissioned to make ArtWork for someone else to advertise.
--Do one or the other because the Kindly-Tizing ArtWork is Open Source, meaning the ArtWork is not copyrighted. K-TAW believes in a gift society and a healthy local economy.
2. If you are commissioned to produce an ArtWork for someone else:
--You may sell your labor and supplies. Once a business, person, or a not-for-profit owns the ArtWork then the ArtWork totally belongs to them. They must set aside the “reward money” to exchange by the expiration date.
3. If you create the ArtWork for yourself to advertise yourself:
--You are the owner. When you own the ArtWork, you are the one who must set aside the “reward money” to exchange by the expiration date. The Owner must give ArtWork away as a gift to the community economy.
--You may take the cost of ArtWork off your income for advertising.
4. The Owner of the ArtWork must give/gift it away during the time period.
--Because if you sell the ArtWork, you
1. must pay taxes on the sale and
2. cannot deduct ArtWork as advertising.
5. ALL THE POINTS FOR THE BUSINESS OWNER APPLIES.
Astrid, thank you for buying my book! I really look forward to you reading it and responding! And I have to ask how you like my cover artwork? It went through multiple iterations but I'm inordinately fond of it.
What a very well thought-out idea! You really approach this from a number of different angles. It's so great that you're thinking through the details of how to make an alternative happen, that also brings joy and celebrates our creativity. I'm in complete agreement!
And great minds and all that, because I have a similar idea on p. 230 in an imaginary town called Perseverance, Kansas. They want to encourage sending money to places where it can do the most good in buying back lives. So for $50 that's donated to an int'l charity, they give a dollar-shaped certificate with art that's hand-colored and signed by a student called a Fair Trade Ten. It has the name of the charity that $50 went to and is good for local exchanges tax-free. In addition the place that donated the space for the fundraising event gets a deduction on their property tax. And each time the certificate changes hands, someone puts their initials in the box around the margins. So by the time it's 'retired', it will have generated $500 of local exchange.
In my book, however, this is a fun little program on the side of the credit system that gives us all control of our time so we can all be artists but no one's just doing that for a living. In addition, we all participate in food production and we do something useful in the community that other people value (care-giving, teaching, home enhancement, food preparation). That frees our art from needing to be commercially viable and instead being something more akin to a gift economy, as a thank you or sign of love and appreciation. It's worth more than mere money!
Thank you for your stimulating and well-developed thoughts on this! I hope you take my comments in kind as building a collaborative vision and telling me why yours might work better.
I’m really looking forward to reading your book. I’m reading 3 books right now and it’s next in the stack.
I’ve been sending out our information in every comment section of pertinent articles. You are the first to respond. Thank you!
I’m a two bit dog groomer and a ceramic artist. The dog grooming makes it possible to be an artist. My friend Nancy, a semi retired doctor who does alternative medicine and my friend Lauren who is a photographer came up with this concept after realizing that the whole Covid debacle was most likely going to lead to societal collapse at some point. When that happens it would be a good idea to have options that were local and not tied to any centralized system. We wanted something that could quickly be put in place if need be. Most of the local people I’ve talked to have thought it was an interesting idea but can’t conceive that it would be necessary. We will see.
Again thanks for responding.
Yay societal collapse but don't quote me on that ;-) My Perseverance example uses a potter, in fact. And combining an ordinary service (minus the subservience part) with a passion is a time-honored tradition. Manual labor is way underrated, imo. They should both be part of our lives.
Glad to be thinking along the same lines!
Astrid - Where is this happening? And how is it going?
I’m just outside of Woodstock NY. Right now it’s not going anywhere. It can be implemented quite quickly if the need arises.
Astrid, delighted to make your acquaintance I have two friends in your area. One is running a regenerative farm, The other one is an old, old friend (from high school) of my spouse.
Thanks, much to process here.
Hello Tereza -
I'm confused. You ended the YouTube you posted on 9/18 with a pitch for signing up for substack, but didn't actually post it here. I want to comment, but prefer to do it on substack. Anyone looking to comments on Ben Franklin or the original Constitutional convention, my apologies in advance these comments, which relate to Third Paradigm's YT titled "Changing Hearts, Winning Minds."
Wow! So many ideas to respond to. I'm afraid this is going to meander:
First, Weddings/Marriage - When Jesse, a very sweet young man from my ACIM study group, got married, he said something that surprised me. I gave him the same advice I give everyone. He said that Joan and I were the only people in his life who gave advice about marriage.
Like so much in today's society, people assume everyone else "gets it" what ever the topic is, and no-one talks about how hard a given task might be to actually accomplish it.
So here is the advice for your daughter: Take some time to imagine everything that you dislike, annoys you or is humorous in a mildly annoying way about the beloved. Imagine that, and exarate it until is like a cartoon parody of the person. That is how they will look, (really!) at the 7 to 10 year mark, the so-called 7 year itch or the low points in the relationship. If you can look at that today, and still want to marry them, then do so ... Honestly, life is really sweet on the other side of those lows. But those lows are inevitable ... It's just part of the whole process of a long-term relationship.
Tereza, you daughter was smart to spend time living with him - 10 years, wow! I hope she is in the first "after phase". There will be others - but cherish each one and all the time together.
I hope for you, Tereza, this means grandchildren in the next few years. Many a time people have shared with me that NOTHING compares to the emotions. I am not speaking from personal experience but from more than a dozen stories from clients and friends.
New Topic: You indirectly referenced ACIM Lesson 135, David Hilt's favorite. I'm taking the liberty of quoting 3 lines : What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life.
Next topic: Is there a central place where people are talking about changing economies to be more local, regional and resilient?
These ideas are in the air, but your YT sounded like there was a central forum or a computer model. I'd like to tap into that.
Your comments regarding Switch reminded me of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, Happiness (by Richard H. Thaler) which still resides, unread, on my kindle. Change can happen through people planning and discussing ideas - Look what happened to Chile under Augusto Pinochet.
No, not the violence he's remembered for now, but the economic change.
For years, the economic grad students at the university in Santiago had done their thesis on how they would change one part of the economy. Pinochet was a military leader who overthrew the government with no clear plan except seizing power. The next day, a book was delivered offering him a roadmap for restructuring the economy, Within a few weeks, the Chicago Boys were on the ground, learning Spanish and implementing free market ideas. By the mid-1980's the average Chilean had more in savings than the average American.
Still Pinochet was horrible, drunk with power and the oligarchy reclaimed power.
Sigh, I don't know if people are as good as you think. In my life today, I agree with you, but then I think about history and I waiver. Robert Heinlein once he wrote "I have nothing to fear from my friends. You have nothing to fear from your friends,. But I have everything to fear from your friends and visa-vera." Which makes me think of Polish pogroms, the history of Jews in Prague and the carbon copy of this that has occurred with the ethnic Chinese communities of Southeast Asia.
You re right, you change one thing and the balance of the system change. Perhaps the best description of that comes out of psychologist who describe family systems. Especially examples of the change in family dynamics with the alcoholic or problem child changes out of that role.
The ideas of how we are being manipulated, by social media companies and other media companies, actually originated with Everett Rogers - you would know these concepts from Geoff Moore's Crossing the Chasm. But originally, these were the tools used to convince farmers in the Midwest to use fertilizers (which were created by the same German scientist who created the gas used in the gas chambers. Fertilizers are actually quite chemically similar.)
I have meandered. I suppose, it is best to end with my personal vision. For anyone who read this, I have a huge bias. I am chronically optimistic.
I believe that for humans to survive, we we need to get out of the I/me/individual way of thinking and processing information and into an I/me/collective part of a species - which I believe will start with resilient neighborhoods where we see our survival is tied to our neighbor's survival.
I think this is already happening and will accelerate with the riots this winter and the changes in the environment which are already underway. (We have only begun to feel the impact of the carbon that went into the atmosphere in the 1990's, which is now, following its natural process, being released by the oceans). We are going to need each other to help one another to survive.
As you know, I believe trees for shade, water filtration, oxygen are essential for cities to be livable - and they really have their greatest impact when they are 7, 8 or older - so we're past 2030 in terms of preventing what is coming. And the US has about 20% of the nursery capacity it would need if we were to move as quickly as necessary to get the tree in the ground by 2030-2032. (More herehttps://medium.com/@symsoil)
In that context, the idea of "red pill-ing" someone is not just not listening, but ignoring the lessons of people like Ernesto Siroilli, who describes his mistakes from not listening (his 2014 Ted Talk was here - many more videos available) https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen
A few days ago, I watched Hans Wilhelm's YT Raise your Consciousness on listening to others. https://youtu.be/D4ZBrfejLjo It was 9 minutes well spent and I've been mulling these ideas for a few days.
I promise to not respond to another comment or read another blog until I get that episode on Substack (she says sheepishly). When I do, cut and paste there and delete here, and I'll answer on the right one. Thanks for the prompt!
We all have too much going on.
Truth is, I couldn’t disentangle my company YT profile to respond publicly.
Hi Tereza!
Sorry I haven't been keeping up. On my 2nd day at this particular Jr. High this week, and had gone for a late summer fishing-camping trip until last Sunday. Just gave this a quick skim and remembered Malone's post about the JB Society. I think the last time I had even thought of them was in reference to 'Nobel Prize' recipient (ha) Bob Dylan's song. Turns out they were just a bit ahead of their time.
Still so stuck in catching up on a backlog of substack mail, it will take some time to get to videos ... and meanwhile the gears of Japan Inc. are grinding me to dust. From where I am sitting, this looks like a world-wide meltdown, and most of the people over here are so conditioned to compliance ... no laws or mandates are necessary. Most will just do 'as suggested' or propagandized.
Stuck as mostly a pronunciation model / foreigner-stage prop, I am frustrated to the point of losing myself in a walk through the woods, or music from another present era.
Oops, lunch break just finished .... on to 8th grade English class.
Cheers Tereza
I'm glad to hear from you, Steve. Yes, this post has some long quotes from my book. I think the take-away is that we want to do the opposite of everything Hamilton wanted, in the same way as the opposite of Klaus Schwab. It's not really that we were handed this wonderful fresh start as a new nation, and we've blown it. Our ancestors knew exactly what they wanted and how to implement it, and that was intentionally taken away from them.
I posted on Malone's comment thread today "that this will not end until the interlocked systems of government, money and ideology have been completely and absolutely discredited, and every person knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were never designed to be on our side. It's worse than them not caring if we live or die--it's the intention that we die, and that's been the reality for the 3500 years of 'civilization' since the invention of coinage and the way that it enabled blind obedience to their manipulation. Since there's nothing we can do to change this, and since nothing else would ever have changed our obedience to the system, I'm thinking we should be planning for what we want to replace it when that moment of realization hits the world, all at the same time."
So I'm with you on that worldwide meltdown. But really, how much longer could we stand the slow death? Thanks for sharing your lunch break with me!
Hi again Tereza,
Just finished a VERY fun class of 7th graders, and though the spirit is willing ... the body can barely keep up.
Still reading Lobaczewski's book on the 'who' behind this, and have yet to read Desmet ... but was just wondering where I can find a digital version of your book to start triangulating on the 'how' to survive this mess.
Time for a coffee break.
At the risk of being politically incorrect, Tokyo is having an 'Indian summer'. 🤣
Will check with you again later this evening Japan time.
Cheers Tereza!
steve
Oh yes, I was meaning to send you a digital copy, Steven, as I did for Maria in Australia and Colin in NZ who also can't get a paper copy. I will be honored for you to read it and look at the 'how'. Feel free to pass on anything you find out about the 'why'.
There's been a lot of controversy around Desmet lately, some of which you've probably seen. The Breggins, as I understand it, posted an article saying he was blaming the victims. Malone invited Desmet, who was staying with him, to respond on his Substack. I posted there that his response actually convinced me of the Breggins' point. Tessa Lena offered to host a debate on hers, although she's squarely in Desmet's corner. Margaret Anna Alice hasn't weighed in, but her mom is visiting after her stepdad's sudden death. CJ Hopkins posted a vitriolic attack of Desmet that was pretty snarky.
Here's how I'd characterize the debate: People are sheep vs the oligarchs are evil. In fact, Robert, Tessa, Margaret and CJ have all explicitly stated both are true and the latter only objects that Desmet's theory doesn't damn the oligarchs as the primary movers.
My objection to both theories is that I don't see the strategy that emerges from them. Kill the oligarchs? Replace them with Trump as a new leader of the sheeple? Neither actually looks at the policies that we'd want to be implemented, only the people. And I think that insulting people isn't an effective way of 'waking them up.'
I'm glad you had a VERY fun class and it's not all a long slog. I'll send the book!
Hi Tereza,
Great summary. I've been so busy, that I'm still near the beginning of Lobaczewski's book, but have yet to catch a false note to his riff on the melody. I'm looking forward to comparing his take on the who behind this evil with Desmet's, but suspect there will always be a lot of undefinable-unquantifiable grey area there, and to really get to the core, we have to go beyond scientific approaches and into the fine arts to catch the essence of this horror story unfolding before us.
But better yet, we need the quantifiable nuts and bolts of tactical survival (if not flourishing), and art as therapy and a voice for life on the menu's main course.
I guess by definition, a divisive aspect of partial individualization and maturation (as opposed to atomization and isolation) that comes with those opposing a common, but blunt evil, has always been a problem with would-be progressive movements ... and the evil knows it. That is a particularly frustrating aspect of this forever war. While we need our down-time for rejuvenation, repair, and co-ordination ... evil never rests. It is always planning, by definition - even from birth, and is usually a step ahead of us. It is far easier to smash a finely tuned wristwatch than to build one..
Gotta yet wake up, pump another couple of cups of coffee into me, make my living for the day, and hope I have enough energy to concentrate what I have left into defense and attack in this forever war.
Looking forward to your book.
Chat with you later Tereza.
— steve
Very lush metaphors, Steve. Go forth and teach, young warrior!
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but since you brought it up…CJ Hopkins’ post about Desmet was, I thought, off base. He really doesn’t like Desmet (because Desmet lied about eye-witnessing surgery using hypnosis rather than anesthesia) and that seems to have clouded CJ's objectivity in understanding mass formation. (The lying episodes bothers the hell out of me, too, so I get where CJ is coming from.) Desmet caught a wave, and, imo, he’s mainly a popularizer who stands on the shoulders of many giants who studied mind control, my favorite being Joost Merloo. Desmet’s book was mostly a disappointment. I wonder if he received some editorial interference. Anyway, I wrote a very gnostic comment to CJ’s post that I thought was harsh, but CJ responded very thoughtfully, though he really made some unnecessarily defensive comments to others. I think he was probably in overload and may not have anticipated the the number of comments and the pushback he received from his own fans. There may be a lesson in there somewhere. In my comment I accused him of creating “horizontal conflict”—the psyop method of keeping the small folk fighting with each other (horizontally) instead of fighting the archons (vertically). I spend so much time writing comments on substack about how the left/right spectrum is an example of horizontal conflict that I now find myself tedious. (And there I just did it again.) Actually, I appreciate CJ's post, and it reminds me not to invest too much loyalty into any idea and to choose gurus carefully (if at all).
To tie in the CJ post with yours, I find nothing in your post to disagree with, while I very much disagree with CJ, so I commented at length on CJ’s post, and I’m just noticing the obvious that I generally don’t comment on posts I agree with. So now I can’t compliment you on the post because I feel obligated, and I have a quirk of avoiding all obligatory things. The commenter’s life is filled with such complexities. So, sorry. Maybe, instead, I can stir the pot a little. As you may recall, I’ve lived in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and there is a sadness in the place, like too many forgotten dreams and failed expectations. PA could have been a natural paradise, but It became an internal American colony, and was ravaged. So—and I only bring this up because we’re all anti-imperialists and contrarians here—one strange idea your post prompted was that PA might actually have been better off under the British Empire than under the Non-Federal/Federal government. It’s been many years since I read Franklin’s autobiography. I wonder if he ever had second thoughts about the Revolution?
[BTW, and just FYI, Youtube placed a "Third Paradigm" video in my recommended list titled “Modern obsession with butts | Evolutionary psychology | Philosophical anthropology”. It was complete with a very provocative cover photo. I thought, wow, Tereza is really changing this up. It turned out to be very anthropological and academic. But I was surprised that YouTube would allow duplicate channel names. I know it caused me a bit of confusion, and might for others as well, especially if Youtube is confused, too, about which Third Paradigm channel is which. Or, who knows, maybe there could be some cross pollination between the two Third Paradigm channels? The other Third Paradigm video is at https://youtu.be/KhJW_0y_2r4.]
Tangent away, Jack! It's funny that you bring up only responding when you disagree. I will now take any time I don't hear from you as a good sign! But I have the exact same tendency, even when I'm in 90% agreement, I zero in on that 10%. The episode I'm working on talks about that.
You may have seen CJ's post today, where he includes several comments from the Desmet thread but not yours. In fact 'sour cherry' picks the most vicious, I'd guess, and his own most clever put-downs--including a final FU to someone who may have been a tad patronizing but most likely was wanting to reconcile the sides. He's burning some bridges and I doubt this will work out well for him. He could have been the perfect person to take up Tessa and Margaret's offers to host a debate on the ideas, if he'd given Mattias and those who'd found his concept useful (not 'fans' as he derisively calls them) the benefit of the doubt for their intentions.
It's interesting that, even though Desmet's critics say he blames the victims, you're right that CJ does too. He blames people for being obedient to something they know is a sham, like airport 'security'. That really misses the psychological component of cognitive dissonance and the need to convince yourself it's not a sham. So both are right--it's mass psychosis and it's being intentionally imposed for mass manipulation, not self-forming.
I really know that sadness you describe in PA. It permeates Cumberland, it's in my bones. A despair of no choices. I'm sure Franklin agreed with you, pre-Currency Act. And England had just abolished the transatlantic slave trade, so slaves in England were free, yes? And they had made treaties with indigenous nations limiting western expansion. I don't think Franklin was vocal in instigating the Revolution, as I remember, I think he just chose that side when forced to choose by the bankers who'd usurped the British gov't. I don't take his final speech at the banker-usurping Convention as humility, but as a diplomatic way of planting 'I told you so' in the records.
That's funny about the other 3P, my dance teacher keeps joking that I should title a video 'How to Grow Your Butt' and keep my same content just to see what happens ;-) It's working for them, who have 13.5K subscribers and their content looks interesting. I think I could only benefit from the cross-pollination.
ps I suspect you got sent the other 3P because you'd mentioned in a comment that you were researching paganism. I've noticed that my YT recommendations pick up on what I post. But his one on Modern Paganism has 290K views and goes up every time I click back, so I'm going to hold my YT 3P lightly and keep steering viewers to Substack, where the subscriber list is mine to download.