Saturday, January 2, 2010

Resilient Community Viral Self-Sufficiency : Alternative currency energy security

This is blue sky thinking about a futuristic resilient community. It is currently feasible, but the pressures to adopt it are not high enough, so if this was implemented now it would be by a idealistic group operating on an esoteric imperative such ethical agenda or wanting the hipness of early adopter of technology.

Pressures and Adaptations

>> Pressure: states fail and currencies can devalue.
>> Adaptation: Monetary independence. Must be a non-falsifiable commodity.

>> Pressure: Travel is risky and expensive, more so in a post-state tribal allegiance world, and more so if motors have no fuel.
>> Adaptation: Travel irrelevance. The WWW provides cheap labor (outsourcing call center, data entry), education certification, and information such as Wikipedia.

>> Pressure: Must keep connected to WWW grid.
>> Adaptation: Cellphone towers powered by electric feeds from users needing the cellphone towers. The energy media (electricity) is the monetary media.

>> Pressure: Power grids for a cellphone tower would need a baseload.
>> Adaptation: Community of cellphone users, who are also distributed energy grid producers, are forced to coordinate to keep baseload adequate. This coordination, while serving an industrial/technical imperative, would simultaneously encourage a peaceful and socially engaged community. [ don't cooperate or care, and the baseload sinks to the point your WWW and phone doesn't work, which disrupts your personal life. In this rare case, I bet on peace and cooperation. ]

1 comment:

Unknown said...

accounting system:

Cellular tower energy needs are measured in killowatt-hours (assuming the tower's energy storage can level out daily fluctuations)

Local business money is measured in local living wage hours, a currency that fluidly adapts to fit any community and can be gradually introduced when other moneys become unreliable.

Trade to acquire gadgets necessary for this system is measured in device-miles, which places a high value on transporting lots of cheap junk to minimize the incentive to attack shipping.