Introduction

To say that we have a crisis is understatement.  There are no other planets that will nourish us, or heavens that we know for sure exist.  In all likelihood, we could well be living in a simulation run by a god, or even more probably, the rest of the universe is populated by peaceful civilizations who just aren't allowing us to participate for obvious reasons. 

Thought experiment.  Imagine we find that in orbit around Mars is a portal to another solar system, and in this system is a pristine earth-like planet populated by 100,000 peaceful garden-loving naturalists.  We arrive, but they think we're insane and demand that we leave their planet and never come back.  What happens?  You know what.  That's why we're not allowed to play on other planets.  

We like to think of our lives as a game; kill or be killed, get rich or die, relationship drama.  It's easier to think of life like this because it puts the realm of control within our own ability.  Anyone can attempt to escape their own suffering by achieving something amazing or making money.  It's commonly accepted that life is supposed to be pain and suffering, and that the goal is to rise above it, but I propose better.

The way we cope with violence and chaos is understandable, we have psychological defense mechanisms to protect us from things that we can't control.  Some people do rise above the confines of their personal struggle to speak out against neglect, exploitation, broken governments, broken companies, health crises, environmental atrocities; to raise awareness through documentary, to motivate people to fight legal systems to remedy every injustice - which we must agree is whack-a-mole at this point.  Problems are surfacing faster than we can solve them.

The truth is that the system is broken, and that the majority of the world's problems are systemic.  To re-engineer a broken system, we simplify.  Conveniently, I'm a systems engineer. 

It's understandably difficult to accept that things are so broken.  For one, we may have a lot of pride in our existing systems.  Many of us, especially those in powerful positions (with money), while maybe not so happy with the world, at least are partly sheltered from its problems.  

While some of us don't live in poverty, we all face certain serious issues in our day-to-day lives.  Our neighborhoods where our children and pets play are dangerous vehicle roadways.  Climate change is on the path to being out of control.  Consumer culture is overwhelming.  Mental health issues, drug use, alcoholism, and obesity are pandemic.  Violence and desperation in every sense are pervasive.

It's easy to agree with Darwin (more on him in a minute). We can say that other people make poor choices and that individually we can live the lives we want to live - live and let die, survival of the fittest.  It's easier to think of life as a game, one where we have to achieve something great for ourselves, rise above trauma, decrease our dependencies, eat healthier, be kinder or more ethical.  But in that self-centric spiritual path, we largely ignore group problems, global problems, perpetuating our out of control free-for-all socio-economy.

Biological evolution, originally theorized by Charles Darwin, clearly has been proven that for sure animals adapt to their environment.  It has further been proven that genetics can change as a result of this adaptation and be passed on through reproduction (Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton).  

Darwinism proposed a law of nature called “Survival of the Fittest”, wherein species of stronger animals survive and evolve while weak or unequipped ones die.  I fear that there has been some equation of this law to humans, and used as justification for various injustices and atrocities.  

Evolution occurs as we adapt to our environment, and we can control how we evolve by controlling our environment - if it is dangerous, our animal instincts will sharpen.  If it is peaceful, we will transcend.

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It's overwhelming to think about solving global problems.  Miss Universe says that she wishes for world peace, and we think that's cute but unrealistic - but there are real solutions, so long as we agree.

The best solutions are simple solutions.

We don't as humans want to sacrifice any of the things that we love.  We love nice things!  We've advanced in many ways as a civilization.  Industrially, technologically, agriculturally.  While there are surely shortcomings in each of these areas, the shortcomings are almost all based around the use of money.  

One of the wonderful things about how the economy currently works is that we work together!  We wouldn't have nice things without chains of companies, each producing their own part in a greater whole.  Almost every product has its materials suppliers as dependent entities, and that's great, we have been able to achieve great things.  

The problem, simply put, is that the system is too big.  As a result of that, we're working against each other instead of together. 

***

Violence and desperation are directly related.  

It may be sometime before we live in a non-violent world, one with no desperation.  But while we move toward that world, communities that want to stay safe can reduce their attack vector.  Reducing attack vector is a concept in cybersecurity by which you simply reduce the amount of ways that somebody can attack you.  To do so, we simplify the design of a network, strengthening its core.

Today we are attacked on the street, by telephone, by internet, at work, and almost always by strangers.  While it's true that sometimes families hurt each other, that behavior is a symptom wherein young adults are (rightly) enraged by their families and the world and act out of anger.  By the time we are adults, we learn to suppress our anger, which is of course not healthy either, resulting in a myriad of psychological disorders.

Having dignity is basic psychology.  We first need a foundation of physiological security, physical security, and most importantly, love and belonging.  Those are core needs.  Once love and belonging are achieved, we can move on to have self-esteem.  Once we've worked within the foundation of self-esteem, we can move toward attaining self-actualization.  This is known as the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs.

Figure: The Maslow Hierarchy of Needs

Beyond this, I once read an excellent book called Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization (Scott Barry Kaufman), which expanded on Maslow to suggest that there was one level higher.  

None of which is possible without a stable foundation.

Unfortunately, in this world, we are constantly displacing each other physically; in coming of age, divorce, lay off, or financial problems.  Our mental healths are compromised, and substance use is out of control.  This whole way we live is a cycle that feeds itself, a money free-for-all for lack of better design. 

The solution I call collectivism is to directly protect each other in large and capable groups.

We are stronger together.  But we can't just simply live together, because naturally we grow irritated with each other when we don't respect one another, or when we don't need one another.  The only way to nourish group bonding is by working together - to directly nourish each other's core needs.  This is healthy attachment.  Everybody needs everybody, and everybody feels needed.  And why should Johnny plumber be more important than one you can hire off the street?  Because living in collective means that groups are 100% internally self-sufficient.  We may buy products from outside, but never services.  

This kind of internal self-sufficiency is efficient.  Overall, as a civilization we will all work less by cutting out mega-infrastructure middle-man jobs and re-allocating our efforts to core needs.  For example (more to come later), it will allow our transportation networks to scale because everybody lives and works at home (while totally being free to visit or even move to other communities).  

Collectives should only be so large as you can reasonably know each other.

Collectives should be gated.

Collectives don't use roads or money internally.

Collectives should operate like companies, but feel like a family that is all living together in a resort.  

There are a lot of great things about how companies operate in the modern world, but there are also as many issues, such as intrusive advertising, consumer profiling, layoffs, unreasonable workloads, both employees and consumers are abused in many ways.

We can solve employee abuse problems by making more serious, sometimes even life-long, commitments to work and live together as friends & family.

In the equation of company and consumer, there's something worse going on.  Consumers do not or cannot consume responsibly, but companies are irresponsibly catering to them.  To solve the problem, we remove consumers from the equation by sheltering them behind the collective administration who manages all external trade, especially finances.  

Responsibly, collective companies will produce professional and academic style journal writing as their only form of advertising.  Other collectives in similar industries will formally peer-review and publicly critique products and methods.  Other collectives in consuming industries will consumer-review and provide formal public written commentary.  

Working for a collective should be something that you're often born into and that much of the time you die in.  Collectives that produce a highly important product will have the resources to build up their habitat in modern technological and architectural ways, while other collectives will be 100% externally self-sufficient (don't import or export).  Some collectives will exist in varying levels of self-sufficiency.  Individuals in collectives don't have or need money - money is managed by group administration and is only handled for import, export, and tax purposes.  

By taking money out of the hands of individuals, so are all the associated problems removed.

By living and working at home, together, we nourish foundational psychological healthy-attachment needs.

Because we prioritize self-sufficiency, we can avoid outrageously invasive and unreasonably expensive external transportation and economic networks.

Because we prioritize self-sufficiency, our stability and happiness is not dependent on strangers, business, or economy.

Figure: Traffic outside collectives

The core concept of a collective is to shelter citizens from mega-economy traffic via group self-sufficiency inside a gated community.  Everybody lives and works together at home, without the use of money.  The benefits of doing so are: 

So right off the bat we have some good news: Individuals no longer have to file taxes, are no longer targets of theft, and it's safe to let your kids and pets play outside.  To be able to offer this kind of protection to your family will restore the dignity of men. This kind of group psychological foundation will be a seed from which beautiful flowers blossom.