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RE: We Need to Decentralize Scientific Research!
Could you imagine the modern IRB reviewing a research grant proposal from Charles Darwin?
". . . so you want to sail around the world for three years, on an obsolete battleship, visiting deserted islands to just look at . . . birds?!"
"Well if you put it that way . . . "
"Absolutely not! Proposal rejected!"
Absolutely love it!! I would start a crowd-funding campaign for him :)
Although I have some differences in opinion from his findings or conclusions drawn from his findings they were never-the-less revolutionary and helped propel our understandings! So, he gets $20 from my pocket to fund his sailing adventure!
I guess in the framework of NeighborGood, major scientific discoveries like Darwin's can be funded with a system akin to the wandering monk/missionary paradigm of the early 2-3 century CE. The wandering scientist trades information and discovery in return for lodging, food, and other amenities.
It is quite surprising that Patricius (St. Patrick) travelled and lived in Ireland trading blessings and stories of a new god for tangible amenities. Modern materialist mind would categorically reject such trade, but our forebears seems to have had your 10 capital framework in operating their societies.
Absolutely! I love to see the connection to the various attributes of ON you're creating!
Darwin would get crowd funded and would have an extremely popular blog financing his travels :). In fact with blogging is where we see another stark example of any capital into financial capital. Being one can blog about just about anything and if it draws a crowd and is found valuable it can translate into financial capital. Honestly, on one hand, I love it and see the utility and value these instruments are creating. On another hand, I love the world where relationships are held together with favors unmet. Where every interaction isn't settled the moment it happens. When my neighbor loans me a tool, he has provided value in my life. I feel appreciation and gratitude for the gift and when he asks for something I gladly return the favor. This exchange was more heart-filled and enjoyable than a pure money (medium of exchange) interaction would have been.
I say we cut out the middle man:)
In a world envisioned by Charles Einstein, I think scientific research will shift dramatically in focus and interest. Modern scientific purpose is essentially to discover perspectives and technologies to maintain a centralized, bureaucratic state that consumes most of the citizen's energy: the fusion reactor research in France, NASA's astroid mining theories, AI development to collate and organize the near-infinite data being collected. Even block-chain technology is developed to enhance the efficiency of financial and legal transactions. The discontented hunger of a bureaucracy and her materially rich but spiritually poor citizens drive current scientific focus in search of more effective means of resource hoarding.
In a world of decentralized communities, content with minor luxuries, whose fundamental assumptions are of gratitude and gift cycling, modern scientific endeavors would seem purposeless and foreign. Why expend resources discovering exo-planets to colonize and astroids to mine, when man develops the ability to live in harmony within one locality, let alone one planet? With what purpose would an infinite power source of the fusion reactor serve in a world of resource contentment? How would a sophisticated data collating artificial intellect be utilized in a localized society of communal relationship?
I think in a ON paradigm, the science will be less technical/mechanical in focus and more observational. Observational research does not really require a centralized locus, as the scientists will be required to travel to different areas. I think the cost of scientific studies will decrease significantly because of the dramatic shift in man' perspective on his relationship with this planet and his purpose.