Community Research Initiative

Sep 2016 to present.

Why do research?

To set out “What is to be done / What is doable?”
- What is our vision of the future that we want to see — and how do they fit together
- What actions do we want take
- Why Art / Earth / Tech
Create policies and recommendations e.g. in governance, in politics, in technology
Answer specific questions we have - without it coming under a bigger theme
Have a shared understanding within Art / Earth / Tech
To do collaborative research and get experience of doing them without the normal incentive structures
Answer practical questions e.g. what practical challenges are there to doing what we would like or what business model could we have?
- This would likely come under other activities e.g. the working group looking at material sustainability would research business models

Criteria

Relate to why we do this
Interesting to those who are going to contribute …
Not too hard
- Will not take years to get anywhere
  - we may do big multi-year research at some point however probably would do that in its own working group
  - Will not require very deep specialist knowledge (e.g. quantum physics)
Accessible - others can join in, others outside of Art / Earth / Tech could be interested
Replicable - others can follow our findings and “repeat” them in appropriate manner

Guidelines for Primers

What are we trying to achieve with the primer items? Ans: Have a shared understanding within AET group and community
- No need for originality - we can copy and paste from wikipedia!
- They can be opinionated
- Establish common ground
Audience
- Who is going to read it? AET community and the research group.
- What prior knowledge is expected
  - Of the broader AET research effort: non especially
  - May be useful to understand these are part of AET research effort but not essential
  - Of the specific topic: can vary. Usually assume very little. On technical topics is fine to state pre-requisites e.g. please go and read this and this
Length: 1-5 pages.
- 1 page is great! 1 page exec summary if more than 2 pages.
- - further reading / references
Style: friendly, succinct, informative, not too academic.

Primers

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 for voting on cost and value () = cost = value

Longlist

Wise society / Wise government - AET’s Own Policy Program
- Basic Income (2) 3.3
- **Education. Where has a great educational system? What do we know about good education? (3.6) 7.6
- Wise metrics. Build a dashboard showing performance of countries or areas on our wise metrics (e.g. wisest city in the US, wisest country in the world). Pick metrics, collect data, build a dashboard. (6) 8.6**
  - Reason from Stefan: in long run not that important, but in short run very important.
- Scaling a social system such as a corporation, organization or a community. What is optimal size. Often think scaling is about making one thing bigger. But maybe about point where you split. (5.3) 3.6
  - Connection: org structures
- Open information - openness as the economic policy question and solution of the information age. How much do we spend on IT a year in gov and generally. How much on content? How could we fund this differently? And what would be the numbers. (2.3) 7.6
What’s not working and how do we address it- specific examples (more granular than wise society and connected with it)
- Evidence on addictive / distracting tech (and best ways to address) e.g. TV, facebook etc (3.3) 8 (Liam)
- Population. How many people can the earth support? How many should we aim for as a global population? (5) 3.3
  - Reading list: Joel Cohen, Vaclav Smil
- What is actually happening re climate change. What is situation with CO2 and what warming has happened. Examples of impact already / very likely to happen. (4.3) 4
  - What actions should we take on climate change. What is a plausible renewable energy policy for the world
- Food production. Intensive vs organic etc. What are alternative ways of producing foods vs intensive agriculture - how efficient are they. What are the benefits? (4.5) 4.3
- The Culture of Individualistic Capitalism. Impact on people of consumerism, competition, individualism, inequality. (5) 8.6
  - Daniel Bell: cultural contradictions of capitalism
Context / the Primer - material people who joined Art / Earth / Tech would read, explanation of why this is related to AET’s work
- Non-attachment to views and how and why people change their minds
- Discrimination and Universalism: racism, sexism and their opposites (Sylvie). What is so? Where does it arise
  - Link to group dynamics
- Creation and Creative process. Meaning, purpose and alignment.
- Wellness …. (individually and socially. vs growth etc)
- Wisdom - reuse liam’s reflections from gathering (?)
- Memes. What is a meme? Why are they important for our work (1.3) 8 (Stefan)
- Mind-fulness, Meditation and relevant philosophies e.g. Daoism, Buddhism (1.6) 11.3 (Rufus + (Liam))
- Basic group and political dynamics. Collective action problems. Prisoner Dilemma. Principal agent problem. Robustness against defectors. Folk theorem. Sorting. (1.6) 5.3
  - Reading list: John Holland: Hidden Order, Robert Axelrod: Evolution of Cooperation. Schelling?
- Co-X especially co-living models. What are cooperatives etc. Good examples of the above. (1.3) 7
  - Cooperation outwardly - not just inwardly
- Organizational structures and governance esp “novel” ones - non-hierarchical or decentralized orgs etc … Get case studies. (3.3) 6
  - Laloux - Reinventing Organizations, Semler,
  - Connection: culture, co-x etc, scaling
- Culture - what is it, what are good examples of great and very poor cultures (community, corporate or otherwise), how do you create and instil culture? (4.3) 9.6
  - Cooperation and non-hierarchy
  - No asshole rule - costs
- History of utopias and radicalism. - Histories of attempts to change society. (5) 8
  - Connections: Co-X, isms, Collective action problems
- Basic isms: Capitalism, Socialism, Anarchism, … (2.6) 2.3

Reading Group - to discuss

Community Research Initiative

Why do research?

Criteria

Guidelines for Primers

Primers

Infrastructure