Every month we get comments and questions that get us thinking.
As we explore new demonstration project proposals, I think about questions we got while running our early demonstration projects.
Many people asked us this: “Are your demonstration projects places to live with like-minded people”? I presume the writer, by “like-minded”, meant people interested in living together in a sharing community.
The short answer is “No”, but I didn’t leave it at that because that short answer needs some fleshing out. There are good reasons why our implementation objective does not include creating small communities where the like-minded can live in relief from capitalism while the rest of humanity continues to have to deal with it.
Our main implementation objective is to create space where Copiosis can “compete” alongside capitalism, showing how both systems compare in terms of actual people living their everyday lives. We don’t want to create another intentional community or enclave where people can escape from capitalism. That’s small thinking. It’s also been done many, many times.
We prefer creating “like-minded” people from among ordinary people. We do that by inviting these people to participate in the context of their ordinary lives, in their communities, in a demonstration project large enough to include most resources they have in capitalism. How else can participants and observers compare the two systems?
Such experiments also move Copiosis participants through a psycho-social-emotional mindset shift critical to making Copiosis a worldwide reality. I believe when people see how radically better it is living in Copiosis, people will abandon in droves capitalism. That’s why all we want is the opportunity to compete fairly and equitably with capitalism.
A Psycho-social-emotional mindset shift
Here’s what I mean by that. We already know from previous project participant feedback, visceral, changes happen when people tangibly see what’s possible. World-views change so significantly a new reality opens to them. How does that happen?
When participants contrast what they experience earning a living alongside project experiences where they don’t have to do that, where they are out of debt, where they have nearly all their time available to them, and where almost anything they do – literally almost anything – affords them income, something unique happens. Their experience takes them beyond theoretical understanding. It creates a visceral clarity and a psychological break from stress and struggles of making ends meet.
It’s pretty profound getting meals offered without you paying the person offering. It’s pretty profound getting a ride from a stranger when you need it without you having to pay that person. It’s especially profound when you realize people providing things aren’t put out, instead, they’re rewarded well for what they do for you. Here are some quotes from our early project participants:
I’m finding that even though I’m not participating with the software as I had hoped and hope to, it is changing me psychologically. I’m much more aware of what I am doing with my money and how I am relating to people around that. And of the gifts being offered to me all the time.
I notice that I am claiming more of who I am because I am evaluating my activities based on the Copiosis Innovation. For instance I had lunch with a friend and spent an hour talking about her kids and listening. She told me that she benefited from our conversation which got me thinking about how natural this comes to me. So I created it as an item in the demo project. We experience life through who we know ourselves to be and the project helps clarify and update my identity. I like what I have to give and it makes me want to give more.
I’m so inspyred about theze sweet tranzaxionz!!! My heart iz bursting with joy. A profound realization for me… a whole list of thingz I kan “afford” smile emoticon I feel lyke a freakin kid in a kandy store. This konnexion, this abundanse. This projekt haz been profoundly helpful to meeting my needz for purpose, kontribution, belonging, kommunity, growth, harmony, awareness, appreshiation. My strengths az an individual seem to really shyne in kopiosis in a way that the old paradigm/sosiety haz never provyded the spase for. Witnessing intelligent feedbak about the nature of the net benefit my passionz kreate provydez me with an aknowledgement and rekognition the lykes of which i have never known. To which i respond with a DEEP inner relaxing/softening that iz so very soothing indeed.
If our early demonstration projects created such transformations, imagine what can happen when an entire city puts on a project where hundreds of thousands of people can participate?
Our intention with Copiosis is to change the entire world. Not just create places where people can escape.
Such profound and lasting psycho-social-emotional shifts are exactly what will happen when our new projects get underway. I’m excited because our new projects will be far better than our first two. I expect better results too.