Back to the [[Longest Night Festival]]
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== Participants ==
* [[Brandon CS Sanders]] ... convener
* [http://artbrock.com Arthur Brock] ... convener
* [[Shelley Schoepflin Sanders]]
* [[Ben|Ben Sibelman]]
* [http://keithl.com Keith Lofstrom]
* Judy Sibelman
* Steve Sibelman
== Synopsis ==
* What businesses can we incubate that would connect us with Earth and community and point us toward [[TheDestiny]]?
* Arthur Brock: What community models can we incubate (ways of relating and connecting)?
== Discussion ==
=== Village as Space Business Incubator ===
* Principle: Small business useful on Earth that can be bootstrapped toward work useful in space travel/colonization
* Ideas for businesses
** [[Brandon]]: Water desalination and recycling
*** Humanitarian as well as profitable
** [[Mickki]]: Food production in community gardens
*** Make it less dependent on petroleum
*** Time and knowledge/skills for growing more food closer to home
*** Keith: Device for "farmer dummies" to tell them what the soil condition is and what to do with it?
*** Not just about generating money, also providing for our own food needs
**** Also, selling food locally can connect us with other nearby communities
** Keith: "Roof (information) bank" business for farming on rooftops
*** Develop innovations for ex. working on steeper roofs
*** Training and tools to work safely on roofs
*** Survey of roofs in the city to find the best buildings to approach first
**** Connect people who own/operate buildings but don't want to farm themselves, with people who want to farm their roofs
* What does it mean to be a good incubator?
** Steve: For both businesses more closely aimed at [[TheDestiny]] and those that are "crassly utilitarian" moneymakers, and a range in between
*** Some people can keep doing what they're doing as far as generating money, freeing others for working toward the mission in less profitable ways
*** Art: Money isn't the only type of resource we can generate
*** [[Brandon]]: Time is the scarcest resource, and I'm spending too much of my time grubbing for money
**** Keith: Better to take time away from "relaxing" activities like watching TV, to do actually more relaxing things like gardening
* [[Ben]]: Provide more story in people's lives (to replace TV)
** Art: Being part of a story shapes the trajectory of people's lives; TV-watching fits into a story about "work during the day, then relax at night"
** Keith: Learn other people's stories by being more social (and overcoming fear of others)
** [[Brandon]]: My life is part of an epic story described by [[TheDestiny]]
*** Art: Does this story help create the common thread of purpose for a community in the present that is worth living in?
**** Or is it an "ends justify the means" idea?
*** Steve: A story with more immediate payoff may be necessary (though without tearing down the story of [[TheDestiny]])
*** Keith: ''The Path Between the Seas'': George Stevens said "We're not building the Panama Canal, we're building a community that builds a canal"
**** Started by spending 5 years getting rid of malaria and building Midwest-suburb-style settlements
***** Judy: Can we find a similar nonintuitive roadblock to building a starship and remove it?
***** Keith: People feel they need the whole world's support to embark on a world-changing effort
** Steve: What about a story that helps us transition away from an energy-intensive society based on a non-sustainable resource (oil)?
*** Keith: The numbers don't support a "back-to-the-land" story for this
*** [[Ben]]: But this story is already working to create communities in the [http://transitiontowns.org Transition Towns] movement