Each week, we will offer you some prep tasks with time estimates, most often in the form of suggested reading/watching/listening totalling not more than ~1 hour. You will get the most out of the course if you can make the time to complete them. Please keep a learning log: a document tracking what you read/watch/listen to, with some reflections on what you are learning. This is a requirement for graduation (and receipt of your SEEDS).

Our guest expert for the first session:

Precious Phiri is a training and development specialist in environmental issues, regenerative agricultural practices and community organizing. Her main interest is working with rural communities (especially) to fight and reverse poverty, desertification, loss of wildlife, and climate change and its effects. She was born and raised in Zimbabwe at one of the Hwange communities, the same area where her work is currently based. She recently founded an organization called EarthWisdom with the knowledge of her 9 year career as a Senior Facilitator at the Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe. There she directed training for villages in the Hwange Communal Lands region and different institutions that are implementing restorative land and livelihood programs using Holistic Land and Livestock Management.

Her passion is to help rural communities in Africa to reduce poverty, restore dignity, rebuild soils, and restore food and water security for people, livestock and wildlife.

Essential prep tasks for this session

Make sure you are familiar with Slack's threading feature and wherever possible reply to messages in threads rather than creating new posts in channels (5 minutes)

Join the Slack channel for your region (2 minutes, this is important as we will use this information to assign you to a pod):

#region-africa
#region-north-america
#region-south-america
#region-asia
#region-europe
#region-oceania

If appropriate, join the Slack channels for your (non-English) languages (2 minutes, let us know if you want us to create channels for any other languages!)

#language-español
#language-français
#language-deutsch
#language-italiano
#language-portuguese

Find your pod here. Please create a channel in Slack called #pod-[name] (e.g. #pod-aloe, #pod-basil...), or if it already exists, join it!

Take a look through the recommended books, podcasts and films below and consider starting to read one of the books or follow some of the podcasts.

Watch these two 3-minute videos on soil:

Listen to one of these podcasts and start/join a thread on it in the #session-1 channel in Slack:

A Quiet Boycott with David Holmgren (co-originator of permaculture) (For The Wild) can be heard outside Spotify here
Review of the Oxford Real Farming Conference (Farmerama episode 52)
Daniel Christian Wahl - Designing Regenerative Cultures (Future Thinkers)

Prep on decentralised energy and connectivity:

Watch at least the first video of the Microgrids and Virtual Power Plants playlist
Watch at least the first video of the Decentralised Connectivity playlist

A task from Precious Phiri (please share what you write in the #session-1 channel in Slack):

As my way of preparation, I would like each participant to write out a statement with these headings, exploring what kind of people must we be to support the quality of life we want way into the future:

What is the life I want now (quality of life– your surroundings, relations, health, values etc– without quantifying)?
Years from now, what will the future look like (spelling out a legacy you envision for future generations in two forms— the environment, and then our behavior/society/cultural norms)?

These statements inspire change in decisions we make in our daily lives– seeking to move towards that life we’ve spelt out.

Optional prep tasks for this session

Watch the film 2040:

Watch the film Kiss The Ground:

Check out these e-books recommended by Precious:

The Foundations of Holistic Management (e-book)

"Usually offered for free for holistic management classes as a foundation. It is a lovely resource to explore ecosystem processes and how to be effective managers of the land. This framework is what has influenced most of what I do and share about."

Whole landscapes, whole communities

"A mini guidebook for creating whole landscapes and whole communities. It was authored by myself and 2 other incredible colleagues of mine. It’s in story form exploring how overtime we’ve lost the rich landscapes, tapping into the wisdom of elders, examples of practices across the African region and a short sample plan for engaging in regeneration work with community groups."

Phew, that's a wrap! See you on Wednesday at 4pm UK time at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87964771238 (same Zoom link for all sessions).

Best,

Phoebe & Stephen

A reminder of the graduation requirements

Keeping a learning log reflecting on the user experience of featured apps and drawing out key messages of featured articles/videos
Recording and sharing at least one sensemaking conversation with a small number of other participants on the course (this could be a post-course reflection)
At least one of the following:

Setting up a 4+ week learning journey for members of the participant's community inspired by the content of this one
Submitting a Campaign proposal on the SEEDS app to distribute Seeds to the participant's community in exchange for some regenerative action inspired by the course
Signing up to the SEEDS Ambassador Academy
Helping an organisation/business to accept payment in Seeds
Publishing a 1000+ word blog post with reflections on the course

Recommended books

adrienne marie brown

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by Adrienne Maree Brown

Charles Eisenstein

Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition by Charles Eisenstein

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible

Climate: A New Story by Charles Eisenstein

Joanna Macy

Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work that Reconnects by Joanna Macy

Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy by Joanna Macy

Science Fiction & Solarpunk

The Fifth Sacred Thing

by Starhawk

The Dispossessed (Hainish Cycle, #6) by Ursula K. Le Guin

Bolo'Bolo by PM

Island by Aldous Huxley

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Interdependence & Life

What Is Life? by Lynn Margulis

Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution by Lynn Margulis

The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems by Fritjof Capra

Small Arcs of Larger Circles: framing through other patterns by Nora Bateson

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

Indigenous Knowledge

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta

The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman by Davi Kopenawa

Treading Lightly: The Hidden Wisdom of the World's Oldest People by Karl-Erik Sveiby

Imagination & Regeneration

From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want by Rob Hopkins

Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism by Julia Watson

Designing Regenerative Cultures by Daniel Wahl

New Economics

Doughnut Economics: 7 Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist

The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money by Brett Scott

Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher

Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet by Tim Jackson

Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel

New Ways of Organising

Going Horizontal: Creating a Non-Hierarchical Organization, One Practice at a Time by Samantha Slade

Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux

Better Work Together by The Enspiral Network

Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization? by Aaron Dignan

Cultural Development

A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries--A Guide to Inner Work for Holistic Change by Terry Patten

The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One by Hanzi Freinacht

Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two by Hanzi Freinacht

Food & Farming

Farming While Black – SOUL FIRE FARM

The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber

Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making by Allan Savory

Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology by Vandana Shiva

The Power of Myth

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche by Bill Plotkin

The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries by Bill Plotkin

Ethical Technology

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil

Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity by Douglas Rushkoff

Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World by Meredith Broussard

The People Vs Tech: How the Internet Is Killing Democracy by Jamie Bartlett

Recommended podcasts

‎Emerge: Making Sense of What's Next

From What If to What Next

The Mushroom Hour Podcast

Upstream

Farmerama Radio - The voices of regenerative farming

Your Undivided Attention | Podcast on Spotify

Recommended films

Symbiotic Earth: How Lynn Margulis rocked the boat and started a scientific revolution (2019)

Fantastic Fungi (2019)

An Ecology of Mind (2010)

2040 (2019)

Tomorrow (2015)

The Human Element (2018)

The Social Dilemma (2020)

Kiss the Ground (2020)

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2018)

Session 1 notes

Regenerative Agriculture

Image from Yes!

Video: Regenerative Agriculture / Regenerative Farming: Regenerative agriculture is an effective way to restore biodiversity and stabilize the climate, but what exactly is it? This video explores three different regenerative practices that have great potential both in food production and in healing the land.
Why Regenerative Organic? videos from Patagonia

Video: Farming Sustainably with Regenerative Agriculture | Restoring Paradise
Video: Why this retired farmer plants trees | Regenerative Agriculture in Spain (Español with English subtitles)
Video: From the Ground Up – Regenerative Agriculture: filmmaker Amy Browne sets out across the dry farming country of South East NSW to trailblazing farmers bringing new life to their land.
Podcasts on Agroforestry

Videos on Agroforestry

1.5 Acre Syntropic Food Forest With Over 250 Plant Species

Podcasts on Permaculture

Richard Perkins - Regenerative Revolution: How Permaculture Can Save Failing Food Systems (Future Thinkers)
A Quiet Boycott with David Holmgren (co-originator of permaculture) (For The Wild)
Visionary Permaculture with Delvin Solkinson (Expanding Mind)

The Foundations of Holistic Management (e-book)
Here from Alan: Permaculture and Holistic Management with Allan Savory on Holistic management
Holistic management as decision making : Holistic Decision Making (e40)
Article: Regenerative agriculture: effective responses to climate change by Daniel Wahl (7 min read)
Article: For a Sustainable Climate and Food System, Regenerative Agriculture Is the Key (Yes!, Aug 2019)
Map: regen.earth

Permaculture

See also: The Land Institute · Rodale Institute · Savory Institute · The Soil Association · The Timbaktu Collective ·Traditional Native Farmers Association · Colin Tudge · Riverford Agriculture · Richard Perkins · Kiss The Ground · Regenerative Design Institute · Severine von Fleming and Greenhorns · Vandana Shiva · Navdanya Network · Derek Gow – Bringing Back the Beaver · Chris Smaje – A Small Farm Future · Niels Corfield · Designing Edible Spaces · Oxford Real Farming Conference · Open Food Network · Farmerama · No till · Soil farming · Organic · Holistic Farming · Holistic Grazing· Holistic Management · Small-scale · Agroforestry · Rewilding · Seed saving · Seed sovereignty · Food sovereignty · Heritage Grains · Rewilding · Biodynamic · Land justice · No Dig · Mulching

Soil

Image from Interview With Detroit Dirt's Pashon Murray

Video: The Soil Story with Pashon Murray (Español)
Video: 5 Ways to Make Your Garden Regenerative
Film: Kiss The Ground
Sharing a film from 2006 that changed my view of soil "Inspired by William Bryant Logan's acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, Dirt! The Movie takes a humorous and substantial look into the history and current state of the living organic matter that we come from and will later return to. Dirt! The Movie will make you want to get dirty!" Link to Youtube to watch it for free Dirt! The Movie (FULL)

Rethinking Food Systems

Article: How to feed the world - without killing everything
Report: Localised Routes to Market: Understanding the Community Benefits of Local Organic Food: New research has found that for every pound spent buying organic food through a farmers’ market or veg scheme, almost £3 more is generated in benefits to farmers and growers, their workers, local suppliers, citizens and the environment.
Report: True Cost Accounting (Sustainable Food Trust): The predominant approaches to food production, distribution, retailing and consumption are causing significant damage to the environment, to soil, to the climate, to biodiversity, to rural communities and to public health. We are paying for this damage in hidden ways. Although food appears never to have been cheaper, when we look beneath the surface, we are actually paying far more for it than we might possibly imagine.
Webinar series from HOMEF on Food Systems

Lessons & Impact on our Food and Agricultural Systems by Jackie Iketuonye
Stories of Seeds: Laws, Economics and Market Challenges by Linzi Lewis
The Agriculture that works: Way Forward for our Food Systems and Climate by Million Belay
Rethinking our Food Systems Approach by Nnimmo Bassey

UN Report: Systems Thinking: An Approach For Understanding ‘Eco-Agri-Food Systems’

Regeneration as a tool for community building

Community farmers at Soul Fire Farm

PDF: Whole landscapes, whole communities (by and from Precious Phiri)
Organisation: SOUL FIRE FARM – Ending racism and injustice in the food system

Article: The good old ways: can we still farm like our grandparents?
Video: These Gardens are Blueprints: Sowing the Seeds of Food Justice (presentation by Naima Penniman from Soul Fire Farm)

Community Supported Agriculture

Image from CSA Network UK

Biodynamic Association guide to Community Supported Agriculture
Article: Now is the time to sign up for local community-supported agriculture. Here's why (The Guardian, Apr 2020)
Podcast: #1 CSAs, water buffalo, seed politics and a chicken speak-easy (Farmerama)
Find a CSA (UK)
Article: The growing success of Community Supported Agriculture
Video: Organic Regenerative Farming is the Future of Agriculture | The Future of Food: In this film, organic market gardeners Frank and Josje talk about why the supermarket system doesn't work and how Community Supported Agriculture fits into a new story for food growing. CSA members help farmers to grow the best quality vegetables and to nurture healthy soils by committing to receive a vegetable box every week for a season.

Land restoration

Image: Ecosystem Restoration Camps

Organisation: Ecosystem Restoration Camps
Article: Making the most of the ‘UN Decade on Ecosystems Restoration’: bioregional regenerative development as a deep adaptation pathway (by Daniel Wahl, 9 min)
Article: A 2061 Timeline: Restoring the Earth (9 min with lots of links and a video of a talk with our two guest teachers Daniel Wahl and Precious Phiri)
Home — TreeSisters

Appropriate Tech

Organisation: Welcome to Open Food Network
Project: Farm Hack
Article: Food List #46: APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY – FarmHack Blog

See also: Open Food Network · Farmdrop · Sector Mentor · Farmbot

Land Justice & Food Sovereignty

Linocut artwork from Land Justice UK

Video: These Gardens are Blueprints: Sowing the Seeds of Food Justice (presentation by Naima Penniman from Soul Fire Farm)
Organisation: Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF): an ecological think tank organisation advocating for environmental/climate justice and food sovereignty in Nigeria and Africa at large
Book: Farming While Black
Podcast: Leah Penniman: Farming While Black (Farmerama)
Podcast: Leah & Naima Penniman on the Heart of Community Building (The Table Underground)
Article: Soul Fire Farm’s Leah Penniman Explains Why Food Sovereignty Is Central in the Fight for Racial Justice
Article: Redesigning agriculture for food sovereignty and subsidiarity by Daniel Wahl (7 min read)
Video series: Soul Fire Farm Liberation on Land Skillshare Video Series

The Liberation on Land Skillshare Video Series features Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color farmers and land stewards. Paying homage to legacies of African Diasporic and Indigenous wisdom and innovation carried through generations, each “how to” video tutorial demonstrates practical, hands-on skills for making life and livelihood on land, growing food and medicine for our families and communities, and strengthening community food sovereignty.

Building A Planter // Construyendo un Jardinera
Building a Cold Frame // Construyendo un Marco Frío
Building A Planter // Construyendo un Jardinera
Mushroom Cultivation // Cultivo de Hongos
Soil Health // Salud del Suelo
Agroforestry // Agroforestería
Herbal Medicine // Hierbas Medicinales
Seed Keeping // Conservacíon de Semillas
Pasture Raised Poultry // Aves al Pastoreo
Greenhouse Propagation // Propagación en un Invernadero
Bee Keeping // Apicultura
No-Till Beds // Camas sin Labranza
Mushroom Inoculation // Inoculación de Hongos
Honoring The Land // Honrando la Tierra

Organisation: Heritage Grains - Against the Grain Farms
Organisation: Via Campesina : Globalize the Struggle, Globalize Hope! (movement for peasants' rights)
Article: Reflections on diversity, food and farming in Britain

See also: Land Justice UK · Shared Assets · Land In Our Names · Via Campesina · Black Land and Spatial Justice Fund · Community Land Trusts · Parduas · Freedom Farm Cooperative · Gangster Gardener · FarmingWhileBlack.org · Soul Fire Farm · Ecological Land Trust · Slow Food · Landworkers Alliance · A People’s Land Policy · Right to Roam · Three Acres and a Cow

Zero-waste & ethical eating

Podcast: #17 A zero-waste food system, pigness of pigs and sustainable woodlands (Farmerama)
Article: Dan Barber’s long-term mission: to change food and farming for ever ('waste food' entrepreneur)

Video: Dan Barber: A foie gras parable | TED Talk
Article: In 'The Third Plate,' Dan Barber Meets Food Pioneers
Internationally famous zero-waste restaurant: Silo London Restaurant
Film: Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
Article: Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth

Microbiome & health

Image: Nature

Book: I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
Book: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
Books: Dig2Grow: A trilogy of books about the way soil and nature connect all of us to the land. First there was Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations; then The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health; and now, Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life
Podcast: #26: Fungi above & below ground, our microbiome, chicken homes & vines in the UK (Farmerama)
Article: Unearthing the science between soil and gut health: A new field of science is emerging which explores the link between the microbiome within soils and the human gut (Tasting The Future, 2019)
Article: The human microbiome: why our microbes could be key to our health (Guardian, 2018)
Article: Evidence mounts that gut bacteria can influence mood, prevent depression (Science, 2019)
Article: Meet the ‘psychobiome’: the gut bacteria that may alter how you think, feel, and act (Science, 2020)
Article: Food and Health by Daniel Wahl (6 min read)

Microgrids and Virtual Power Plants

Microgrids and Virtual Power Plants YouTube playlist 🍿
Meet the microgrid, the technology poised to transform electricity (Vox, May 2018)
Sustainable microgrids are the future of clean energy (TechCrunch, Mar 2020)
Smart Microgrids: The Future of Sustainable Power (News ) (PCM, Apr 2020)
Tesla has over 120 operational microgrids around the world (Electrek, Oct 2020)
Microgrids: the secret of self-sufficiency (Eni, Sep 2020)

Solar Experiment Lets Neighbors Trade Energy Among Themselves (New York Times, Mar 2017)
Brooklyn Microgrid | Community Powered Energy
Solshare, the Startup for Sharing Solar Energy in Bangladesh (Medium, Mar 2017)
Why microgrids will transform how we use, buy, and sell energy in Sussex and Kent (Brighton & Hove Energy Services Co-operative, Apr 2020)
South Hams Community Housing Project Wins green Energy Funding from the South West Energy Hub (Jun 2020)

The World's Largest Virtual Power Plant (Tesla, Jul 2019)
So, What Exactly Are Virtual Power Plants? (Green Tech Media, Oct 2020)
How ‘Virtual Power Plants’ Will Change The Future Of Electricity (Forbes, Jul 2020)
Tesla Energy Plan from Octopus Energy

Decentralised Connectivity

Decentralised Connectivity YouTube playlist 🍿
Building the People's Internet (Urban Omnibus, Oct 2019)
How To Set Up An Open Mesh Network in Your Neighborhood (Shareable)
NYC Mesh

Freifunk
B4RN: The World's Fastest Rural Broadband
How the 'world's fastest' broadband is coming to rural UK communities that big providers won't touch (Positive News, April 2019)
Launching the Decentralized Wireless Alliance (Medium, May 2020)
Helium is building a peer-to-peer internet-of-things network (Fast Company, Nov 2019)
Decentralized Networks Are The Future Of Telecoms, Should Telcos Be Worried? (Forbes, Nov 2020)

Scuttlebutt: An offline-first, P2P social network
Scuttlebutt: an "off-grid" P2P social network that runs without servers and can fall back to sneakernet
The Nomad Who’s Exploding the Internet Into Pieces
An off-grid social network
Podcast: Secure Scuttlebutt – The “Localized” but Distributed Social Network (Epicenter)
Clients:

Decentralised Dwellings

3D printing vs. CNC machining

CNC/subtractive

3D-printed/additive

Session 1 homework

Review

Check out a few of the links/organisations/projects from the notes above and start/join a thread on something that excites you in #session-1.

Research: What's going on in your area?

Post a link in your #region channel to some kind of local food, energy, connectivity or housing project happening in your area. (You can use this slide of the presentation for ideas.)

Journaling in your learning log (5-10 minutes)

What is your relationship to food? What role does food play in your life? How could it be different?
What is your relationship to soil and growing? How might you like it to evolve?
Can you imagine a future where your community is self-sufficient in food, water and energy? What would need to change?

Session 1 recording

Please find the recording of session 1 here. Passcode: m%=y*x6u

Session 2 prep

Dear friends,

We hope you're looking forward to Session 2 of Tools of the Regenerative Renaissance as much as we are. Our guest speakers for this session:

Divya Siddarth's work covers a broad range of research and applications in the space of democratized technology, data collaboration, and online and offline participative governance structures. Her current research focus is around promoting and preserving the digital commons, building the technology and policy infrastructure for data coalitions, and devising frameworks for collectively-focused, rather than centrally concentrated, AI. She is a researcher with the RadicalXChange foundation and the Digital Civil Society lab, and Associate Political Economist and Social Technologist at Microsoft’s Office of the CTO.

Edward West builds infrastructure for the new economy. He is the co-founder of Hylo, a new kind of social network that helps members of communities-of-purpose to connect, collaborate, share resources, and build things together. Hylo has also been described as a free, open-source platform for collective action through grassroots collaboration. He is a Partner at Salmon Nation Capital, a new decentralized accelerator and fund to support bioregional regenerative projects and companies in essential services. Prior to Hylo, he built his entrepreneurial experience co-founding Mission Motors, a high-performance electric motorcycle and electric powertrain company, and Impact Hub Oakland, a community center and coworking space in Oakland.

Prep tasks for this session (which you can also find in the notes):

Read/watch the following:

Ethical Tech

Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology on the impact of technology on the human condition (4m)
Joy Buolamwini: How I'm fighting bias in algorithms | TED Talk (8m)
To Mend a Broken Internet, Create Online Parks (8m)
Building a More Honest Internet (10m): What would social media look like if it served the public interest?

Digital Tools for Collective Intelligence

Doing more together, together: seeding a Collaborative Technology Alliance (8m)
Can Taiwan Reboot Democracy? (on Polis; 7m)
Intro to Loomio (3m)
Introducing Junto - A New Breed of Social Media (3m)
A Scuttlebutt Love Story (11m)

Optional extras:

Highly recommended article: How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire (25m). "Our democratic habits have been killed off by an internet kleptocracy that profits from disinformation, polarization, and rage. Here’s how to fix that."

Podcast: EP80 Daniel Schmachtenberger on Better Sensemaking on the Jim Rutt Show (1hr38m)
Browse this publication: Check out the first edition of COMPOST magazine, FERTILE GROUNDS. "Even as existing digital infrastructure fails to embolden truth or bring people together, we are hopeful. In Fertile Grounds we explore how our decaying web can help new networks flourish." (20m)
Browse this report: Glimmers Report: a vision for Community-Powered Tech - especially this chapter (15m)
Podcast: #1 Tibet Sprague & The Tale Of The Terran Collective
Podcast: 14: Rabble: Decentralisation & Disaster
Podcast: Interview with Oliver Sauter, Co Founder of Memex
Podcasts with Audrey Tang:

Film: Coded Bias (2021)
Film: The Social Dilemma (2020)

Have a look and familiarise yourself with some of these digital tools for collective intelligence, and perhaps click on a couple that you haven't heard of before to try them out!:

Area	Product	Open source?	Innovative ownership/data model?	Other links
Holonic organising	Hylo	Github	Non-profit 501c3
Decision-making	Loomio	Github	Worker co-op	Product Hunt
	Polis	Github	Non-profit 501c3
	Decidim	Github	Non-profit
Co-created gatherings	Dandelion	In audit, code on request	Worker co-op
Web annotation	Hypothesis	Github	Non-profit 501c3
Web annotation	Memex	Github	Steward ownership	Product Hunt Memex: 10min speed run
Social bookmarking	Pocket	Github	Non-profit 501c3
News aggregation	Feedly	No	No
Decentralised social media	Junto (Holochain)	Github	Web3
Decentralised social media	Planetary (Scuttlebutt)	Github	Web3	Product Hunt
Virtual gatherings	Topia	No	No	Product Hunt
	Bramble	No	No
	Wonder	No	No	Product Hunt
	Work Adventure	Github	No
Knowledgebases	Anytype	Github	Web3
	Obsidian	No	Local data storage	Product Hunt
	Guru	No	No	Product Hunt
	Notion	No	No
	Airtable	No	No
Group messaging	Mattermost	Github	No	Product Hunt Update on threads in Mattermost
	Slack	No	No
	Discord	No	No
	Signal	Github	Non-profit 501c3
Team calendar	Teamup	No	No	Product Hunt
Team time-tracking	Hubstaff	No	No	Product Hunt
Screenshare messaging	Loom	No	No	Product Hunt
Collaborative inboxes	Front	No	No	Product Hunt
Collaborative inboxes	Intercom	No	No	Product Hunt

Finally, you could take a look at the books we've added to the Ethical Technology section of the reading list.

See you on Wednesday!

Best,

Phoebe & Stephen

Session 2, part 1 notes: Ethical technology

Original vision of the Internet

Digital Public Infrastructure

What Is Digital Public Infrastructure? — An essay, by internet pioneer Ethan Zuckerman An essay, in the form of an FAQ, about the possibility of digital social spaces built with taxpayer dollars
Publication: Check out the first edition of COMPOST magazine, FERTILE GROUNDS. "Even as existing digital infrastructure fails to embolden truth or bring people together, we are hopeful. In Fertile Grounds we explore how our decaying web can help new networks flourish." (20m)

Big Tech, the Tech Industry and Tech Evangelism

Fair Warning — Real Life (2020) "The truth, however, is that the tech industry hardly concerns itself with human welfare and justice. Its practices have been starkly opposed to protecting the welfare of society’s most vulnerable, whether it’s prohibiting employees from protesting against exploitation of the LGBT community, or protecting white men (but not black children) from hate speech, or treating its low-paid workers poorly, or spending millions of dollars lobbying against regulations that protect the disfranchised and vulnerable, or developing such despicable technologies as a “wife tracking app.”
The Tech Giants Are Dangerous, and Congress Knows It (2020) The biggest platforms are a new kind of monopoly. At last, lawmakers have figured out why that’s a problem.
Big Tech Doesn’t Care About Your Safety In the episode titled “Big Tech Doesn’t Care About Your Safety”, Soraya explored the ways in which big tech companies have fostered online environments that incite real-life violence – with no processes to regulate such issues. While Silicon Valley is dominated by white men, she mentions that the “white-male effect” could very well be at the root of these tech blindspots. (See also: Algorithmic Bias and Justice)
The Risk Makers by Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly (2020) Viral hate, election interference, and hacked accounts: inside the tech industry’s decades-long failure to reckon with risk
Through the smoke; the harms of big tech (2021)
Digital Forests (2019)
Team Human: "There's No App For That" - Rushkoff (2017) On the show Richard and Douglas challenge the idea that technological “progress” is a panacea for solving systems-level crises like climate change.

Open source and its importance

Some of the leaders in the field

Joy Buolamwini
Ethan Zuckerman: Ethan Zuckerman: Home . Check out Ethan Zuckerman’s blogs and videos here: Articles & Talks
Ruha Benjamin
Audrey Tang Audrey Tang on Wikipedia , Taiwan’s first Digital Minister
Tristan Harris
Rachel Coldicutt who wrote the Glimmers Report, and runs Careful Industries
Mai Sutton: https://maisutton.net/
Douglas Rushkoff, who wrote “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus”

Leading organisations in the field

New Public Festival
New_ Public - For Better Digital Public Spaces
Zebras Unite
Digitalpublic.io
Platform Cooperatives
Metagov
The Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS
Twitter’s Bluesky Project
The Digital Public Goods Coalition
Mozilla Data Futures Lab
Hattusia: Ethics for technology
Doteveryone: The Responsible Technology Think-Tank (now closed, but great source of reports, resources, toolkits)
Consequential and the Consequence Scanning Method
Consilience Project

Ethical Tech and Responsible Innovation

Burgeoning efforts to address risk that go beyond traditional, technical solutions and embrace human and social values:

The Center for Humane Technology’s design guide for building “more humane” products and identifying “where investing in a deeper understanding of human nature will yield further benefits,”
IEEE Global Initiative’s Ethically Aligned Design
Social Threat Modeling
The safety culture model
The do no harm approach
Ethical Operating Systems
Value-Sensitive Design
Cyber Resilience
The Cyber-XR Coalition’s recently released guide to ethics and safety in cybersecurity and XR
Consequence Scanning – an agile practice for responsible innovators – doteveryone: A toolkit developed by Doteveryone
How is Doteveryone’s Consequence Scanning helping Digital Fund grantees build more responsible tech?

Algorithmic Bias and Justice

Big Tech’s guide to talking about AI ethics (2021) - Shared by Divya Siddharth. “This is a bit tongue in cheek but I think points out flaws with Big Tech ethics-washing”
Film: Coded Bias (2021)
Google's New Dermatology App Wasn't Designed for People With Darker Skin

Race and technology

Data 4 Black Lives
Data Capitalism (Data 4 Black Lives microsite)

Digital Democracy

Digital Social Innovation to Empower Democracy | Audrey Tang | TEDx (2019, 17m)
How digital innovation can fight pandemics and strengthen democracy | Audrey Tang (2020, 50m)
Digital Democracy Is Within Reach - Your Undivided Attention | Podcast with Audrey Tang (2020, 47m)
TAIWAN: GRASSROOTS DIGITAL DEMOCRACY THAT WORKS: a paper written by Divya Siddharth
Reading list on digital gov

Digital Governance and Institutions

https://metagov.org/govbase/
One of Divya’s favourite papers: "This Place Does What It Was Built For": Designing Digital Institutions for Participatory Change
Decolonial Humanitarian Digital Governance by Aarathi Krishnan

Epistemic Crisis

How To Hack The Epistemic Crisis, with Audrey Tang (2020, 40m)
How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire (25m). "Our democratic habits have been killed off by an internet kleptocracy that profits from disinformation, polarization, and rage. Here’s how to fix that."
EP80 Daniel Schmachtenberger on Better Sensemaking on the Jim Rutt Show (1hr38m)

Decentralisation

Divya’s other favourite paper: OSF Preprints | Decentralization: An Incomplete Ambition
Podcast: 14: Rabble: Decentralisation & Disaster
Twitter’s decentralized future: The platform’s vision of a sweeping open standard could also be the far-right’s internet endgame

Session 2, part 2 notes: Digital Tools for Collective Intelligence

Hylo

"Terran Collective is transforming Hylo into a social coordination platform that enables collective action through place-based, grassroots collaboration."

Holonic Architecture

Hylo has a unique network architecture: communities nested inside networks, creating shared conversation and making coordination between groups possible.

UP NEXT: Extending holonic architecture to create fractal groups that allow people to coordinate at many scales. We plan to add two additional coordination layers: pods, representing smaller groups, and movements, large-scale values-aligned groups of people and organizations who are trying to create major social change together. Coordinating between communities and networks is critical, because no one group can regenerate the planet single-handedly.

Bioregional Intelligence

We've released the first version of a geographic map to visualize the location of resources, requests, offers, events, members, and communities. There is a lot more to do to help community members understand both the social and ecological landscapes they’re a part of.

UP NEXT: Draw/Import custom geospatial data Allowing users to draw or import geographic information adds another dimension to the map. Beyond just pinpointing a location with an address, this would allow users to show areas of land stewardship, the range of plant and animal species, and other features of their territory. This feature will create a vibrant tapestry of bioregional information on Hylo.

Loomio

There are four main elements to understand.

Group → Thread → Proposal → Outcome

There are some other details along the way, but understanding just these four is often enough to get your first successful outcome.

Groups hold everything in one place for a specific set of people
Discussion threads are where you go to discuss topics and make decisions
Use tools such as the proposal or other polls to help you visualize the group’s input and feelings about a given proposal, question, or topic.
Finally, set an outcome to share what’s going to happen next so everyone has a clear understanding and there’s a useful record.

At its most basic, Loomio is a forum with tools that help you facilitate conversations and decisions, helping you start and hold conversations that move to clear outcomes.

Decidim

"Decidim is a technopolitical project. A digital citizen-participation platform for a democratic city, made openly and collaboratively using free software.. It is a public commons infrastructure. Public because it enjoys a clear institutional impetus and commons because the code is open and free, in other words, anyone can see it, use it, copy it or amend it. It is a platform designed for coordinating citizen-participation processes and spaces, aimed at extending and facilitating access to citizen participation, opening new spaces for deliberation and collaboration in co-designing and co-producing public policies and new spaces for direct participation and democracy, thereby enabling disintermediation and cooperation between citizens, institutions and organisations of civil society."

Polis

"In plain language, Polis is an open source technology for survey research that leverages data science. It is described on the website as:

a real-time system for gathering, analyzing and understanding what large groups of people think in their own words, enabled by advanced statistics and machine learning.

More specifically, Polis is a platform for a conversation, in which participants submit short text statements, or comments, (<140 characters) which are then sent out semi-randomly to other participants to vote on by clicking agree, disagree or pass. Polis allows conversation owners to create conversations which can seamlessly engage (currently) up to hundreds of thousands or (conceivably) millions of participants…

Polis might at first look like a fancy online opinion polling tool. But it can more accurately be described as an evolving, lively, artificially intelligent, interactive “suggestion box” that can realize consensus around a controversial question. It works like this: Dozens or thousands of participants submit short statements expressing their views on the question. They also respond to other participants’ statements with Agree, Disagree, or Pass.

As hundreds of these statements and evaluations accumulate, a behind-the-scenes algorithm sorts participants into diverse clusters of like-minded responders. The algorithm then identifies “consensus statements" about which all the diverse clusters agree. At any time, participants can view graphics revealing the whole ecosystem of perspectives as it evolves. If they wish, they can create new statements that respond to what they see in that overview. Over time their statements tend to become more specific and practical.

After days or weeks of this activity, the results - both consensus statements and divisive statements - are usually turned over to a dialogue among diverse stakeholders, citizens or decision-makers to inform and stimulate their creative responses to the question. Activities can be organized through which views from polis exercises and dialogues feed back and forth into each other to generate deepening insight and/or specificity.

Polis has been used with populations ranging from 40 to 40,000 people. It is ideal for discovering unrealized possibilities in complex, conflicted situations involving widely diverse perspectives."

Dandelion

Dandelion's Gatherings feature was first invented to help make organising camps at European Burning Man events Borderland and Nowhere easier and more fun. It also works well for stand alone co-created gatherings/conferences of up to a few hundred people.

Gatherings can be filled on a first-come-first served basis, or via application form. If using an application form, it's possible to let all existing members vote on who should be accepted (rather than that decision resting just with the admins).
The Teams feature allows people to self-organise to make different aspects of the gathering happen (e.g. food, music, decoration).
The Timetables feature (inspired by Open Space/Unconferences) allows people to propose, upvote and schedule activities.
The Rotas feature allows people to volunteer for shifts (e.g. cooking, cleaning).
The Budget page features a live and transparent view of the gathering's finances

Hypothesis

Hypothesis Animated Intro
Introduction to Web Annotation with Hypothesis
Dan Whaley | The Revolution Will Be Annotated | PDF13 HD
Example: install the Hypothesis extension and see the notes on this pdf

"Hypothesis is a new effort to implement an old idea: A conversation layer over the entire web that works everywhere, without needing implementation by any underlying site.

Using annotation, we enable sentence-level note taking or critique on top of classroom reading, news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation and more. Everything we build is guided by our principles. In particular that it be free, open, neutral, and lasting to name a few."

Feedly

Feedly's team features are particularly powerful:

"Do you feel like you can’t stay on top of the news sources you love? Or maybe you know that you’re missing a lot of great content that’s being published, but you have no clue how to stop letting it slip through your fingers. For a way to gather all of the content you want to read in one place, you need a tool to help you out.

That’s where Feedly comes in – it’s a content curation tool on AI steroids. Not only can you follow your favorite sources and topics, but you can also have Feedly work on your behalf to seek out the content you’re (probably) interested in but wouldn’t find on your own."

Topia

Feels like you’re in person.

You can seamlessly move in and out of conversations and experience moments of serendipity.

Spatial audio & video
Simply click to move
Message new friends

Make your world an experience.

Your imagination is the only limit. Drag-and-drop hundreds of objects to create your perfect space.

Upload custom branding & objects
Embed sounds, music, live-streams, & videos
Add links to other websites in your world

Connect with confidence.

Enjoy secure, high-quality video conferencing from any computer with an internet connection.

Join using Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge
No download or set-up
End-to-end encryption (P2P)

Control access to your world.

You hold the keys to your world - easily add collaborators and monetize events with ticketing.

Sell tickets and gate entry
Grant roles to moderate guests
Promote anyone to a presenter so all can hear

Obsidian

How to Use the Obsidian App for Notes
Obsidian for research collaboration (= use a Github repo)

"The human brain is non-linear: we jump from idea to idea, all the time. Your second brain should work the same. In Obsidian, making and following [[connections]] is frictionless. Tend to your notes like a gardener; at the end of the day, sit back and marvel at your own knowledge graph...

In our age when cloud services can shut down, get bought, or change privacy policy any day, the last thing you want is proprietary formats and data lock-in. With Obsidian, your data sits in a local folder. Never leave your life's work held hostage in the cloud again. Plain text Markdown also gives you the unparalleled interoperability to use any kind of sync, encryption, or data processing that works with plain text files."

Homework

Session 2 recording

https://us02web.zoom.us/...

Passcode: 7H3r7!Km

Session 3 prep

Dear friends,

We hope you're looking forward to Session 3 of Tools of the Regenerative Renaissance as much as we are. We're so excited to welcome the guest teacher for this session, who is a long-time collaborator and practitioner of horizontal organising:

Samantha Slade is the author of Going Horizontal – Creating a Non-Hierarchical Organization, One Practice at a Time. Samantha pioneers culture-driven practices and operational tools for the future of work including Teal organizations. A “social designer", Samantha supports teams, organizations and ecosystems to grow participatory leadership approaches, collaborative practices and prototype mindsets.

A purpose driven entrepreneur, Samantha co-founded the Percolab network and the coworking space Ecto. For over 20 years, she has been putting her background in anthropology and learning design in service of innovation work in North America and internationally. Emergent process, design thinking, ethnography and a vast range of participatory approaches are her tools. Samantha is actively engaged in the international commons movement and the Art of Hosting community.

Prep tasks for this session:

Read:

Please read Chapter One of "Going Horizontal" (PDF here). Optionally read also the Introduction and Chapter Two.

Watch these three videos:

Optional extras:

Check out the Leadermorphosis podcast, recommended episodes:

If you haven't already, please organise a video call with your pod over the next 2 weeks as a mid-way check-in on how you are finding the course, via your pod channel in Slack.

See you on Wednesday!

Best,

Phoebe

Session 3 notes

Slides

From Phoebe: These are slides from lectures and talks I have given in the past - I am sharing with you in confidence, please do not share further.

Slides from Session 3: TRR - Decentralised Organising & Horizontal Leadership - Phoebe and Sam
Slides from a lecture to MA students at Schumacher College in 2019 - MA in E4T Schumacher College Lecture: Networked and Distributed Organisations covers Collective Intelligence, New Ways of Working, Enspiral and Distributed Organisations, Web3 and Blockchain, DAOs and Network Societies.

Toolkits

Going Horizontal by Samantha Slade
Leadermorphosis Ep. 10: Samantha Slade on practicing self-management

Platform Design Toolkit

Reinventing Organisations, Teal & the work of Frederic Laloux

The new Reinventing Organisations Wiki
The excellent Reinventing Organisations YouTube channel with dozens of bitesize videos
Frederic Laloux on Soulful Organisations (7m)
Talk followed by Q&A by Frederic Laloux on Reinventing Organizations (1 hour 40 min)

Enspiral, Ouishare & Networked Communities

The Enspiral site
What is this thing called Enspiral (video, 2m)
An Impact Report of the Enspiral Network (2020): blog piece and full report
What is Enspiral - an FAQ by P2P Foundation in 2014
Enspiral Tales blog
Enspiral Handbook

Key Ingredients of Modern Communities for Impact by Enspiral's Chelsea Robinson
Network-ing Does Not Equal Network Weaving

Case studies of horizontal organisations

See the Cases for Inspiration page in the Reinventing Organisations Wiki

Buurtzorg: Dutch home-care organization with 15,000 employees

Buurtzorg on the Reinventing Organisations Wiki
The Buurtzorg Model
Leadermorphosis Ep. 26 Buurtzorg and the power of self-managed teams of nurses

"Buurtzorg is a remarkable organisation: 15,000 employees working in 850 self-managed teams to deliver home care to patients in the Netherlands. The results, including both patient and employee satisfaction, are so outstanding that Buurtzorg-inspired models are popping up all over the world. I got the chance to talk to three nurses from Team Houten, all of whom came from a traditional, large healthcare company, and hear firsthand what it’s like to work in such a high-freedom, high-responsibility environment. Listen to this wonderful conversation with three passionate and charismatic women – Marian, Chila and Jolanda – and discover what they’ve learned over the last nine years about tough conversations, teamwork, and personal development."

Morning Star: supplies 40% of the U.S. tomato market

Morning Star on the Reinventing Organisations Wiki
Morning Star's Success Story: No Bosses, No Titles, No Structural Hierarchy
7 ways Morning Star Tomatoes helps employees become high performers
If Self-Management Is Such a Great Idea, Why Aren't More Companies Doing It?
First, Let's Fire All the Managers (from 2011 - it’s old!)

Haier: global leader in white goods

Haier profile on Peter Fisk's Gamechangers

"Currently, Haier comprises of 200+ customer-facing microenterprises and 3,800+ service and support microenterprises. It feels like an ecosystem of start-ups; Haier calls it the RenDanHeYi model. This model leaves only three different kinds of roles within Haier; the ‘platform owner‘, the ‘microenterprise owner‘ and the ‘entrepreneur‘.

Each microenterprise enjoys power over its decision-making, personnel selection, and profit distribution. The microenterprises are no longer linked by administrative connection, but by a market-driven contracting mechanism."

"Doug Kirkpatrick, co-founder of The Self-Management Institute, original team member of Morning Star and author of “Beyond Empowerment”, shares his insights about common misconceptions of self-management, what it really takes to have self-management work, and the example of Haier (the largest appliance manufacturer in the world) in China which is organised into 4,000 self-managing teams."

Leadermorphosis podcasts on other organisations

Leadermorphosis Ep. 53 Jabi Salcedo and Dunia Reverter on K2K's 10 keys to becoming a self-managing organisation: Spanish consultancy that has transformed more than 85 organisations from traditional to self-managing over the last two decades

Leadermorphosis Ep. 39 Beetroot's founders on purpose, self-management, and shocking people with trust: remarkable self-managed IT company set up in 2012 to create social impact in Ukraine
Leadermorphosis Ep. 42 Ved Krishna on self-management in an Indian paper factory: compostable tableware manufacturer based in Faizabad, India that has been experimenting with organisational self-management since 1999 (See also Mango Season - self-management in India)

Holacracy & Sociocracy

Holacracy.org
What is Holacracy? (video, 1m48)
Here's how the 'self-management' system that Zappos is using actually works
Holacracy: A Radical New Approach to Management by Brian Robertson at TEDxGrandRapids (video, 18m20)
"Holacracy" by Brian Robertson - BOOK SUMMARY (video, 4m45)
Leadermorphosis episodes with the founder of Holacracy: Ep. 31 Brian Robertson on Holacracy and self-managing organisations (Part 1) and Ep. 32 Brian Robertson on Holacracy and self-managing organisations (Part 2)

What is sociocracy? (video, 19m24)
A very brief introduction to sociocracy by Harri Kaloudis
Sociocracy 3.0
Sociocracy for All

Roles & leadership in horizontal organisations

Alanna Irving's model of Full Circle Leadership

What’s all the fuss about roles in horizontal teams and organizations? by Samantha Slade
How we enable switching roles and positions by Manuel Küblböc
How we are structured in autonomous teams by Manuel Küblböck
Onboarding at Gini by Susanna Lussen

Full Circle Leadership by Alanna Irving
Full Circle Leadership - Alanna Irving (video, 15m23)
Extending Full Circle Leadership by Alanna Irving
Reconstructing the Idea of Leadership by Alicia Trepat Pont
The Dark Sides of Leadership by Alanna Irving
Leading in Uncertain Times: Leadership as a Quest by Sahana
How we lead. in a self-organized organization by Manuel Küblböck

The role of Source

Whose Idea Was it Anyway? The Role of Source in Organizations

"Today’s topic looks at the importance of identifying the starting point of an idea or a project. Who was the original creator, the inventor, the initiator (which I shall refer to as the Source)? How are upsets in teams connected to this concept of source? Why do some projects simply not work and why do we often react miffed and protective when it comes to sharing our ideas? And how does it influence hierarchies? Naming the source is not only important to create balance in teams, projects and organizations, but also in our personal relationships and in dealing with us. When I acknowledge the source in someone else, we work together more joyfully and create fewer misunderstandings. If I feel and honour the source in myself and follow it’s natural flow, I am more likely to do “my thing” and experience more wellbeing."

Running great meetings & effective decision making

Remote Working: 5 tips for Meetings by Marina Lynch
If you're running Zoom/Teams/Hangout meetings please spend 5 minutes reading this first by Geoff Mulgan

3 tools from sociocracy to use right away, plus magic phrases
Consensus Decision Making - guide by Seeds for Change
How we make decentralized decisions by Manuel Küblböck
HOW WE MAKE DECISIONS (Autonomic Co-operative)
Advice process. A simple tool for group decision making by Loomio
Generative Decision Making Process by Samantha Slade
Sociocracy 3.0 - Consent Decision Making Demonstration (12 minutes)

Feedback & growth

How to give and receive feedback in an agile organization by Manuel Küblböck
Feedback isn’t just what you think it is by Ria Baeck (Percolab Droplets)
Speedbacking. Having a culture of individual feedback by Joshua Vial (Enspiral Tales)

Salaries, budgeting & relating to money

Announcing our Playbook: why we’re defaulting to transparency
What is the pay system you dream of? Beyond the taboo of money by Samantha Slade
Sharing Money With Friends: What Could Go Wrong? by Rich Decibels
Manas Tech Handbook
How to set your own salary by Evgeny Shadchnev
Want to reinvent how you do salaries in your organisation? by Lisa Gill
Performance Evaluation and Salary Setting by Nicola Heckler

Peter Koenig : 'moneywork' - very highly regarded practitioner who works with people to heal trauma around money and uncover hidden biases and wounds in relation to money
Money is a story: let’s tell a new one by Kate Beecroft (Greaterthan)
Great Twitter thread from Tom Nixon on moneywork

Culture & relating

A Manifesto of Being and Working Together by Phoebe Tickell (Enspiral Tales)
Going from a Culture of Evaluation to a Culture of Dialogue by Doha Moghrabi (Percolab Droplets)
Listening can be just the opposite of what we might think: Four techniques for deep listening by Samantha Slade (Percolab Droplets)
Gini’s Empathy Handbook
Rhythms: Making space for teams to self-manage by Optimi (Enspiral Tales)

By Manuel Küblböck:

Shared care & organising in pods

Courage Before Hope: A Proposal to Weave Emotional and Economic Microsolidarity by Rich Bartlett
Microsolidarity site
Solidarity pods: Self-organised support groups for compulsive world changers by Nigel Taptiklis

Conflict, resolution & endings

Non-violent Communication website
A Collective Concept for Conflict Resolution by Samantha Slade

Why we need to be prepared to close our organisations down by Gina Rembe (Enspiral Tales)
Stewarding Loss - a UK based collective developing tools and practices for ending organisations well

Session 3 recording

If you missed the session, watch back the recording here (password: ?!NC8BcS). The first hour focuses on content with two presentations, slides here: TRR - Decentralised Organising & Horizontal Leadership - Phoebe and Sam.

Session 3 homework

Pair up with somebody else from the course (this can be from your pod or through the Matcha app - speak to Niki Angal for an invite) and schedule a one hour call next week during reading week.

Practice at least 2 of the 3 Going Horizontal practices we practiced in the session:

Practicing proposals
Trigger log
Transparency practice

Play 1-2 rounds of the the Going Horizontal game at this link: https://goinghorizontal.co/game/

Take one hour to read through the links, articles and podcasts we have put together above, picking out 3 articles/episodes/projects and write about them in the #media-articles, #media-books, #media-films, #media-podcasts on the Slack channel.

Bonus: Attend this event to play the Going Horizontal Game hosted by Samantha and Percolab on 1st June: Going Horizontal Game - Free Event

Session 4 prep

Dear friends,

We hope you've enjoyed your reading week and are looking forward to Session 4. Our guest expert at this session:

Dekan Brown is a Colorado native, adventurer and technophile and founding member of Odyssy, a decentralized digital collective iterating on the future of work. Dekan has been working as a developer for over 15 years with 5 years in the crypto space, developing products, dapp front ends and smart contracts. He is currently a lead developer of DAOhaus, a no-code, community-owned platform for launching and running DAOs.

Prep tasks for this session:

As a bridge from the last session:

11 Practical Steps Towards Healthy Power Dynamics at Work, taking note of Step 11. Share the ownership!:

"My concern is that words like “non-hierarchical” and “self-organising” [can] create a smokescreen, masking the real power dynamics that are ultimately determined by the ownership structure."

Coops:

Co-operate | A film to celebrate #coopdifference (video, 1m20)
What is a Co-operative? (video, 1m50)
The pages What is a co-op?, Co-op values and principles and Types of co-ops
An introduction to platform co-ops
Optional: Ep 8.1: Worker Cooperatives — Widening Spheres of Democracy & Ep 8.2: Worker Cooperatives — Islands within a Sea of Capitalism (Upstream)
Optional: Uber-Worked and Underpaid | Trebor Scholz

Steward Ownership:

Purpose's page on Steward Ownership
Pages 6-19 of Steward-Ownership: Rethinking ownership in the 21st century
Optional: Transforming Ownership to Create a Better Economy

DAOs:

Aragon: The Fight for Freedom (video, 5m50)

Aragon's introduction to DAOs
DAOhaus docs pages: What is a DAO?, The Bank and Membership
Optional: 33 - Slaying Moloch | Ameen Soleimani & Kevin Owocki - Bankless

See you on Wednesday!

Best,

Stephen & Phoebe

Session 4 notes

Perspectives on property/ownership

What Is Property? (Investopedia)
Noam Chomsky on property rights, equality and democracy (video)

Umair Haque on artificial scarcity (Medium)
Charles Eisenstein: A Beautiful World of Abundance (Resurgence)
Own Your Data Foundation

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon from Proudhon: What is Property? (video, 17m)

In his 1840 book What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government, Proudhon claimed "Property is theft!" (La propriété, c'est le vol! – see this video for more).

From Is Property Theft? (Psychology Today, 2019):

"Interestingly, a careful reading of Proudhon shows that he might have had some workable, realistic ideas, consistent with human nature and evolution. He did not believe that economic change could be obtained by revolution, but only by gradually increasing acceptance of his proposals. He believed that some wealth inequality was inevitable and acceptable; his long-term goal was simply decreasing grotesque wealth inequality. As an anarchist, he did not see government ownership of the means of production (socialism) as a solution, although he accepted the inevitability of government because there will always be people who want to regulate the behavior of others. His goal was simply to minimize governmental control. His hope was that people would see and embrace the wisdom of economic mutualism, which involves voluntary, cooperative, mutual assistance among laborers, resulting in benefits to all workers. There would be no violent overthrow of the government or economic system, but rather a gradual replacement of the politico-economic system as mutualism slowly increased over time."

Ursula K. Le Guin & The Dispossessed

Illustration of Ursula K. Le Guin as a young writer from

Ursula K. Le Guin Was a Creator of Worlds

The Dispossessed

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2018 documentary film)

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

ursulakleguin.com
Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2018 documentary film. Those in the UK can watch on BBC iPlayer)
Legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin dies at 88 (The Verge)
Ursula K. Le Guin Was a Creator of Worlds (Humanities Magazine)
The Fantastic Ursula K. Le Guin (The New Yorker)
Ten Things I Learned from Ursula K. Le Guin (Paris Review)
Ursula Le Guin: 'Wizardry is artistry' | Ursula K Le Guin (The Guardian)
Hopping Through Time With Ursula K. Le Guin (Huffington Post)

From ‘The Dispossessed’ By Ursula K. Le Guin: An Embodiment of Postmodern Anarchism ?:

"The existence of an explicitly anarchist society on the moon of Anarres has led many critics of The Dispossessed to focus only on the traditional anarchist themes of this novel. Yet the truly radical legacy of this novel is that it transgresses the boundaries of conventional anarchist thinking to create new forms of anarchism that are entirely relevant to life in the postmodern condition. Le Guin updates the conventional anarchist project and positions anarchism to move into the third millennium...

The strongest and most direct statement of Le Guin’s anarchist vision appears in her 1974 novel The Dispossessed. In her attempt to embody anarchism, Le Guin constructs a highly traditional anarchist society on the planet Anarres. Drawing on the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century anarchist writers Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin, she imagines a society [without] the state, organized religion, and private property."

From The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin – Simple Lines:

"A key concept in the social imaginary on Anarres is the idea of society as an ecology, within which people have a ‘cellular function’ – a way of living that is their ideal contribution to the whole. This is a vision of economics built on biology and ecology rather than physics and mechanics... The central values of this society are solidarity and freedom. There is also a rejection of the idea of private property. This runs counter to our familiar notions of individuals and their stuff. This ideology is manifested when people are accused of being ‘propertarians’, or of ‘egoising’ when talking about themselves. The emphasis on non-possessiveness is also found in a sentence such as ‘You can share the handkerchief I use’ [as opposed to, 'You can borrow my handkerchief']. Le Guin skillfully investigates the tensions that emerge between individual desires and a sense of the common need."

From Ursula Le Guin: 'Wizardry is artistry' | Ursula K Le Guin (The Guardian, 2014):

"The “dispossessed” of Anarres are, of course, those who attempt to live without property, but also without a certain kind of language. They have no possessive pronouns (not “you can borrow my handkerchief”, but “you can share the handkerchief I use”) and abjure possessive sexuality. “The language Shevek spoke, the only one he knew, lacked any proprietary idioms for the sexual act … The usual verb, taking only a plural subject … meant something two people did, not something one person did, or had.” Like much of Le Guin’s writing, this is marked by her engagement with the women’s movement, and the notion that a patriarchal language will produce a patriarchal world."

The Commons

From About the Commons:

"The commons is a new way to express a very old idea—that some forms of wealth belong to all of us, and that these community resources must be actively protected and managed for the good of all.

The commons are the things that we inherit and create jointly, and that will (hopefully) last for generations to come. The commons consists of gifts of nature such as air, oceans and wildlife as well as shared social creations such as libraries, public spaces, scientific research and creative works."

The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons

Is The 'Tragedy of The Commons' a Myth? (Big Think)
The Tragedy of "The Tragedy of the Commons" (Scientific American)
The Non-Tragedy of the Commons (New York Times)
Ending The Tragedy of The Commons (video, 4m)

“Fifty years ago, University of California professor Garrett Hardin penned an influential essay in the journal Science. Hardin saw all humans as selfish herders: we worry that our neighbors’ cattle will graze the best grass. So, we send more of our cows out to consume that grass first. We take it first, before someone else steals our share. This creates a vicious cycle of environmental degradation that Hardin described as the “tragedy of the commons.”"

"The facts are not on Hardin’s side. For one, he got the history of the commons wrong. As Susan Cox pointed out, early pastures were well regulated by local institutions. They were not free-for-all grazing sites where people took and took at the expense of everyone else.

Many global commons have been similarly sustained through community institutions. This striking finding was the life’s work of Elinor Ostrom, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics (technically called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel). Using the tools of science—rather than the tools of hatred—Ostrom showed the diversity of institutions humans have created to manage our shared environment."

Managing A Commons

Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom's 8 Principles for Managing A Commons (OntheCommons.org)
Elinor Ostrom's 8 rules for managing the commons (The Earthbound Report)
Sustainable earth: Nobel laureate, Elinor Ostrom, on how can we manage common-pool resources (video, 3m)

"The commons are those things that we all own together, that are neither privately owned, nor managed by the government on our behalf. Some are large scale and somewhat abstract, such as the English language. Others are local and more tangible, such as fishing rights, and they need more careful management. Our current political paradigm is sceptical of the commons: if nobody takes responsibility for something, it will inevitably be abused. So either it needs to be in private hands, or run by public institutions.

There are good examples of commons though – irrigation networks or pastures that have been managed by and for ordinary people for generations, and they’re still functioning. There are also examples of wrecked pastures and over-exploited fishing grounds, failed commons where a resource was mismanaged and destroyed. Elinor Ostrom studied both kinds, and drew up a list of principles for running the commons:"

Commons need to have clearly defined boundaries. In particular, who is entitled to access to what? Unless there’s a specified community of benefit, it becomes a free for all, and that’s not how commons work.
Rules should fit local circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to common resource management. Rules should be dictated by local people and local ecological needs.
Participatory decision-making is vital. There are all kinds of ways to make it happen, but people will be more likely to follow the rules if they had a hand in writing them. Involve as many people as possible in decision-making.
Commons must be monitored. Once rules have been set, communities need a way of checking that people are keeping them. Commons don’t run on good will, but on accountability.
Sanctions for those who abuse the commons should be graduated. Ostrom observed that the commons that worked best didn’t just ban people who broke the rules. That tended to create resentment. Instead, they had systems of warnings and fines, as well as informal reputational consequences in the community.
Conflict resolution should be easily accessible. When issues come up, resolving them should be informal, cheap and straightforward. That means that anyone can take their problems for mediation, and nobody is shut out. Problems are solved rather than ignoring them because nobody wants to pay legal fees.
Commons need the right to organise. Your commons rules won’t count for anything if a higher local authority doesn’t recognise them as legitimate.
Commons work best when nested within larger networks. Some things can be managed locally, but some might need wider regional cooperation – for example an irrigation network might depend on a river that others also draw on upstream.

Tool libraries

A family borrowing equipment to go camping

Transport-as-a-service, homes-as-a-service?

A Kibbo van

Co-Living Meets Van Life at Kibbo (note: not a co-op!)
KASABA | CO-RETREAT VILLAGES IN NATURE
RethinkX's transportation thesis:

"By 2030, within 10 years of regulatory approval of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), 95 percent of U.S. passenger miles traveled will be served by on-demand autonomous electric vehicles owned by fleets, not individuals, in a new business model we call “transport-as-a-service” (TaaS)."

Who owns the robots(/cars/vans)?

Who Will Own the Robots? (MIT Technology Review)
Who Owns the Robots Rules the World (Harvard Magazine)

"If the distribution of capital remains narrow, as it is now, the main beneficiaries of robotization would be a small number of wealthy owners, while the living standards of the vast majority of workers would suffer. That would exacerbate the growth of inequality, and risk producing a new robot-age feudalism, with workers captive to a small number of overlords who own robotic technology. If, to the contrary, people shared in the ownership of the machines that replace them at work, everyone’s freedom and living standards would improve."

Ownership of organisations

There are two distinct types ownership rights relevant to organisations:

Voting rights (green): who gets to make the decisions (most importantly, who can fire you!)
Economic rights (blue): who has a claim on company profits

Traditional

Worker-led/steward-led

Steward-ownership structures commit companies to two key principles:

Self-governance: For-profit businesses are often beholden to the interests of shareholders who aren’t involved in the operation or management of the business. Steward ownership structures keep control with the people who are actively engaged in or connected to the business. Voting shares can only be held by stewards, i.e., people in or close the business, and the business itself can never be sold.
Profits serve purpose: For steward-owned companies, profits are a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves. All the profits generated by the company are either reinvested in the business, used to repay investors, shared with stakeholders, or donated to charity.

(from Steward-Ownership: Rethinking ownership in the 21st century)

Golden shares

Golden Share Definition (Investopedia)
Armin Steuernagel on how to keep a mission driven company independent and raise capital (podcast)

"A golden share is a type of share that gives its shareholder veto power over changes to the company's charter. It holds special voting rights, giving its holder the ability to block another shareholder from taking more than a ratio of ordinary shares."

From Steward-Ownership: Rethinking ownership in the 21st century:

"The Golden Share holds veto rights on all decisions that would effectively undermine the company’s commitment to steward-ownership. This veto-share is held by a “veto-service” foundation such as the Purpose Foundation. To be a veto-share provider, a foundation must be self-owned and have clear provisions in its own charter that enable it to use this veto right

to protect the provisions of steward-ownership."

Case studies

Equal Care Co-op: a multi-stakeholder platform co-operative

Equal Care Co-op are building a new, co-owned social care platform that puts care givers and receivers in charge. By incorporating as a multi-stakeholder co-operative, their digital product and accompanying service is owned by and accountable to the communities using and sustaining it. They arrived at the platform co-op model as a response to systemic inequities within the social care system, seeing it as a practical route to centering choice, power and ownership with the two most important people in care – the person giving and the person getting support.

Supported member: You are being regularly supported by Equal Care Co-op (whether that's voluntary or paid support)

Advocate member: Your relative or friend is being supported by Equal Care Co-op but they cannot be a Member themselves.

Investor member: You support our aims and have invested in our Community Share Offer.

Worker member: You are regularly contributing your labour to Equal Care Co-op, whether that's paid or voluntary work.

Fairbnb

"Rather than faceless investors, the platform will be owned by those who use it and are impacted by its use: hosts, guests, local business owners, neighbours. Created and governed by citizens, FairBnB will keep profits in communities and ensure decisions are made for the good of neighbourhoods, not their exploitation."

Eva

DAOs, DHOs & DisCOs

From What is participatory budgeting? A 60-second guide:

"Participatory budgeting comes in all shapes and sizes, but basically it looks like this:

Ideas are generated about how a budget should be spent
People vote for their priorities
The projects with the most votes gets funded"

Online tool for participatory budgeting: Cobudget

"Cobudget is a tool and a methodology that makes resource allocation participatory. It enables all members of an organization to get involved in decision-making by proposing projects and allocating funds to the proposals they like."

What's a DAO?
Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) (Binance Academy)
Aragon manifesto

Hypha DHO (organisation leading the development of SEEDS)
Welcoming Hypha's Decentralized Human Organisation
What is the Hypha DHO? (video)
Journey to a Regenerative Civilization Episode 11: Regenerative Villages

From Aragon's What's a DAO?:

"A DAO is an internet-native entity with no central management which is regulated by a set of automatically enforceable rules on a public blockchain, and whose goal is to take on a life of its own and incentivize people to achieve a shared common mission."

From Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Binance Academy:

"While the idea of decentralized organizations is not new, using smart contracts to automate some of their working mechanisms and functionalities is what makes DAO a useful and interesting concept."

DAOs allow people to:

Attract and incentivize contributors: DAOs incentivize contributors by giving them a say in the future of the organization.
Pool funds: DAOs use cryptocurrencies, allowing people all around the world to pool funds.
Govern those funds together: DAOs allow people to collaboratively channel common funds towards common missions.

What are DAOs good for?

DAOs are global: DAOs allow people to come together and work on common missions just as easy as joining a chat group.
DAOs are transparent: DAOs allow anyone with an internet connection to check their members, financials and decisions taken.
DAOs are fluid: DAOs scale their workforce dynamically. There are low barriers to entry, allowing new members to join.

From DAOHaus

DAO platforms

DAOhaus

DAOHaus Version 2 is Ready

Colony

Aragon

Introducing SafeSnap: The first in a decentralized governance tool suite for the Gnosis Safe

DAOs allow the separation of voting and economic rights

You can think of DAOs as blockchain-based multi-stakeholder co-operatives.

DAOHaus DAOs (and other Moloch v2 DAOs) differentiate between voting-economic rights (which they call 'shares') and economic rights without voting power (which they call 'Loot'):

"To allow the DAO to issue non-voting shares, we introduce the concept of Loot. Just like shares, Loot is requested via proposal, issued to specific members and non-transferrable, and can be redeemed (via ragequit) on par with shares for a proportional fraction of assets in the Guild Bank. However, Loot does not count towards votes and DAO members with only Loot will not be able to sponsor proposals or vote on them."

The next version of DAOhaus will totally decouple voting rights from economic rights with separate 'voice' (voting) and 'exit' (economic) shares.

Blockchain-Based Limited Liability Companies (BBLLCs)

Limited companies, owned by DAOs – a bridge between the legacy legal and crypto worlds

From Blockchain Companies Should Be Banging Down the BBLLC Doors:

"The blockchain provides an incredible opportunity for changing the way organizations operate. There is an explosion of thinking about how to structure productive interaction, how to bring people together to accomplish something. In terms of company formation, the blockchain is allowing a whole new universe of ways to structure things: more loosely, with more participation, where people are polled immediately, where an entity can accumulate votes, assign different values to things, or distribute rewards automatically. Things that used to be hard to do in terms of direct tracking of participation are now made easy.

But if those organizations exist outside legacy legal frameworks, these innovative companies could find themselves forced into structures they didn’t choose with results that are disastrous for their continued existence. Don’t fight the law – find a way to engage it intentionally, and take advantage of opportunities like the Vermont BBLLC that will help you mold the law to support the innovation you are so good at creating."

Session 4 homework

Review

Check out a few of the links/organisations/projects from the notes above and start/join a thread on something that excites you in #session-4.

Research

Find a worker co-op/platform co-op/steward-owned business/DAO in your region or connected to a topic of interest, and share details of it in #session-4.

Session 5 prep

Dear friends,

Here are the links to the recordings of our previous session on co-operative ownership: part 1, part 2 (passcode: h+$Zf.6K)

Before we get into prep for session 5, a note on our final session, session 6 on 23rd June:

We will celebrate our finale with an extended 3h15m session (starting at the usual time of 15:00 UTC – 18:15 UTC), featuring guest expert Daniel Wahl for the first hour, and then spending 2 hours 15 min in an Unconference format together.

If you haven't already, please join the Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance #2 Unconference gathering on Dandelion and by Wednesday:

Upvote the sessions that you're interested in attending (click the thumbs up or click on a session title and click Interested)
Consider submitting a session of your own (click 'Propose an Activity')

We will be scheduling the sessions this Thursday with the most upvoted sessions scheduled earlier.

For this week's session 5 on Regenerative Money, we are lucky to be joined by two wonderful guests:

Rieki Cordon is Ecosystem Facilitator at Hypha, the DAO leading the development of SEEDS. He previously studied Organizational Leadership at the University of San Francisco and obtained his Permaculture Design Certificate at the Mesoamerican Permaculture Institute.

Saraswathi Subbaraman is an artist and designer working at the intersection of technology and culture and Product Designer at Circles, a blockchain-based Universal Basic Income project. Saraswathi received a masters from ITP NYU, and has exhibited work at the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin.

Please find the prep tasks below:

Watch this 12-minute summary of Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics (Charles' work has inspired both SEEDS and Celo)

Read/watch the following:

SEEDS:

What is SEEDS? (video, 2m)
Optional: SEEDS: A Global Green New Deal
Optional: The Journey to a Regenerative Civilization series especially Episode 12: The Evolution of Money - Gold, Dollars, Bitcoin & Seeds

Celo:

Celo: What if money were beautiful? (video, 1m20)
Celo's community tenets
Optional: Celo: Meet the team working on Celo (video, 2m23)
Optional: The Celo About page
Optional: Celo Camp 2020: Celo's Values with Sep Kamvar

Regen Network:

Welcome to Regen Network (video, 2m16)
The Regen Network Buyers and Land Stewards pages

Proof of Humanity:

Welcome to Proof of Humanity (video, 1m)
Optional: Introducing UBI: Universal Basic Income for Humans An introduction to UBI
Optional: Santiago Siri on The Defiant

Circles:

Circles Philosophy (video, 4m08)
Optional: Circles FAQ

Ethical banking:

How to stop funding fossil fuels by moving to an ethical bank (Extinction Rebellion, 14m read – especially the 5 Steps to Positive Action)
Do some research to find an ethical bank in your country!

Finally, you could take a look at the books in the New Economics section of the reading list.

See you on Wednesday!

Best,

Stephen & Phoebe

Update on Loomio threads

Thanks for your engagement on the three Loomio threads, each of which we pledged 4800 SEEDS to.

Competition idea: Thanks to Isabella Bruno for the popular suggestion to vote up artists based on their past work, then commission an artwork on the theme of the Regenerative Renaissance. Suggest artists and vote here
Marketing/promotion: Thanks to Guy James and Humberto Besso-Oberto Huerta for coming up with the popular idea of rewarding people who make relevant people/projects (perhaps those that feature in the notes) aware of the Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance course. We'll pay 100 SEEDS to the first 50 people who forward an email or send a link to a social media post introducing one or more other relevant people/organisations to the course to [email protected]
Bonus session: This discussion wasn't conclusive but Phoebe and I will look over the suggestions and reach out to someone with relevant expertise on one of the topics discussed for a reunion bonus session sometime in July/August.

Session 5 notes

What is money?

The History of Money (video, Open University)

"Today, the only thing that distinguishes the value of a banknote from any other paper is trust."

Money Definition (Investopedia)

"The value of money is not derived from the materials used to produce the note or coin. Instead, value is derived from the willingness to agree to a displayed value and rely on it for use in future transactions. This is money's primary function: a generally recognized medium of exchange that people and global economies intend to hold, and are willing to accept as payment for current or future transactions."

Fiat Money Definition (Investopedia)

"In contrast to commodity-based money like gold coins or paper bills redeemable for precious metals, fiat money is backed entirely by the full faith and trust in the government that issued it. One reason this has merit is because governments demand that you pay taxes in the fiat money it issues. Since everybody needs to pay taxes, or else face stiff penalties or prison, people will accept it in exchange."

Functions of Money, Economic Lowdown Podcasts | Education | St. Louis Fed (podcast with transcript)
Episode 12: The Evolution of Money - Gold, Dollars, Bitcoin & Seeds (SEEDS video)

"We've never seen liquidity pumped into a crisis to that degree, ever in history. Because the economy during the worst of the pandemic was basically shut down, all this liquidity basically boosted the money supply, but it couldn't find its way into the real economy," she added. "But all this liquidity has to go somewhere, and it went not just into the stock market, but every market has done well – junk bonds, precious metals."

Note the three characteristics of greatest difference:

Sovereign vs. non-sovereign
Centralized/censorable vs. decentralized/censorship-resistant
Dumb vs smart/programmable

Cryptocurrency as the new global reserve asset?

Paying taxes in crypto: the end of fiat?

What is cryptocurrency?

Many of these articles refer to bitcoin but the same arguments mostly apply to cryptocurrency more generally, including cryptocurrencies with minimal energy use (see below)

Visions of Bitcoin: How major Bitcoin narratives changed over time
The Many Faces of Bitcoin
Bitcoin Is the Biggest Big Short
Bitcoin becomes the Flag of Technology
Crypto-Civilization | Balaji Srinivasan (podcast)
Bitcoin Rap Battle Debate: Hamilton vs. Satoshi (video)
From the spacemesh blog:

"Perhaps the most enduring source of conflict within the Bitcoin community derives from incompatible visions of what Bitcoin is and should become. Businesses building on Bitcoin, believing it a cheap global payments network, eventually became nonviable when blocks filled up in 2017. They weren’t necessarily wrong, they just had a vision of the world that ended up being a minority view within the Bitcoin community, and was ultimately not expressed by the protocol on their desired timeline… Visions of Bitcoin are not static. Technological developments, practical realities and real-world events have shaped collective views."

E-cash proof of concept
Cheap p2p payments network
Censorship-resistant digital gold
Private and anonymous darknet currency
Reserve currency for the cryptocurrency industry
Programmable shared database
Uncorrelated financial asset

Censorship resistance

"Censorship-resistance… implies that any party wishing to transact on the network can do so as long as they follow the rules of the network protocol… Censorship-resistance is considered to be one of the main value propositions of Bitcoin. The idea is that no nation-state, corporation, or third party has the power to control who can transact or store their wealth on the network. Censorship-resistance ensures that the laws that govern the network are set in advance and can’t be retroactively altered to fit a specific agenda."

From Who Needs Censorship Resistance? Not Most Of Us (a skeptical take):

"Addressing problems of government repression and privacy vulnerability around the world is going to take more than technology. Policymakers and cryptocurrency experts should join forces as much as possible to help enable environments where human dignity, prosperity, and freedom can coexist."

Energy consumption

"Celo’s mission is to enable a financial system that creates the conditions for prosperity — for everyone. This includes our planet. To empower this aspiration, the Celo community envisions a platform with sustainability considerations from the ground up through:

A Proof of Stake consensus algorithm
Carbon offsetting with each block reward
Bounties for regenerative behavior
Natural capital-backed currencies

These span from a reduction in resource usage of the core blockchain infrastructure, to offsetting negative impact through the protocol, and finally the real world experience in cryptocurrency incentivizing regenerative behavior. Each of these builds on top of the next and beautifully paints the picture of a system built to reduce consumption, sustain, and eventually renew environmental resources."

SEEDS is powered by the Telos blockchain, which is 66,000 times more energy efficient than Bitcoin:

Proof of Stake Explained (video)
A Proof of Stake Design Philosophy
Delegated Proof of Stake Explained (video)
What is Delegated Proof of Stake? An Overview of DPoS Blockchains
Explain Delegated Proof of Stake Like I'm 5 (Hacker Noon)

SEEDS

SEEDS
SEEDS constitution
Hypha DHO
SEEDS: A Global Green New Deal [video]
The Journey to a Regenerative Civilization series especially Episode 12: The Evolution of Money - Gold, Dollars, Bitcoin & Seeds (33m) and this follow-up conversation between Rieki and Stephen
The SEEDS White Deck and (if you're feeling brave) the full SEEDS Ecosystem Resources list
SEEDS Game Guide

SEEDS is a new, global, blockchain-based payment platform and currency designed to incentivise and reward behaviours by individuals, companies and communities that support an equitable and ecologically regenerative civilisation.

No one person or organisation is behind it; it is collectively owned by the holders of the SEEDS currency, and run by a decentralised team of hundreds of individuals across the globe.

Over the next 12-18 months, SEEDS intends to reach price stability relative to purchasing power. To maintain this price stability as the SEEDS economy grows further, new SEEDS will need to be minted. How these newly minted SEEDS are spent will be decided via a participatory budgeting process. Any user of SEEDS can make a proposal, and all 'citizens' of SEEDS vote on which proposals are funded.

A version of this participatory budgeting process is already up and running, and has resulted in the distribution of 50m SEEDS (currently worth £1m) to more than 60 different projects worldwide. Examples of funded projects and organisations include:

Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance, a six-week, better-than-free course focused on tools and techniques that can be used and enjoyed right now for healthier, happier lives, thriving local economies, a fairer distribution of power and resources, and the healing of the planet
Forests Without Frontiers, a non-profit dedicated to planting trees and reforesting degraded landscapes with support from a network of artists and musicians, as well as businesses and individuals working to become carbon-positive
The Sisters, a global network of women and women’s organisations, working together to create a more peaceful and sustainable future

Celo

Celo
Valora wallet
Celo: What if money were beautiful? (video, 1m20)
Celo's community tenets
An introductory guide to Celo. | The Celo Blog
Celo: Meet the team working on Celo (video, 2m23)
The Celo About page
Celo Camp 2020: Celo's Values with Sep Kamvar

"Currently, the world’s financial system excludes roughly 1 in 3 adults. At the same time, 6 billion smartphones will be connected by 2020 as these devices spread throughout emerging markets. Cryptocurrencies accessible on mobile phones hold great promise in bringing financial inclusion to the world’s underbanked.

Despite this potential, cryptocurrencies have still not significantly impacted these populations over the last 10 years. Using cryptocurrencies is still much too complex for the average person and price volatility makes them undesirable for merchants to accept as payment. Additionally, blockchain networks are often inaccessible to unbanked and underbanked populations due to data constraints from their mobile providers.

Inspired by extensive research in emerging markets and developing countries — Tanzania, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya — Celo is building a mobile-first blockchain platform alongside a suite of financial tools accessible to anyone with a basic smartphone. On this platform, value can be transferred faster and cheaper than traditional bank wires using globally accessible technology. Since cryptocurrencies are completely programmable, a wide array of financial services can be created without costly intermediaries."

5 potential innovations on money presented by Sep:

Universal Basic Income
Demurrage (decay in value encouraging circulation)
Natural capital backed currencies
Ecology of money: local, regional, national, sectoral
Debt-free money

Proof of Humanity UBI

"UBI is the first application to be built on top of the Proof of Humanity registry, an anti-Sybil attack tool designed by Kleros.

The UBI token will be streamed directly to an Ethereum address as long as it gets verified as a human in the Proof of Humanity registry and starts the accrual process, establishing a fair and ongoing distribution model. It will provide universal access to liquidity that serves to inhibit financial coercion of public decisions and will be tradeable in all open markets…

The value of UBI resides in its innovative fair distribution system based on human time. Such value is bound by two natural limiting factors: time [limited to 24 hours in a day] and population [limited to the number of humans on Earth].

This currency scales with population and is bound by the time such population exists. $UBI is a ‘missing currency layer’ necessary to put a value on time, and do so in an open, global market.

While we can't predict what the global market will determine as the fair market value of time, we can find some guideposts in existing fiat markets. For example, the minimum wage in the United States is $7.25. By transacting with UBI, you will effectively be “buying someone’s time”."

Circles UBI

"Circles is an alternative economic system that acts a bit like a basic income. Rather than wait for someone else, we can build our own economic systems to support each other, and in effect, give each other a basic income. Circles is intended to be a new kind of exchange, completely different than any kind of money in use today. It comes unconditionally, and grows in value based on communities. Circles tokens move through communities through ‘trust connections’.

The goals of this are to foster local economic interactions, and to value those things which are not seen, are invisible, or are not valued under our current system. Circles is building new networks to acknowledge those fundamental things that in the current system don't have a euro value."

Regen Network

Regen Network
Welcome to Regen Network [video]

"We bring together two cutting edge technologies: satellite driven earth observation science, and blockchain technology, to create the foundation of a new digital monitoring, reporting and verification system for ecological health."

Blockchain-based match funding

Panvala

From Meet Niran: The Civic Champion. Learn more about the CEO of Panvala

"Panvala is the sustainable treasury for communities to share. The share of PAN you hold is the share of Panvala's subsidies that your communities can enjoy in perpetuity… PAN is a digital endowment for your community.

There are currently 27 communities in the Panvala League who allocate 75% of Panvala’s quarterly inflation using donation matching, with 10.26x matching last quarter. We believe that Panvala’s treasury grows stronger the more we share it, so we aim to grow the Panvala League from sixteen communities to thousands."

"Panvala’s economics are modeled on Bitcoin, which funds the network using inflationary block rewards. When you hold BTC, you’re opting into a system where you know your holdings will be diluted up to the maximum supply of 21 million BTC to fund block rewards for miners. Similarly, Panvala’s stakers have opted into a system where they will be diluted up to a maximum supply of 100 million PAN, and the Panvala League’s communities allocate that inflation themselves."

Gitcoin

"Think of Gitcoin Grants as Ethereum’s largest crowdfunding platform – a crypto-enabled Patreon that is focused on financing the infrastructure of the new open financial internet. In the past 18 months over $4.5 million in funding has been distributed to public goods on Gitcoin Grants, culminating with $1 million given in the first two weeks of December."

Ethical banking

How to stop funding fossil fuels by moving to an ethical bank (Extinction Rebellion, 14m read – especially the 5 Steps to Positive Action)
Banks and their environment impacts (video)
Change your bank, change the world - Lily Cole (video)
Triodos Bank

Radical Philanthropy & Decolonising Wealth

Soul Fire Farm - Equity Guidelines and Reflection Questions for Foundations & Donors
Funding Movements by Ayni Institute
Knock, Knock. Radical Philanthropy Calling by Guerilla Foundation who is doing leading work in this area
Decolonizing Wealth by Edgar Villanueva
Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas
Peter Koenig : 'moneywork' - very highly regarded practitioner who works with people to heal trauma around money and uncover hidden biases and wounds in relation to money
Great Twitter thread from Tom Nixon on money work
Resource Generation - a movement and multiracial membership community of young people (18-35) with wealth and/or class privilege committed to the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power.

Session 5 homework

Review

Check out a few of the links/organisations/projects from the notes above and start/join a thread on something that excites you in #session-5.

Journaling in your learning log (5-10 minutes)

How would the world be different if every person was paid a Universal Basic Income sufficient to cover their needs? How would your life be different?
How would the world be different if stored money (both paper and electronic) decayed like organic matter?

Optional: Join the Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance #2 DAO on DAOHaus

Install Metamask
Add the xDai chain to Metamask
Get some XDAI on the xDai chain. Either:

Buy XDAI directly with fiat via Ramp, or
(Advanced users) Get some DAI on the Ethereum mainnet and transfer it to the xDai chain using the xDai Bridge

Exchange (wrap) at least 5 XDAI into WXDAI on Honeyswap
Make a Membership Proposal with the following parameters:

Title: [your name] would like to join the DAO

Shares requested: 1

Token tribute: 1 WXDAI

Session 5 recording

https://us02web.zoom.us/... passcode: uT^XX3Nf

Session 6 prep

Dear all,

Please find the recording of session 5 here. Passcode: uT^XX3Nf

We hope you're looking forward to the final session this Wednesday. The session will start at the usual time, but run for longer, from 15:00 UTC – 18:15 UTC.

From 15:00 – 16:00 UTC we'll be joined by the wonderful Daniel Wahl:

Daniel Wahl is an international consultant and educator specialising in biologically-inspired whole systems design and transformative innovation. He is a biologist (University of Edinburgh and University of California), holds an MSc in Holistic Science (Schumacher College) and a PhD in Design (CSND, University of Dundee, 2006).

Daniel has worked with local and national governments on foresight and futures, facilitated seminars on sustainable development for the UNITAR affiliated training centre CIFAL Scotland, consulted companies like Camper, Ecover and Lush on sustainable innovation, and has co-authored and taught sustainability training courses for Gaia Education, LEAD International and various universities and design schools.

Daniel currently works for Gaia Education and the SMART UIB project of the Universidad de las Islas Baleares. Triarchy Press published his first book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, in 2016.

From 16:05 – 18:15 UTC, the Unconference will take place, with three 40-minute slots each with 8 parallel sessions:

16:05 – 16:45 UTC

16:50 – 17:30 UTC

17:35 – 18:15 UTC

All sessions with at least 2 people interested have been scheduled. There's one spare slot in case you'd like to do some last minute upvoting. (If you're still not a member of the Dandelion gathering, join here!)

We went for 40 minute sessions as that's the limit for the free version of Zoom! IMPORTANT NOTE TO FACILITATORS: please add a Zoom link (or Google Meet, or Jitsi, or other videocall service) into the description of your activity.

We're so excited for you to all share your wisdom :) Any questions, feel free to ask in Slack.

See you on Wednesday!

Best,

Stephen & Phoebe

Q&A on SEEDS assignments

Recording: https://zoom.us/... Passcode: Fl=3Un.r

Submit a Campaign proposal on the SEEDS app

Fill out the SEEDS Co-op Proposals Self Assessment form
Attend a SEEDS Proposals Nursery session (usually 4pm UK time Wednesdays)
Check out an example of a proposal that passed (the one for this course!)
See other proposals that previously passed/failed by going to the Co-op section of the SEEDS app and switching from Open to Passed/Failed

Sign up to the SEEDS Ambassador Academy

Join the #ambassadors-general channel in the SEEDS Discord
Attend a SEEDS eTownhall New Ambassador Onboarding session

Help an organisation/business to accept payment in Seeds and write a short blogpost about the steps to do it

New, easy-to-use payment widgets coming soon! We will share in the Slack when they have been released
Until then, people can simply send Seeds to your username
To exchange SEEDS to fiat, try:

There are now a couple of decentralised exchanges where you can swap SEEDS for other cryptocurrencies:

tswaps.com
Uniswap (pSEEDS contract)

Further assistance

If you have checked the above links/joined the relevant meetings and still have questions, SEEDS Ambassador Matteo Tangi is happy to help:

Telegram: 0039 3926399439
Discord

Session 6 wrap-up

Hi friends,

You can find the spreadsheet keeping track of final assignments here. Please fill in your row in the sheet as you complete the tasks below. You have until Friday 23rd July to complete the necessary tasks (and receive your 4,800 Seeds!).

Required tasks (green headers in the sheet):

Complete the feedback form (note: this is a Google Form and is different to the automated Dandelion feedback form you may already have received)
Add a link to your learning log
Record and link to a sensemaking conversation about the course with a small number of other participants

And at least one of the following (blue headers):

Publish a 1000+ word blog post with reflections on the course
Set up a 4+ week learning journey for your community inspired by the content of the course (we would expect this would be at least 4 hours in total).
Submit a Campaign proposal on the SEEDS app
Sign up to the SEEDS Ambassador Academy
Help an organisation/business to accept payment in Seeds and write a short blogpost about the steps to do it

Reminder about Loomio threads

Competition idea: Thanks to Isabella Bruno for the popular suggestion to vote up artists based on their past work, then commission an artwork on the theme of the Regenerative Renaissance. Suggest artists and vote here by Friday
Marketing/promotion: Thanks to Guy James and Humberto Besso-Oberto Huerta for coming up with the popular idea of rewarding people who make relevant people/projects (perhaps those that feature in the notes) aware of the Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance course. We'll pay 100 SEEDS to the first 50 people who forward an email or send a link to a social media post introducing one or more other relevant people/organisations to the course to [email protected]
Bonus session: This discussion wasn't conclusive but Phoebe and I will look over the suggestions and reach out to someone with relevant expertise on one of the topics discussed for a reunion bonus session sometime in July/August.

And finally…

SEEDS session: For those interested in submitting campaign proposals on the SEEDS app, signing up to the SEEDS Ambassador Academy or helping an organisation/business to accept payment in Seeds, you can check the recording of a Q&A from our last course here. We are also arranging another live Q&A session, more details soon.
RenaissanceU wiki: We have a wiki at wiki.renaissance.university! This wiki is and will remain open source and accessible to all, with pages for each section of the course notes.

We look forward to reading your learning logs and blogs and watching your conversations!

Best,

Stephen and Phoebe

Bonus session with Rieki Cordon (SEEDS)

Hi friends,

Hope this finds you well and you’re having a good start to the week!

Here is the link to the recording of Session 6:

Meeting Recording:

https://us02web.zoom.us/...

Passcode: 3?$^6@v!

Bonus session with Rieki Cordon (SEEDS) on Wed 7th July

Join us for an hour-long introductory session on SEEDS with Rieki Cordon and fellow SEEDs citizens to learn about the inner workings of building an alternative, decentralised economy and financial platform on the blockchain. There will be a brief presentation from Rieki followed by a Q&A.

Time: Wednesday 7th July 16:00 - 18:00 BST

Here is the Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/s/86920695267

Interested in joining TRR as a steward or running your own TRR?

Phoebe and Stephen will be hosting a follow-up session on 21st July to field questions and host a discussion for people who are interested in joining the next iteration of Tools for Regenerative Renaissance as a Course Steward, or interested in running a local or adapted version of the course.

Time: Wednesday 21st July 16:30 - 18:00 BST

Here is the Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/s/84410645572

Completing final assignments and getting your 4,800 SEEDS

Required tasks (green headers in the sheet):

Complete the feedback form (note: this is a Google Form and is different to the automated Dandelion feedback form you may already have received)
Add a link to your learning log
Record and link to a sensemaking conversation about the course with a small number of other participants

And at least one of the following (blue headers):

Publish a 1000+ word blog post with reflections on the course
Set up a 4+ week learning journey for your community inspired by the content of the course (we would expect this would be at least 4 hours in total).
Submit a Campaign proposal on the SEEDS app
Sign up to the SEEDS Ambassador Academy
Help an organisation/business to accept payment in Seeds and write a short blogpost about the steps to do it

And finally…

RenaissanceU wiki: We have a wiki at wiki.renaissance.university! This wiki is and will remain open source and accessible to all, with pages for each section of the course notes.

We look forward to reading your learning logs and blogs and watching your conversations!

Best,

Phoebe, Stephen, Niki, Josh, Melina and Lawrence

Welcome & Session 1 prep tasks

Essential prep tasks for this session

Optional prep tasks for this session

A reminder of the ​graduation requirements

Recommended books

adrienne marie brown

Charles Eisenstein

Joanna Macy

Science Fiction & Solarpunk

Interdependence & Life

Indigenous Knowledge

Imagination & Regeneration

New Economics

New Ways of Organising

Cultural Development

Food & Farming

The Power of Myth

Ethical Technology

Recommended podcasts

Recommended films

Session 1 notes

Regenerative Agriculture

Permaculture

Soil

Rethinking Food Systems

Regeneration as a tool for community building

Community Supported Agriculture

Land restoration

Appropriate Tech

Land Justice & Food Sovereignty

Zero-waste & ethical eating

Microbiome & health

Microgrids and Virtual Power Plants

Decentralised Connectivity

Decentralised Dwellings

CNC/subtractive

3D-printed/additive

Session 1 homework

Session 1 recording

Session 2 prep

Session 2, part 1 notes: Ethical technology

Original vision of the Internet

Digital Public Infrastructure

Big Tech, the Tech Industry and Tech Evangelism

Open source and its importance

Some of the leaders in the field

Leading organisations in the field

Ethical Tech and Responsible Innovation

Algorithmic Bias and Justice

Race and technology

Digital Democracy

Digital Governance and Institutions

Epistemic Crisis

Decentralisation

Session 2, part 2 notes: Digital Tools for Collective Intelligence

Hylo

Loomio

Decidim

Polis

Dandelion

Hypothesis

Feedly

Topia

Obsidian

Homework

Session 2 recording

Session 3 prep

Session 3 notes

Slides

Toolkits

Reinventing Organisations, Teal & the work of Frederic Laloux

Enspiral, Ouishare & Networked Communities

Case studies of horizontal organisations

Buurtzorg: Dutch home-care organization with 15,000 employees

Morning Star: supplies 40% of the U.S. tomato market

Haier: global leader in white goods

Leadermorphosis podcasts on other organisations

Holacracy & Sociocracy

Roles & leadership in horizontal organisations

The role of Source

A reminder of the graduation requirements