The successful build things

The successful build thingsI speak with probably hundreds of people a month about Copiosis.  Last week, someone on Facebook claimed our two demonstration projects underway were not indications of progress.  This week, another person claimed that our projects in no way represent progress towards the RBE.  Both of these people believe that just because people aren’t giving up their use of the dollar and immediately moving on to Copiosis, Copiosis is a failure.

Clearly these people don’t recognize how things become “successes” in everyday reality, yet people like them are continually encouraging me to “Get real.”

The reality of Copiosis is that we are constantly trying new ideas along the path of our transition plan.  We have no idea what will inspire people en masse to start using our innovation.  So long as we continue trying things in the real world, we are guaranteed to succeed.  I’m not confident about this because I’m wishfully thinking.  It’s just that every single success we have today has been a result of the messy process of trying something, failing, and continuing to try new things.

This is why, this week in a separate conversation I mentioned how important it is to get something real, tangible, and demonstrable going in the real world and to get people to interact with that thing.  It’s also why I tell TZM and TVP supporters why Copiosis is the best hope for the Resource-Based Economy.  Every successful thing, at some time early on, began with a prototype.  So when I see what TZM and TVP have done in fifty years or, rather, what they haven’t done in that much time, I’m pretty confident that they will in no way achieve their goal of making the RBE a reality.  They haven’t created a single thing in the real world.

By contrast, let’s look at Auroville. If you haven’t looked at this community and you support getting the world off capitalism, you should.  Auroville began as an idea 50 years ago. What they have accomplished since then is impressive.  Curiously, they’ve been around as long at TZM and TVP have been around.  What differentiates Auroville from TZM and TVP?  They got on with creating something tangible, real, and demonstrable in the real world right away.  The result is obvious.

A TZM supporter this week criticized Auroville, claiming they haven’t achieved their goal.  It’s a valid critique that misses the point of what Auroville represents.  The point is, they started right away with something real and demonstrable.  As a result, fifty years later, they are thriving and so is their community. Auroville’s ideal is now reality.  It may not be fully realized, but they are enjoying more success making their ideal a reality in ways that make TVP’s and TZM’s progress seem almost nonexistent.

Copiosis has been around for a little over 2 years. That’s .5% as long as Auroville, TVP, and TZM.  In that small amount of time, we not only have one demonstration underway, we have two underway, with many more in the planning stages.  We have working software, a working algorithm and many people volunteering.  We are known around the world, albeit in small numbers.  Our volunteers aren’t just talking about what we’re doing.  They’re actually building tangible things in several parts of the world.  Imagine where we’ll be in 50 years.

There’s value to talk.  There’s value to promotion.  Nothing is as convincing, however, as a concrete, tangible demonstration of the idea you promote.  Nothing gets you to success more quickly than a tangible demonstration.  We’re following in the footsteps of Auroville.  Now you see why I’m so confident in what we’re doing. We understand how things become successes.

2 thoughts on “The successful build things

  1. What’s with the bad mouthing of TZM and TVP? TZM hasn’t been around for 50 years and it already has inspired hundreds of thousands of people. It’s hard to prove but I’m pretty sure that it’s thant’s to TZM that technological unemployment is now a problem starting to be accepted in mainstream media and also that people like Stephan Hawking is saying that capitalism is dangerous along with the singularity. Inspiring and educating is the first step and that is what TZM and TVP are doing.

    1. Hi Marcus,
      You’re right TZM and TVP have generated a lot of awareness about a new possibility, one that can be our reality. Hundreds of thousands of people are aware of it as a result. However, as one who has been following trends such as the work of Kurzweil, Drexler and others, I don’t believe that TZM is responsible for getting people to notice that technological unemployment is a growing problem. Kurzweil through his Singularity doctrine and Drexler with his Engines of Creation, and others (who are more mainstream compared to TZM and TVP) have done far more to influence public and political perception. These people are actually advising political and industrial leaders and publishing documentation (proven to be accurate) about the singularity curve, nanotechnology and other technologies that are actually responsible for technological unemployment. They aren’t offering theories or hypothesis. They have and continue to actually build things, and they have credibility because of that. I would say TZM and TVP both, are advocacy organizations. They haven’t built a thing, and, their supporters are tiring of the lack of any tangible progress towards the RBE beyond advocacy. There is a role for advocacy and those organizations serve that role well. But they are not transition implementation organizations.

      That said, we are grateful for the work they’ve done to pave the way. We at Copiosis don’t claim to have the answer for getting to the RBE. But, we have solutions to problems TVP and TZM don’t even consider, let alone answer as far as I can tell. And we’re in the process of doing the hard, personally challenging work of actually building projects that can demonstrate our solution can get us far along the road to an actual, global RBE. Many TZM and TVP supporters agree with us.

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