Atlas City Project

Hello, an old friend recommended I join this group. I'm not sure exactly where to go, there is a ton of information to pour over but I wanted to present an idea that I've been refining to everyone here:


I propose a two-stage system of governance, each entirely voluntary. The goals of this system are to allow equal opportunity and access, as well as appropriate management of all resources--labor included.


The first stage is an elected body of officials. These officials DO NOT run for office. Instead, they are chosen entirely at random by a computer system, and once chosen may either reject their appointment or accept it. If the individual rejects their appointment, the system randomly generates a new member.
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Why is it this way?

An election that allows campaigning leads to much of the problems we have today: politicians seeking public support; politicians becoming beholden to donors, etc... all things that make politics so bad. This system does not allow the formation of a party in the traditional sense, since it is impossible to predict who will be an elected official.
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Once all the elected officials have been selected, they are then RANDOMLY assigned to a Forum. A Forum is an odd-numbered (3, 5, 7, etc.) body of elected officials which focuses their efforts on a single aspect, or group of related aspects of society.

The purpose of the Forum, and its members, IS NOT TO CREATE PUBLIC POLICY. Instead, they gather relevant data, refine that data into meaningful information, and present at least two unique solutions for society to vote on.
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Why is it this way?

When elected officials have the power to create laws and dictate the direction of public policy, they sometimes abuse power or do things that have long-term damages (Reaganomics, anyone?). This system puts the power in the hands of the PEOPLE.
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The Forums exist on several different levels and specialties. For example, each city should have several forums. Each city may have its own Energy Forum, a Food Production Forum, etc.

Cities that are within a certain geographic area, and share certain resources, might have Composite Forums which are only concerned with those resources. For example, 5 cities might all be connected by some high speed rail system. Those cities would all have a representative on the Rail Composite Forum.

You can see how this expands. There may be Continental Forums, and single Global Forums that discuss issues on the scales that effect massive groups of people.

These forums have rules. An official may hold office no more than twice during a lifetime, and those terms of service MAY NOT be consecutive. A term is only 260 days. To reiterate, Forums DO NOT create laws, they simply provide the public with options based on relevant data.


But I know there is a lingering question:

Earlier I mentioned the Forums gather their data... but from where?


Here comes the INTERNAL BRANCH!

The Internal Branch is a corps of volunteers with specialized education and experience. For analogy sake, its kind of like Star Fleet. It is organized much like a military, but Officers hold permanent positions, or may be promoted or discharged due to service violations. The Internal Branch is under the direction of the Forums. It does not make or enforce laws, it simply executes the orders of the Forum as a result of voting.



So here is how it works:

The Internal Branch has been going about its regular business of operating vital systems for the community. In Atlas, there are Internal Branch officers hard at work maintaining food output, energy distribution, etc. They produce a regular, impartial report. A group of analysts at the Internal Branch have been monitoring birth rates and predict a future need for food output to grow by 5% / yr over the next 3 years in order to keep pace with demand and keep everyone from going hungry (where else did you think such planning and information would come from?).

They hand this report off to the Food Production Forum of the City of Atlas. The Forum convenes, debates the issue and comes up with two solutions:
---Build an entirely new food production facility
---Expand the current facility slightly and use experimental technology to increase output (while revealing the chances of success).


The Food Production Forum puts these two issues to public vote. The residents of Atlas vote and Resolution #1 wins.

The Food Production Forum then issues the order to the Internal Branch to build the facility. At the Internal Branch teams of architects, civil engineers, hydroponics engineers, etc. all go to work designing a new facility that will meet the needs outlined in the report. They are all kept on schedule b/c their professional careers depend on the success of this project, they want to earn recognition for their efforts by their superior officers. The superior officers are under the direction of the Forum and if they want to receive a recommendation for a promotion, they will keep the project on schedule.

Eventually the design process is complete and the construction group within the Internal Branch goes to work building the facility. In the end, we will have a structurally sound facility designed to meet the needs of the community.

So what about technology development? Sure there will be those 'Developers@home' but what about stuff that requires a more sophisticated development process, like capturing Anti-Hydrogen atoms (which was reported recently).

Much of that will be accomplished at the Internal Branch. Lets take a look at how larger technologies might be developed and consumed in our society:

Lets say everyone now has tube-TV's and suddenly Plasma and LCD t.v.'s are invented. Which technology wins out? These can't be produced at home, so how do we know how many to produce? When do we phase out one or the other?


When the Internal Branch develops a consumer technology it will spin off a Guild. The guild is an organization which has a charter to do one thing and one thing only: produce and improve the technology of its founding.

Everyone in Atlas gets (lets say for hypothetical purposes) a single "Credit" for acquiring a television every 5 years. Lets say YOU are a resident with a credit to spend.

You have the option of going with an LCD or Plasma, you go with the Plasma. This credit allows you to acquire something you want without over-consuming (placing too much strain on society) and gives the Plasma Guild a credit that shows support for their technology. Its kind of like currency, this credit allows the Plasma Guild to acquire more resources to continue advancing Plasma TV technology.

But lets look at it from the reverse:

The LCD and Plasma guilds have been battling it out... most people have been opting for the LCD TVs. The Plasma Guild's "revenue" has reached a pre-determined level at which it automatically closes down (meaning if their "revenue" drops below a certain point it is deemed the technology to no longer be viable, and therefore unworthy of the further investment of resources). From that point forward, only LCD's will be produced. If you were a Plasma fan, sorry, but in this type of system we can't afford to waste resources.


These guilds could continue as long as their products are in demand.


So what about technologies NOT developed at the IB?

If you're a Developer@Home and you create something that people want, it will have to fall into a certain classification for credits. Meaning if you create a holographic technology, it might be classified as a "tv" and you are then competing with those Guilds. You might be given access to certain means of production, or, your technology might get adopted by the IB (meaning it first gets rolled out in the IB to be debugged, and those darned IB officers will probably end up talking about it when they get home anyway) and as demand rises you will go into full production.

So you must be thinking if you have 'credit revenue' couldn't you generate a profit?


Credits for ALL GUILDS expire. If the public has a 5-year time limit on their credits, thats how long YOU can keep that credit. So if people get 1 credit for a TV every 5 years, and they spend that credit in 2010, the Guild can keep that credit on its "books" until 2015. After 2015, it expires.

Credits acquired by any guild may only be used to purchase the raw materials for the production and development of its founding technology. Credits cannot be transfered to "owners" (really the founder) for personal consumption, and even if they could, there's nothing to spend them on.

The election process may become something like that when the city is built. For now there are certain requirements because the right minds and motivation have to be present for it to not fall apart.

The different "forums" are already separated in that fashion as "committees". We have Utilities Committee, Architecture Committee, etc. and more can be added or taken away depending on the stages and needs of Atlas (such as the continental one you mentioned). So yet, the committee leaders can debate the pros and cons of issues and give all relevant data to both sides, which the people can vote on.

The rest is just far off so I'm not worrying about it yet.

Oh absolutely, I agree with you 100%. I do however suggest this: a constitution must be prepared that outlines HOW the society works, then, with a clear and agreed-upon process, we can work towards specific goals, first of which might be fund raising (we can do a lot of talk but w/o money we wont get anywhere)

Yes. And we are mostly orientated towards the fund raising right now so if you have some good ideas please post them in the grants and funds thread. A good portion of the city has been worked out structurally and philosophically over the past year or two. We definitely need more professional designs, but I agree funds are more important right now.

Robert, Welcome.

I am sorry to say, but I dont think that the guild/credit system fits within a resource based economic model, as well as promotions and the idea of superiors.

Let me first discuss the guild/credit system. It is my belief that we do not need such a system to shift old technology out of the window, in contrast, such a credit system could serve to keep old technologies in play longer than needed/desired. First of all, if a technology is able to keep its power (credits) for 5 years, and a quickly developing tech rises up (organic LCD anyone?) yet, these old TV's can stick around, while in reality they should be closed down rather quickly because of their outdated and unneeded nature. Also, such a system would promote advertising/competition between rival techs, which could lead to people liking a technology more for reasons unrelated to fesability (didnt spell that correctly, sorry!)
While technologies will need some kind of software/infrastructure (perhaps a founded group) to have it managed at a production/consumption level, I think we can do without bureaucracies for the sole intent of maintaining a products lifespan.

In regards to the promotions/superiors point, in a resource based economy, you would not follow a generic job line (hence promotions) rather, you would work where desired/skilled/needed. Also, under this pretense, it is debated whether this idea of a boss would even exist. Of course, it is a very heated debate, trust me.

Well, anyways, welcome, and I am interested in discussing this with you further.

Eggsworth wrote:



Thank you. This is how two people form ideas together, by respectfully responding to valid points, with valid points. But please allow me to expand upon the ideas I posted a bit further...

Please notice that the point of the credit system is not to maintain old technologies. There are two reasons for such a credit system:

Limit Overconsumption
Track Effectiveness/Usefulness of a Product

I used televisions at that time probably because I was looking at a new TV I bought but lets talk about a more relatable scale: cell phones.

Lets take Citizen X living in a place with no credits/limits on consumption.

Citizen X goes down to the local dispensary and picks up a new cell phone he ordered. He didn't pay anything for it. He has not invested any personal effort or resources in acquiring it. And he knows that if something happens to it, he can just go get another one.

So Citizen X gets home, puts the phone down and.... oops, his daughter flushes it down the toilet. Oh well, he goes back to the dispensary and gets another. This time, on his way home, he leaves it on the train by mistake. Oh well, returning yet again to the dispensary he gets another mobile. This time he finally gets some use out of it, and has read about an interesting hack to get it to do something special/unique. He tries the hack out, ruining the firmware of the device, though physically in tact it is inoperable... You see where I'm going with this.

There must be constraints on how much people consume. Jacque Fresco would have you believe that resources are unlimited, but thats just false. One thing Jacque is right on however is the INTELLIGENT USE of the resources we do have. It is not intelligent to consume, consume, consume... that's what got us into the environmental mess we are in now. Sure, you may say that plastic is cheap and practically infinite in how much of it we can produce. But what about the lithium that powers those devices? That isn't unlimited. What about the metals used in the manufacture of those devices? Those aren't unlimited either. What about the energy used in the production of those devices? That isn't unlimited, and could be put to better use than constantly replacing the loss of some reckless individuals.

Am I saying that ALL people will be this careless? No. But some will, and when you multiply "some" across 6.5 Billion people, we are talking about a significant amount of materials and energy being wasted. More than we can spare. Why am I talked about 6.5 Billion people? Because its far easier to address the problem now in a frontier city than it is to correct public policy on a global scale.

We can't afford people carelessly wasting products/materials for any reason. Could you imagine if today a million people (small number on global scale) went out and bought a new 1080p LCD TV... but then tomorrow the 4k AMOLED TVs become available. Those million people who JUST brought home their brand-spankin' new LCDs would have no problem dumping them to go out and get the hottest new thing. Who/what is to stop them? Now apply that same thing to all consumer technologies and you see that is a BIG problem.

But that brings us to the next major point of the credit system: RESOURCE ALLOCATION.

How do we know how many LCD's to produce versus Plasma? Plasma is the older technology, in many ways superior, in some ways inferior, and has long-been predicted to go extinct yet its stronger than ever today, even as new advances push forward LCD/LED/AMOLED technology.

How does the factory decide how many, of what, to produce? We can't turn out enough TV's for the entire population every year and even if we did, we deserve to go extinct ourselves. But if we can't do that, that means some people will have the privilege of owning a new set while others will not. Who determines that, and how?

Well, starting with factory output... The factory can only produce things for which it has the constituent materials... It can't build a TV without the materials to do so. But how does the factory get ITS materials? Why aren't we devoting those metals to maintaining our transportation infrastructure, or building new cities/facilities for our growing population? For every 100 units steel how much of it is used for transportation, construction, research, consumer products? How is that determined? And better yet, for what little is used for consumer products, how do we decide whether or not that will be used in a Plasma or LCD tv?

So coming back to Citizen X, lets say that now he is on a credit system. His credit allows him to get one new television set every 5 years. Based on the number of un-fulfilled credits, we can project how many TV's will be demanded that year. Now we're getting somewhere! With an expected number of fulfillments we know roughly how much of each material is needed to satisfy that demand. We can compare that to inventories + current output (current output is the output of a mine, or other source of raw materials for the given year).

We can intelligently plan this economy.

But planning requires examining an issue at the most granular level of detail. We can't glaze over issues with the pronouncement that all things will be abundantly available and there is no need to worry. There is significant planning that is required to get Material X from Location Y to Location Z and that's just the beginning of it. We have to acknowledge that.

Eggsworth wrote:


Now, with regard to promotions/superiors. The key issue here is humility. We all have to acknowledge that for however good we think we may be at something, someone out there does it better.

Learning is much more than reading a blog or manual and deciding for yourself that you can/will do it. Much is to be said about the value of learning from experience. You won't gain that experience in a day or a week. Furthermore, progress is just as much about the quality of leadership as it is about the work being done.

So where will people gain experience in a structured way? Where will they learn leadership?

You could say that some experts could take on apprentices at their own will and pace. Well, the problem with that is fairness. There is always a limited number of experts, thats why they're experts. And if each one only wants to take on a limited number of apprentices, and those apprenticeships lasts of years, that will significantly stifle education in our society.

So how will we make sure that everyone gets an equal opportunity to learn in their desired field, and develop that right set of mental and experiential tools to do the job exceptionally?

When I talk about the Internal Branch, I envision something more akin to Star Trek than I do the Marines. The world, the job, is a living classroom. Your boss, your commanding officer, is your teacher. He/She will keep you in line, make sure you get the proper amount of training and range of experiences, and ultimately you will grow in your field and have some control over what you do.

The other thing this organization should accomplish for us is to give us a deep well of wisdom to draw on as a society. Building a new city--which at some point will be required--doesn't just happen. There have to be geological surveys, all sorts of planning, and the actual construction. None of which can be adequately performed by somebody who just got an assignment to go do something. I surely don't want to depend on a structure that you built (no offense) nor should you want to depend on something I built--when neither of us are experienced home builders.

Resource Delegation:

We both can agree that over consumption of resources is a serious threat to the survival of a resource based economy.

One thing you noted was that people would feel detached from the work, effort, and resources of an object because of the ease of acquisition.
What if an object was checked out to their room? For example, this is the rooms television. If you break such television, you would be without.

Perhaps with regards to cell phones, rather than having the ipod syndrome (omg new ipod must have right now!) people are trained to respect what they have and to be happy with the technology in their possession, as long as it is above par.

I agree with you on all your negative points of why you say a credit system is needed, but I apologize that I am hesitant to promote such an idea currently. I want to think about this more, as should we all, to find ways to work around such a perceived need.

Leadership and structure:

Yes I can also see your points here. Perhaps an augmented view of the current social structure could work to promote education and advancement, rather than the stagnation which we currently see among the working class. Very well put.