Project idea
It's all about sharing
The ruling laws of capitalist commodity economy force each of us to envisage most others as potential adversaries who want our money or the commodities we own. This ideology to which we are subject in everyday life can be (at least partially) overcome not by theory, but only by practicing a completely different way of living based on sharing. Currently, using money is often easier than sharing, because sharing requires communication and trust. While trust will emerge from the practice of sharing, the communicaton effort is tedious.
Computers as tools for collectivism in everyday life
We want to get rid of the boring serial tasks, this is what computers can do. Instead of asking all our friends "Do you have a motor saw? Could you please lend it to me?" we want to ask this question to a computer and talk about more inspiring subjects to our friends. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that when making computers into tools useful for everyday life we want to have control over computers; they should in no way begin to control our lives.
Freedom for users of computers
Currently the computer programs available as standalone application or on the internet are mostly written for a special purpose. With one tool we can share books, with another one rides, and there is none for most other things, because for these tools to work there must be a mass market in capitalist economy. We want to give to the users the freedom to build on their own the tools they need for sharing.
Not only networking, but interconnecting data ...
A characteristic trait of capitalist commodity economy is competition, which requires the participants on the market to hide their knowledge from each others and work against each others, in one word: separation. Although technically speaking it is a network, the current state of the internet reflects this phenomenon of separation. Companies do not want to share their information, they want to keep all on their own centralized servers, and the users as well. - This is where capitalism is at its limits and where we start. We build networks of collaborating servers sharing their data.
... and people
Connecting people is more difficult: Would you collaborate with anybody you don't trust? So, how does trust emerge? A difficult question. But in any case you have to know each other. We therefore think that local collectives - in which people know each other, share their thoughts, experiences, goods and more - are the basis on which the alienating power of commodity economy will break down.
... and collectives
Between two different collectives usually only few people, if any, will know each other. They can facilitate the mutual trust between the collectives. Although the transitivity of trust is limited, it also works between collectives.
Summarizing
We want a trust network of collectives sharing resources (and more) inside and between collectives, using computers as tools (among others).
