This is a short story based on how Copiosis works. It examines several questions people often ask about our innovation. While speculative fiction, the story relies on how we expect Copiosis operates. So this is not a far-fetched story. It can be how everyone’s life goes in a system where people don’t have to earn a living and instead follow their dreams.
Sally is a college senior. She dreams of a happy future where she enjoys living in her ideal location. This location includes a beautiful cottage on a couple of acres surrounded by farmland. Sally graduates this year with a degree in oceanographic studies. Her eagerness about her future fills her with anticipation.
Sally may have gotten that degree because she felt pressured to do so. Maybe people told her that path leads to success. Perhaps oceanography is her passion. Or maybe she pursued that educational path to satisfy her parents admonition that she get a college degree, even though the world stood ready to DRAMATICALLY change, making a “college degree” less valuable.
Signs everywhere today show how little a college degree matters for most people when it comes to leading successful, happy, fulfilling and rewarding lives. In Copiosis following dreams creates best lives.
Sally’s dreams include pursuing something exciting in her field of study and also living in a “cottage community” somewhere on the eastern coast of the United States. She decides on Hilton Head, South Carolina, a place known for its beautiful scenery, rustic architecture, and close knit community.
Copiosis creates opportunity for all
She makes her intentions known on the internet and a host of coordinators descend in her inbox. They offer all kinds of help with her move. They offer physical transportation, packing, relocation services, and more.
All these people do so proactively because they will get NBR if they help Sally nestle into her new place. What’s more, Sally needn’t pay any of these people anything. That’s because Copiosis awards them when they benefit Sally.
Now, it’s unreasonable a 22 year old right out of college would live in a home by herself on multiple acres. Especially in a well established, in demand place like Hilton Head, South Carolina. Many other people with far more life success want to live there.
So any 22 year old expecting that kind of house in a high-demand location likely will not find what they look for there. That’s why most coordinators contacting Sally discourage her from looking at Hilton Head as a place to relocate. They suggest she starts with less ambitious intents and go from there.
But one coordinator stands out. Mabel lives in Hilton Head, loves the place and has lived there all her life. So she knows the place like the back of her hand. She also knows everyone who lives there and what’s going on in terms of future development. She even knows people thinking about offering living spaces who haven’t made their intentions publicly known.
Sally tastes her dream
Mabel invites Sally to tour Hilton Head with her. Sally agrees. She fills her car’s tank, points her car to Hilton Head and relaxes while the car does the rest.
Hours later, she meets Mabel at a coffee shop. They order coffee, the barista brings it to their table. There’s no paying as coffee is necessity food. Sally and Mabel talk about Sally’s needs/wants. Mabel disabuses her of her unreasonable dreams, telling her living in such a scenario can happen, but it will take a while.
Sally remains optimistic. With age on her side, there’s no rush. Still, her optimism masks slight disappointment over not getting what she wants immediately. Like most people, Sally still harbors impatience about her future dreams.
That’s not to say Sally doesn’t enjoy life. Several net benefit rewards (NBR) streams from a number of sources create an ongoing, comfortable amount of NBR in her account. So much she could enjoy nearly any luxury available. Where did her riches come from?
Her birth generated tremendous net benefit value (NBV) for her parents and their parents. When her younger brother came into the world, Sally babysat him so her parents could do things they couldn’t otherwise do. She tutored in college, sat on the student government council, loved helping her younger brother negotiate high school, and even saved a friend from suicide. She also increased gender representation on college campus by acting as a student college recruiter. All these things generate ongoing, healthy NBR incomes. Those incomes fill her account each awards cycle.
So while Sally cannot fulfill her housing dreams at the moment, she has plenty of resources allowing an enjoyable and fulfilling leisure life.
She gets her first opportunity
Mabel first introduces Sally to a number of people with openings in organizations they run. There are no “jobs” in Copiosis, just opportunities to do things that increase net benefit value for others. The local Whole Foods Store manager, for example, contacted Mabel weeks ago. He hoped she would coordinate young people into Hilton Head who would help the manager run the store.
But community organizations, non profits, recycling centers, and even some entrepreneurs working in Hilton Head remotely also need additional help. So while there may be a shortage of places to live in Hilton head, many opportunities exist where a person can create net benefit value.
One such opportunity strikes Sally’s fancy. Mabel introduces Cliff, an entrepreneur. Sally impresses Cliff and he offers her an assistant position. He created something with huge regional potential around climate change and coast preservation and needs help fielding it.
While promising, it needs further development. Still Sally likes what she hears. And even though she knows nothing about business, she learns fast and all her extra-curricular activities taught her skills she could use as an assistant.
Mabel, of course, will get NBR once Sally starts helping Cliff. So Mabel gets excited. Cliff does too.
Cliff owns a beautiful house he bought before the transition. It sits right on the beach. Cliff made a lot of money while working in Silicon Valley over 30 years. Today, he enjoys creating his own ideas while living in the bucolic living conditions Hilton Head affords.
Sally settles in…or does she?
He shows Sally where she’d stay: a nice guest house in back, which Sally really likes! Cliff gets NBR for housing Sally of course. That is, should she accept the offer.
Next, Mabel introduces Sally to local necessity providers. Doctors, clinics, grocers, convenient stores, and even a couple of boutique clothiers dot the main street. Second hand stores, small department stores and such fill in other spaces around town in between art stores, candy shops and over tourist attractions. In short, plenty of necessity providers exist, so Sally needn’t worry about anything.
Mabel, of course gets NBR for these introductions and for bringing in a new face to her community. Everyone who meets Sally feels she’d make a perfect community addition.
For lunch, Mabel takes Sally to a local grocery where they select items from the deli counter. They go to the check out and pass their phones over the items. Their phones recognize the transactions and search via bluetooth or WIFI for the grocery’s check out terminal. Once connected, items they chose get transferred to their ownership, while the same items get checked off the grocery’s ownership.
Everyone involved in stocking the grocer with those goods gets NBR the moment Mabel and Sally take ownership of their foodstuffs.
Sally and Mabel go to a local park, consume their deli meals and enjoy an afternoon in the ocean air. Mabel told Sally she could stay at her place, so she gets NBR for hosting Sally the few days she spends in Hilton Head fact-finding.
Then something remarkable happens. Sally’s AI pings her. In her inbox an email from from a guy named Gustav Virdonis appears. Gustav’s email offers Sally something she can’t believe.
Dreams come true for everyone
Gustav is a french herpetologist who lives in Mexico. He found Sally through a system of coordinators helping connect scientists with lay people, Gustav says in his email.
Gustav runs a program where lay people discover natural wonders through a program he created for exactly that purpose. The program centers on his global sea turtles studies. Gustav invites Sally on a year-long adventure, traveling the world on “THE HUNTRESS” a sailing vessel that tracks turtle migrations so humanity can better understand sea turtle populations.
Gustav’s work gained much attention last year, and he expects he will win many awards for his work, but he’s not there yet. Still, his backers see promise and provide Gustav with tools and equipment he needs, including S/V THE HUNTRESS. He just needs bodies to help crew the boat and assist with the work.
Sally is floored! Of course, Sally need pay nothing to take advantage of Gustav’s offer. All her needs get covered and she’ll even get NBR for her contributions.
She tells Mabel about the opportunity. Mabel is disappointed of course. She won’t get NBR she thought she’d get, but she did get some for introducing Sally to Hilton Head.
Cliff isn’t disappointed though. Being an entrepreneur, he understands the nature of dream opportunities. He wishes Sally well as they bid good bye.
The rest of the story ends like it began
Decades later, Sally loves the sea. She’s traveled the world not only studying turtles, but also other sea life. She’s seen some of the most interesting places on the planet. Her work made her well-known in her own right and the work she’s done accumulated an impressive number of NBR streams.
So much so, she no longer needs to work. She’s kept in touch with Cliff and became friends with him. She’s still in love with Hilton Head and Cliff knows this, which is why he told her that a little bungalow became available recently. It’s not on the beach, but it is on two acres. If she hurries, he tells her, she can get it, as the owner, who lived there all her life, is ready to give it up. Cliff knows this person, told her about Sally and her accomplishments, and the elderly widow wants to meet her.
We’ll end the story there as everyone lived happy and at ease. Except the widow, who died shortly after transferring her property to Sally. 😊