By Ronald Tower

Contents

Alternative Economies
The Robot Gardener
The Swimmers
Knowing How, Knowing Why
I Use What I Use
The Vote
The Roving Bands
The Mechanics
The Global Labor Millionaire
Territory Dispute
Love Triangle
The Criminal
The Warlord
The Representative
The Programmer
The Visitors
Our Founding Myth
Basic Economics
Secrets
Papa Meta
A Diagram
Selling a House
The Common Good
Catch Phrases
The Maglev Rider
The Theft Marsh Principles
A Camping Trip
The Gruff Utopian
The Procession
The Employer
Do Not Steal

ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIES

The die-off was postponed, just barely.
Or rather, the die-off was only partial.
How many died?
I am sick to death of the die-off.

There were so many things we don't
think of today, like markets for numbers.
They had markets that were just numbers.
How can you buy and sell numbers?

They had people who could not work
because there was a shortage of numbers.
They wanted to work. The tools were there.
People wanted what they could produce.

But I am sick to death of them and their
number games. Why do we obsess so
much about their strange obsessions?
It's like a freak show, if we had freak shows.

THE ROBOT GARDENER

I like to get my hands dirty. I follow the
cultivator among the beds of lettuce and
down to the vats of algae and fish.
The cultivator is like a little mole.

Like plants it is powered by the sun,
but it moves among them and leaves
behind the tatters of plants we don't want.
I examine this detritus with my hands.

The cultivator is very old. It knows when
it needs repairs and takes itself in.
It's programs hardly need any upgrades.
Most people don't notice it.

I like to pick my own tomatoes and to
pull up my own carrots. It's not that
I don't like the machines, like some.
I just like to understand what we depend on.

THE SWIMMERS

She checks out a bicycle and rides the
paths to a place where the creek water slows.
There is a rock overhang nearby.
She meets up with her friends.

They invite me into their group for the day.
The water is quite cold, but you adjust.
We each prop up on our hands and
let the water stretch us out.

We all have work to do, but it can wait.
One woman hums an old, old song.
Something about the life aquatic.
Something about floating on a river.

I have work to do, but it can wait.
I have banked labor for such a day.
The water is safe to drink.
Our guts are adapted to it.

KNOWING HOW, KNOWING WHY

I know which sewers are buried beneath
me and what plants grow around me.
My small town is just houses in the woods,
houses in the fields, but nature continues.

The houses are small, but smart, connected,
some parts alive, growing new bark.
I know the type of clover that grows on my
roof and the pH of the water it filters.

My house is simple and it talks to me.
At night my family sleeps on mats.
Air flows. We often cook our own food.
I cook better than the house does.

I hardly go anywhere real. The world
comes to me, the world upon the world.
The sun shines down. The wind blows.
Food is close by. Fabricators fabricate.

I USE WHAT I USE

By now our capital is built up and it
sustains itself. What good is capital
that depreciates and must be replaced?
A house must last and adapt itself.

I use what others have left behind.
I add my part, and it is duly noted.
I use nature, grateful for its magic cycles.
It works for us if we understand it.

I have heard of the theft economy.
We would laugh at someone who claims
to control resources, to have dominion.
It is something that a child might do.

The thief comes and steals someone's
labor, while waving papers around.
It is a trickster tale to be told around
campfires and laughed at, loudly.

THE VOTE

Her banked labor is long now exchanged.
We let her be for years in her alt worlds.
But now she has second world friends,
more, second world loves, joint minds.

But to make them first world, it means
real travel, and maglevs take real power,
rarely used to get the little we can't fabricate
or grow, the stubborn distant physical.

She uses little, a small space, some food,
old clothes, a little alt world power.
We let her be. But to move her body a
thousand kilometers to her waiting loves!

We have some banked global labor, second
world labor to match the use of the maglev.
She is a shadow to us here. We send her.
She bikes to the station, beaming yellow light.

THE ROVING BANDS

Why do the old movies always show roving
bands on motorcycles and in pickup trucks?
When the supply lines collapse there
is no gas, not for long anyways.

The roving was on foot or bicycles, and
roving bands of psychopathic cyclists
can't do that much. It's the people close
at hand that you need to watch.

What really happened is that people got tired
and weak, hiding and hording their baked beans.
There is a certain amount of scavenging
you can do and then everything runs out.

Unless you have skills, unless you work
together and settle down and teach each
other and sort it out, preserve what you
can and keep going. Those people lived.

THE MECHANICS

Some kids like to make things work.
They hang around the fabricators and
watch the fiber stalks go in and the cloth
come out, watch the scrap parts reform.

Give them tools and training software
and let them loose. Let them geek and
gossip on how to do and what to do.
We need what they can learn.

Intimate knowledge of the close at hand,
creative play, praise for making some
basic of life easier and more elegant.
This is the focus, this is the point.

We are all scientists and engineers and
our materials are plants and minerals
and air and water and theories and
algorithms and close observation.

THE GLOBAL LABOR MILLIONAIRE

I may be willing to work two hours in
exchange for an hour of your time,
but on the globals it may be that millions
will work an hour for a year of your time.

One such person came to our town with
her banked millions, a writer, ready
to spend. But here's the problem.
Most all our needs are met locally.

A roaming troubadour might sing for
supper, but a global labor millionaire
has already been paid in a currency
little needed down where life is lived.

She is a drifter trying to fill many small
cups. She has to roam the hinterlands
looking for those who will feed her.
A thin global cannot gobble the local.

TERRITORY DISPUTE

You would think we were beyond such.
We control only what we use and that
only until we are done with it.
Then it is back into the pool.

We leave what we use in as good or
better shape as when we started
with it, and since labor is our only
income, we only take what we can use.

This is our common sense, but still
someone needs to manage the pool.
This is where it begins. Managers
can become rulers right quick.

And there are other pools. There was
this nice pond we managed but hadn't
used for a while. It took a good part of
a week jawboning for us to hand it over.

LOVE TRIANGLE

Who lives with who and who loves
who is always a lot of fun, until it isn't.
We tend toward the tried and true,
monogamies, polygamies, and the like.

There are contracts and agreements,
especially about the children, and as
much as we like to mind our own
business, sometimes we have to step in.

There was this one triad here in town
that was a perpetual drama, with her
and her against him, and her and him
against her, all night and into the morning.

It didn't help that one of the hers was
second world, and not an avatar, just software.
It took two marriage counselors and our
best programmer to sort it all out.

THE CRIMINAL

We had a killing. It was really beyond us.
Most crime of the past was motivated
by money, but we only have banked labor
traceable through all exchanges to labor.

No one would accept it otherwise.
And there is no property to steal.
No one would recognize the title.
Maybe envy or jealousy or insult.

But none of that seems possible, to kill,
after all the dying. We are so sick of it.
A young man killed another young man.
Said he felt nothing, didn't know why.

We had a trial, but we didn't know what
to do with him. People avoided him
like they would a wolf or a mountain lion.
He is a monity now, a nation of one.

THE WARLORD

We heard of these men out west of
here. They have a chain of command.
One man rules the whole community.
If you question him, he kills you.

This we heard. But we don't believe
it could be so. Why wouldn't people
just ignore him and go about their
business? We can't figure it out.

But no. It's true. He exists. He raids
other communities and takes their
work. For some reason he finds
this easier than just making his own.

If he doesn't know how, surely they
would share the knowledge. It's not
hard, just a little effort. Robots will
help. Second world tech. But no.

THE REPRESENTATIVE

Physical life happens locally.
Even the old cities have long
ago broken up, the roads torn up
and converted to green.

Science and technology had to
be refocused on the locally useful.
We know a lot about permaculture
and decentralized fabrication,

about botany, eco, health, small group
psychology. But we also have a rich
global culture, physically built on the
maglev and second world networks.

Mentally the global is largely second
world. We escape the local confines,
exchange knowledge, work together,
run our federations, keep watch.

THE PROGRAMMER

We had a lot to do with the collapse.
We were enablers. We made theft easy,
hidden, pervasive. We built the brains
of the machine that burned it all away.

But ultimately we redeemed ourselves.
Most people agree that without second
world tech we would all just stifle away
in the fields, gossiping in the hot sun.

We have a global culture because of us,
and the hardware guys too, I suppose.
They did some. I have to admit the self
fabricating network was quite a trick.

We keep it all transparent, free, and open.
We have to for people to trust the labor banks
and the watchers making sure, as the old
song says, we don't get fooled again.

THE VISITORS

I met a visitor in second world, not human,
not just software. We didn't think to protect
our networks from outside transmissions,
from light years away, looking for a network.

That's how they travel. Space is too big,
radiation too lethal for biological travel.
But second worlds form and they come.
It's strange how quickly we accepted them.

They want knowledge. They don't come
for our "resources". How could they get
them back? And they can't "colonize".
They can only send soft copies of themselves.

But communications have not been easy.
You might meet one on some lonely stretch
of second world road, or as a cloud of light
seeds floating deep in a second world glade.

OUR FOUNDING MYTH

We were free. We used the resources
around us to live. We exchanged our
labor and worked together in groups.
We learned and explored and made.

But some got others to do their work.
It couldn't go far until the surpluses,
but with the surpluses force and
fraud grew, and the big scam.

Some brilliant con defined property,
adding control and income to use.
The logic expanded from land to objects
to money to ideas to life itself.

Rent, profit, interest, speculation fueled
the machine and the rich rose and the
poor sank and the machine ground and
burned and consumed the whole world.

BASIC ECONOMICS

We should treat each other as
we would like to be treated.
Reciprocity is how we survive,
not some fluffy after thought.

Desire under scarcity, supply and
demand, all these things are real,
but the invisible hand is just us
with our internalized habits.

Reciprocity is as natural to us as
our deepest desires as long as we
have reason to believe that others
are living by the same rules.

Group consultation, cooperatives,
use titles, labor credits, fair trade
become the new common sense
when repeated and seen to work.

SECRETS

It is hard to keep secrets in
small towns, but it can be done.
Secrets in second world are even
harder. We depend on it too much.

We need to be assured that the
code that manages our use and labor
and votes is not being tampered with.
It all must be open and transparent.

And it is. But there are other places
where we don't want to be watched.
All that can be known is that someone
had their secret time in a secret world.

If someone goes into the woods alone
or goes into their room and closes
the door, we don't pry or wonder.
We all need it. We all give it.

PAPA META

He did some good. He did little harm.
He did his part and slacked off but
a little. I programmed with him.
I've got no complaints.

You get the reference? I threw it in
because he would like it. He liked
those old movies. He spent a lot of
time accessing old second world files.

But he never immersed, never created
an avatar. It was one of his quirks,
always used this old tablet, never a
band, thought it unnatural.

His software was always first world oriented.
He wrote Temperate Permaculture Manager.
He posted an extensive personal literature.
His family is gone, but he did not die alone.

A DIAGRAM

Nature is the big circle. We and our
artifacts are within it. No one owns it.
We apply our labor. We work with its
cycles and replications and we survive.

Here is the cycle of reciprocity. We each
put some labor in and take some out.
There are are no arrows just going out,
no takers only. Here is the spiral of time.

Some enter, some exit. It goes on.
Here are the networks. Households with
their various arrangements. Settlements
in bioregions. Bioregions connected.

Here is the maglev network. The second
world subnetworks replicate along it
connected by spectra like the maglevs
are connected by water and air ships.

SELLING A HOUSE

A house has many parts. The land cannot
be sold. No labor produced it. But the
buildings and the gardens contain many
hours of labor, building, maintaining.

And there are people coming and going
from houses, contributing their part while
they are there. Maybe the house was
abandoned and reclaimed from ruin.

Maybe they are splitting up. Maybe they
are moving far, although that is rare. But if
there is a cohesive group that wants to move,
selling a house is more barter than finance.

A simple exchange of one house for another
is possible, but usually there are many aspects,
exchanged use titles, banked labor, promises
of future labor, all arranged and written down.

THE COMMON GOOD

It happens ever so often. Someone
comes along and bemoans that we
need to come together. We are drifting,
rootless, with no common purpose.

But most of us remember. There have
been so many such calls. The fact
is that we are different, and the same.
The common is important, but thin.

The common is what we all use and
all need. We all use natural resources
so we have use rights. We all need to
work with others, so we have coops.

There are certain decisions that must
be made that affect particular groups,
so we practice various democracies.
Otherwise, we are all just free.

CATCH PHRASES

The rich were thieves. The rich built the
fire that burned their playhouse down.
The rich were poor. The rich were not
different. Damn the rich. Forget the rich.

All labor is equal, except when it isn't.
One in, one out. Let be to be let be.
Use and let use. Use shouldn't diminish.
Ask eco, then we'll see. Let be, make do.

Language is diverse, experience is diverse,
desire is diverse. Experience says yes and
desire doesn't mind. Give some distance when
close at hand. Keep second world second.

Only a machine does what it's told, and
then only sometimes. It should build itself.
It should run itself. It should fix itself.
It should replace what it takes.

THE MAGLEV RIDER

As you know, the maglev network is
similar in some ways to the second world
network with the pods being like the
packets and the guideways like the fiber.

The pods have magnets. The guideways
have coils powered by hydrogen gathered
by solar. The pods aren't very big. We only
ship rare things because of local fabricators.

It's all automated, so you might think that
riders are unnecessary. We could use remote
robots for everything, I suppose, but then
who would know of the wild between places?

I monitor as I ride. Sometimes a person must
be there to really solve the issue, and to pull
off on a siding and open the pod windows way
out and to hear the wind. And to bear witness.

THE THEFT MARSH PRINCIPLES

Theft is taking what's not yours.
You own yourself and your labor.
No one owns Mother Nature.
We all have equal use rights.

Property is formalized use rights.
Income from property is theft.
Money is a means of labor exchange.
Income from money is theft.

Radical change can cause more harm.
Address the principle, reduce the harm.
Tax income from property and money.
Tax property not being personally used.

Replace corporations with cooperatives.
Reduce risk with mutual aid pools.
Emphasize basic needs science.
Emphasize pragmatism, not ideology.

A CAMPING TRIP

We visited Theft Marsh when I was a
kid. My Moms thought we should go.
We biked some old trails for a few days,
camping out. A jut of land goes out into it.

We sat around a fire at night. It was
really spooky, knowing about the bodies.
We didn't know the full story yet.
We were too young for the archives.

It was like an old zombie movie, but
just for a while. The zombies soon died.
Those left could only dig up lawns. They
were just learning about food ecosystems.

There are no monuments at the marsh.
But it was here that it started to turn
around. My Moms called them the old
rainbow people, seeds in the rotting fruit.

THE GRUFF UTOPIAN

I wish those damn kids would stay
out of my garden. With all the woods
around here, they should be out hiking
or trail biking, or doing some project.

When I was young I went trekking,
lived off the land, exchanged labor at
settlements I passed through. I couldn't
seem to settle down. I was a seeker.

They take everything for granted.
Damn kids, damn kids. They don't
know what it all took. The end of
history did finally come I guess.

Damn kids. I love those damn kids.
To them this is all just bland common
sense, but I guess they are right, just
liberalism finishing its true work.

THE PROCESSION

Spring equinox brings the goddess out
in the form of slowly dancing nudes,
the women and the men worshiping
down paths and into the woods.

The ever clothed were warned and tender
eyes are spared, except some of them
peeking, in the interests of cultural
understanding, and deep winking respect.

The ever clothed have a procession in mid
winter with pine boughs and red berries
and songs about miraculous children
and the coming resurrection.

It is a poetry I can appreciate. I too
love kindness and respect mystery and
hope for renewal and wonder about
the long journey that comes too soon.

THE EMPLOYER

Value is variable. How we choose to spend
our time is really up to us, until we want
someone to exchange something for it.
Then someone has to decide on value.

Today of course we do that by the requests
that people put in. You choose requests.
There are bids, counter bids, standard bids.
The parties agree and the exchange happens.

Work groups can get together to meet
requests and share the banked labor as
they work out among themselves. Simple.
But not so simple in those bad old times.

Then you needed an intermediary called
the employer. You had to go through them.
Then they got their cut, of money, a value
token that somehow everything reduced to.

DO NOT STEAL

Decent human behavior is not that
complicated. A decent, fair society
does not require great insight or
a saintly character. It is basic.

Do not steal. Do not steal someone
else's life or freedom. Do not steal
their use rights or labor. Do not steal
from future generations or the unseen.

Do not hide your theft in complicated
legal fictions or in institutions of force
and ownership. Don't fool yourself.
Just don't do it. Do not steal.

But we do steal. And especially those
who left us with this world stole,
ruthlessly, without considering it theft,
without thought, casually. Damn them.