Global Swadeshi Dialogues - Marcin (Open Source Ecology) and Vinay (Hexayurt Project)

[Vinay Gupta]

Here are some links from Marcin about specific elements of the Open Source Ecology picture.

1. Global Village Construction Set (and weblog):
http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=198't

2. Open Source Technology pattern language:
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Pattern_Language

3. Development page:
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=CEB_Press
and overview:
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Overview

4. Year 1 of our Life at Factor e Farm
http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=First_Year_at_Factor_e_Farm

5. Economic model:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/steve_bosserman/2008/02/09/giving_i...

Enjoy! We'll do another next week, with Smari McCarthy, who's doing work establishing Fab Labs in Iceland, among many other things!

[Smári McCarthy]

This interview is brilliant... towards the end there's this point where you just go, "Ah, yes. Of course."

I've been aware of what Marcin is doing for about a year now, but listening to this I kind of got a feeling like I was exploring a tech tree in a real time strategy game - you pitch OpenFarmTech against the traditional tech tree and see who wins. Bootstrap your team with a multi-tractor and expand from there.

Good job, and I'm looking forward to next week's edition.

[Vinay Gupta]

So who's watched this week's interview? Any thoughts or follow up questions?

[Josef Davies-Coates]

I just watched it.

I've been following Marcin's work for some time now, so not much new to me but still good to see video content created.

I think perhaps a little shorter and with some pre-planned questions (and some prepared-ish questions) would result in richer content.

Great start to the interviews though, looking forward to the next one!

And I'm up for being interviewed too :)

[Vinay Gupta]

Hey, well, I'm done with interviews for this month - the idea was that I'd do one or two a month, and people in the network would interview each other and post them :-)

We're trying to get something sorted out with the folks from Appropedia for next week, do you want to do an interview / be interviewed the week afterwards?

If so, there's a thread here:

http://www.globalswadeshi.net/forum/topic/show?id=2097821%3ATopic%3...

Just sign up and go :-)

[Vinay Gupta]

http://agroinnovations.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,182/p,3...

Podcast with Marcin, via Agricultural Innovations. It's Quite Good Stuff :-)

[Mamading Ceesay]

Just watched this with a friend who happens to have a background in farming. We were hugely inspired and it's fueled much discussion. I met Marcin a few years ago at a conference in Vienna, so it was great to hear from the video about the success he's been having in designing and building the technology that bring his ideas to life.

[Marcin Jakubowski]

Mamading, good to hear from you. What's your discussion about over the ocean? What is your latest activity related to this subject?
Marcin

[Mamading Ceesay]

Thinking about how to maximize the propagation and application of the emerging ideas and technologies that our community creates, while the old paradigm is still incumbent.

Looking at things like local food and fuel production in the city and how to create the right kind of environment for that.

[Mamading Ceesay]

We particularly liked the bit about only really needing "sun, dirt and water" as raw materials.

[Fabio Barone]

Brilliant conversation, well done guys!

That is how I see the future: A diversity of self-reliant (like your distinction between self-reliance and self-sufficiency, Marcin) places which live the way they want to providing for their local needs according to their choices and availability of resources. Local (bioregional) economy could be further strengthened through local currencies (nested currencies providing for interregional and global transactions).

Knowledge would be spread through the use of the network. Ideas are free, and technology diffuses through open source (that's why I don't like companies like nanosolar, Vinay, who sit on their patents).

I'd like to offer some debate though:
We can certainly localise and build up self-reliance for a lot of things: food production, energy, fuels (plants, algaes, etc.), building materials, and useful products like (bio)plastics, etc.

How do we go about other stuff, like trains, or even planes (if propulsed cleanly), or harddisks (got your wafer from clay Marcin, but can we get that done everywhere?), cell phones, etc.

How do we link all these wonderful self-reliant places together? How do we get the "big things"? Do we need them at all?

Thank you for any thoughts

[Vinay Gupta]

My picture is five or six major industrial zones - west coast, east coast, bits of europe, bits of asia - which do the things which can't be done locally. A handful of highly concentrated, highly integrated industrial manufacturing centers - probably very, very urban - with perhaps 20% or 30% of the global population, plus endless villages and small towns built at a much more regional level.

[Fabio Barone]

Ok, sounds good, thanks.

I agree that the city won't disappear. By building up strong and attractive rural (agri-industrial and food focused, for small scale regional production) economies, the drive towards city-migration could be counteracted, while still offering the cultural and meeting/melting-point/market-place qualities of the city.

Maybe there would be more industrial zones though - why shouldn't south america or africa or australia have one then...Especially when looking at decentralisation and self-determination ofsocial structures (thinking of your state in a box).

Taking a bioregional approach, could it be a network of bioregions, each of those composed of villages/small towns; then depending of the bioregion, which sometimes can be very big, the urban centers would naturally tend to be very big, while smaller bioregions (valleys, etc.) would have smaller units?

Finally, congratulations for taking up questions on Gandhi and spiritual elements in the interview. If we want to have a healthy planet, we'll need to overcome the sense of separation between us and nature (which is all one), and starting to see the connections. Mutual cooperation (see open source) has the potential to break the overweighed monetary focus.