CRC Civilization Recovery Center

CRC Civilization Recovery Center

Postby tahanson43206 » Fri Aug 14, 2015 6:27 pm

A CRC (Civilization Recovery Center) could be created in multiple locations around the Earth.

Such a center could gain practical experience establishing viable communities of displaced persons.

Populations of displaced persons often include skilled practitioners of a wide variety of skills, as well as knowledgeable persons in a wide variety of fields.

The challenge for Civilization Recovery Centers is to guide displaced populations to establish efficient, crime free, comfortable, secure communities in locations acceptable to natives.

Areas acceptable for settlement by displaced persons are (frequently if not always) considered undesirable by natives.

Therefore, the challenge for CRC teams is to guide groups of displaced persons toward building viable communities in locations not valued by others.

While sunlight falls universally on desirable surface and undesirable, physical resources are NOT distributed equally.

Accordingly, new communities must quickly establish the ability to trade goods and services valued by others, in order to secure needed supplies.

The practical exercise of helping displaced populations today and in future will surely help to build up resilience to meet "real" disaster should it occur.

(th)
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center

Postby germanforestgump » Fri Aug 14, 2015 8:37 pm

This is the most interesting concept of making the idea of "the Knowledge" useful!

As an example of such Centers we could see the kurdish kantons in North Syria as Rojava:
They try very hard to build up democratic communities surrounded by brutal enemies.

In Germany i think about putting seedlings of this concepts into refugee camps and supporting groups.
In Trier, there is the first station for asylum seekers totally overcrowded,
so the local authorities and ngo´s have build up 3 big tents in a former military casern near a little city 30 km from my home, for at first over 300 people.
When the buildings are finished at End of October, it is planned for about 800 people.
The construction company who is the owner of this area, is engaged in renewable energies (esp. solar and biomass).
Near Airport Hahn, there are also big refugee camps.

Yesterday i brought some clothings, toys and books to the new station (f.e. "Why Nations Fail" in english).
I think about evolving something like a net of "international libraries" in these refugee camps.
I´m shure it will be used by the refugees who are not allowed to go to work and suffer under boring very much.
Of course, "The Knowledge" in any language available will have a prominent place in every such library!

A little problem is the fact that i don´t have the permission to go into this station until now.
(Because of the necessary security order.)
So i don´t have the control about what happens with the things i spend.
But nevertheless i am optimistic that i will find a way...
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center: Refugees

Postby tahanson43206 » Sat Aug 15, 2015 3:14 pm

In reply to germanforestgump:

Thank you, Hans, for telling us of your actions taken to try to help the first wave of 300 refugees in the new center located near your home!

Thank you for the inspiring idea of sharing books, along with (perhaps) more traditional gifts such as clothing.

In these actions, you are showing the kind of ACTIVE leadership that (it seems to me) is needed to begin to address the needs of displaced populations around the world.

In the United States, it seems that generosity can be stifled by costs. For example, thousands of books (if not millions) are cycled out of libraries every year, but the cost of shipping them overseas where they would be treasured by young and old prevents their distribution, and they are destroyed instead.

I wonder if the ? military ? leaders who are managing the new refugee centers would be receptive to the Build a Community idea?

Such an idea would be a small scale "Nation Building" exercise, which so many in the United States are reluctant to undertake. Can we do "Village Building" instead?

(th)
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center: Peace Corps

Postby tahanson43206 » Sat Aug 15, 2015 3:37 pm

In further reply to germanforestgump ...

Hans,

Does Germany have anything like the American "Peace Corps". I ask because "Village Building" would be a good fit for a mission for an organization with the backing of government that has a mission similar to the "Peace Corps".

To "Build a Village", the agency would go beyond merely meeting the immediate needs of a population for food, water, minimal shelter and minimal health care.

Such an agency would interview each member of the new population (of EVERY age, WITHOUT distinction), in order to determine the intellectual needs to insure optimum development into productive citizens, as well as the existing skills and knowledge that could be harnessed IMMEDIATELY in an economic enterprise.

The well known capitalist trait of trying to find populations willing to work for rock bottom wages would certainly be satisfied by a refugee population without any income at all. A supervising agency could (presumably) balance the immediate opportunity for employment in useful activity against the long term potential of growth for the individual and for the "village".

At some point, the "village" should be able to assume responsibility for its collective decision making, and thus be able to negotiate with capitalist management to improve their situation,

(th)
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center

Postby germanforestgump » Sun Aug 16, 2015 2:52 pm

In Germany we have a very various range of governmental and non-governmental big, medium and small organisations.
What may match the peace-corps, is the "Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst"("german evolving service").
The two big christian churches have own corps, "Misereor" und "Brot fuer die Welt".

For inner germany, there had been the "Zivildienst" as an alternative to the military service.
By changing the military service from a duty of every man to a profession, the Zivildienst is cancelled;
instead that is a voluntary "Bundesfreiwilligendienst".
But it is not an attractive alternative if you are able to get a job in the "real" economy.
One reason is the small possibility to realise own ideas and make career - you stay a knight of the organisation who engages you.
So many creative people prefer to found their own projects.

In general, Germany is very narrow populated and overbureaucratised.
It is impossible to get the permission to found a new little village on a piece of wasted land.
(It had been easier for a trust to build an atomic energy station than for a group of people to build some tiny wooden houses into the landscape.)
So most projects have to lend, buy or occupy already existing buildings, often ruined by their owners to get the permission to destroy them and build expensive new commercial objects (f.e. the "Westend"-quarter in Frankfurt and the "Hafenstrasse" in Hamburg.)
Around such precare buildings, the pioneers try creative ways around the restrictive settlement rules by living in tents and wagons.
In the resulting conflicts, the state is always on the side of the wealthy possessors, and the pioneers has learned to fight against him.

In the 1970ths, it was quite common to found "Landkommunen" and alternative city projects.
Most of them has disappeared or changes their character to normal familiy businesses.
There are some few resilient projects like the oekodoerfer "Speyer", "Sieben Linden" and the "Kommune Niederkaufungen".
They try to transfer their founding knowledge to the new generations by seminars and give assistance to new projects.

To this new pioneer generation, the "transition town movement" has given new impulses.
Meanwhile, the generation of the first pioneers is arrived in the institutions and is more open-minded.
Others are established and have the capital to found new city quarters on the official (very expensive) way, f.e. in Freiburg.
A strong motivation for this generation is becoming older in autonomy and not to end in that terrible homes for old people.

Twenty years after the reunion of the two germanys, the eastern part is somewhere depopulated and would give much space and chances to evolve new forms of community.
But this chances are in danger because of the stranger-hating attitude of a big part of the local population.
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center: Challenges

Postby tahanson43206 » Sun Aug 16, 2015 4:57 pm

In reply to germanforestgump ...

Hans, thank you VERY much for your detailed discussion of the challenges that would face anyone (or any group) who would wish to try to meet the needs of a (small) population of refugees by setting up a functional village.

That appears (to me at least) to be essentially what is happening in United Nations refugee camps, except that the services provided are minimal, and the "management" has no intention (or even vision) of establishing a working, self-sustaining community.

My guess is that everyone involved hopes that the troubles that led to the exodus will fade away, so that everyone can go home.

An alternative is to live at sea .... One of the initial goals of the Living Universe Foundation (was and still is) to establish full time living accommodations at sea, as a testing stage for moving out into the more rigorous environment of space.

However, as a speaker on The Space Show with Dr. David Livingston reminded the audience recently, NO ONE has lived out an entire life "at sea". On the other hand, entire generations have come and gone living on rivers in Asian countries, and perhaps in South America as well, although my knowledge of such living in South America is sketchy.

A floating accommodation for a community was "guessed at" by Kevin Costner in his ambitious film effort, "Waterworld".

If social conditions for Germany are as difficult you have described them to be, then do you think there would be a social "happiness" to build self-sustaining community platforms at sea, for the current and future refugees?

Surely creative architects (of whom a "few" surely remain in Germany) could devise comfortable, seaworthy, self-sustaining floating accommodations for refugee populations.

The costs of the investment could be recovered IF the communities are designed to NOT ONLY sustain themselves by growing food, but to ALSO produce products or services valued by others, and thus available for trade.

The vessels could be flagged by Germany, and thus remain a way of keeping "in touch" with the populations. More importantly, the German flag would protect these (hypothetical at this point) communities from pirates and other inimical forces.

(th)
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center

Postby germanforestgump » Tue Aug 18, 2015 1:33 pm

Hi, Tom, short response, because i have to go to job again:

Better for integration is the mixing of refugees into prospering living quarters instead of "ghettos" outside.
The freedom to move for any individual will bring optimal results because every person will move to that place where she gets best support to bring in her talents.

Living on ships/water is very expensive.
It takes an infrastructure on shore for supply and hightech to realise elaborated autonomous ressource management.
You need an economic basic, realisable on open sea like fish catching/breeding/manufacturing, or gaining maritime ressources.
That are very specialised and capital intensive activities which are mostly already occupied by diverse economic actors.
They will not be willing to share their rights and chances on the already overexhausted and endangered oceans.
Maybe there is an unoccupied chance by earning the plastic rubbish on sea and recycle it...

I thought about founding a touristic crossing ship company ruled by the rohingias who are thrown out from Myanmar which no other country will have.
But who will give the capital and train this people?

Besides, the german ship register is so expensive and overregulated that most german reeders prefer to flag out their ships to panama or other cheap tax oases.
That gives me the idea that stateless floating refugee communities may find a chance by the funktion of tax oasis...
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center

Postby Maurice Goldsmith » Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:59 pm

Tom & Hans

Respect for grappling with the difficult problem of displaced populations, which is impacting Europe right now. I'm thinking that living on water deals with the problem of lack of land, but North Africa, where many of the migrants are setting off from has plenty of land, it's just not inhabitable. This made me think of this video clip by Geoff Lawton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywoVj4z4doE describing a project in the Arizona desert in America where large "swales" were constructed to trap water. 80 years on they are fertile green oases. I'm sure there would be political issues in finding the land repeating the project, but perhaps the pressures building up along Europe's southern borders could provide the impetus to make it work. Other videos by the same guy suggest that it's not necessary to wait 80 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sazhRzEV2Y

Maurice
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center

Postby germanforestgump » Sun Aug 23, 2015 12:52 pm

Hello Maurice,
i think around the mediterranean sea the Israeli´s have the most elaborate technics to save and distribute rare water and to produce it by seawater dissalting.
Whether it is possible to transfer this technics to other regions, this depends on at least three main factors:

- knowledge: the presence of people who are competent to implement these technics,
- capital: for to invest into the wages of this people and into the technical hardware,
- security and stability: the lack of these factors is the main obstacle to invest capital and knowledge into a specific region.

Corruption and war are destroying historic irrigation technics (f.e. canals and viaducts) and traditional local knowledge about the management of rare water ressources who kept regions alive for some thousands of years.

Conclusio:
Without stopping corruption and war and without reconstructing/implementing institutions(*) which will guarantee the retourn of investments into common goods and their fair distribution, even the most elaborated irrigation technic will be useless.
(*edit: for implementing institutions see the work of Elinor Ostrom: "Governing the Commons", today supported by this "commons movement strategy center":
http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/el ... g-commmons )

There is a second aspect:
the export of "virtual water" in form of water-intensive products from dry regions to wealthy regions.

In most dry regions the water would be enough for the self-reliance of a fitting population-number with a region-specific lifestyle.
But todays economic structures motivate a capital-strong elite to occupy land and water-ressources for to produce water-intensive crops for export.
They let their traditional working neighbours fell dry and at last chase them from their land.

So is the mad situation that in our well-rained green landscapes of middle Europe the children of Farmers have to leave their farms, earning their money in a buerocratic job, consuming products which are produced by water-ressource and slave exploitation in dry regions.

It needs a reformation for earning money by solar-powered administration jobs in well-climatisied offices in hot dry regions, consuming food from the green areas.

But the most important aspect before all the others is to stop or at least minimalise climate change!
Without this all the other efforts will be obsolete!

Obviously, the capitalistic market economy is too short-minded to set the right impulses for that transformation.
So it is the challenge for the civil society of the world to create rules and nudges for a sustainable economy.
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Re: CRC Civilization Recovery Center

Postby Maurice Goldsmith » Sun Aug 23, 2015 4:26 pm

Tom & Hans

I'm impressed by the way this forum is provoking lots of ideas which are relevant not only to post-apocalyptic times but also to our current situation. My own view, which I've mentioned before, is that the apocalypse is already happening around us in (relatively) slow motion.

Hans - I agree with your analysis that the situation is bad because of social problems such as corruption and war, and I'd add greed. This is partly the reason I want to understand consciousness better - unless we know why we do these things as a species there's no point moving to a different place, whether it be on the sea or in space, we'll merely take our demons with us.

Tom - You made the point in a previous post that this forum should be about actions, not just talk. I totally agree, and given that I possibly have 10-15 years of useful work left in me, I'm focussing on what I can achieve in that time. My personal aim is my consciousness project, and that is taking shape, with some new insights emerging and a new volunteer joining the team in the past week. Since the project depends on IT I'm also keen to collaborate with anyone who is working on ways to preserve our technological capacity, but I don't think this is something I could do on my own. I've entertained trying to acquire a derelict mill and turn it into a storage space for a wide range of technical solutions, but realistically I don't have the time or resources to do this properly.

There are big issues which Europe will need to deal with urgently, such as the refugee crisis. They are going to have to do something or the European experiment will collapse - already a barbed wire fence is being erected along Hungary's border. The danger is that they will throw billions of euros at the problem and make it worse. I would have thought that working with one or more of the North African countries to green the desert could be viable, but I'm no expert at permaculture so it's not something I plan to involve myself with. I would have thought a low-tech water conservation solution like the Arizona swales could be combined with an organisation that empowers the refugees themselves to solve the problem (something along the lines of the Grameen Bank).

Maurice
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