First off, thank you for your consideration and intelligent queries.
My responses are below in line with your questions. I hope they help you understand the what whys and how's of permacredits.
I guess the questions I have for Xavier Hawk is first how are the ethics of permaculture upheld within the framework of
Permacredits?
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The wonderful thing about permaculture that I appreciate most are the common core fundamentals that drive the ethos. For me they are irrespective of the strategies. If gentleman one believes his strategy is permaculture and gentleman two believes his strategy is permaculture though they look wildly different, and yet they both achieve the highly efficient nature based results in building soil, rejuvenating Eco systems, and creating abundant self sustaining systems of production...then to me they are both exemplifying the fundamentals of permanent culture.
That being said my way of thinking about this may not be THE way and therefore it will truly be up to the community of credits holders to decide the standards.
To this end I am imploring the people of the permaculture world to get involved and help set the bar.
I see this as an opportunity for intelligent, regenerative, permaculture designed projects to find financial nutrients to enable their operations and lay claim to defining the way the earth takes care of itself. It is my assertion that given the opportunity to demonstrate healthy business practices based on regenerative permaculture designs businesses and indeed entire sectors will emerge and begin unraveling the devastation generations of unchecked civilization growth have wrought.
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I understand that it is community based rather than controlled by some "powerful" individual but what is to stop the "community" from corrupting it into something of an infinite growth, money hungry, consumerism based vehicle?
What is to stop our society from doing that now? Indeed that's what has been going on.
Would you have me write rules in stating that each employee of projects seeking funding must receive only 100K salary no matter their position from CEO to janitor? Should I write rules dictating that only businesses that rejuvenate soil are allowed in? Or should it be decided upon by the people involving themselves?
This being said each project in order to get the funds allotted to it must fulfill a smart self executing contract. For example lets say they must get a Quorum vote of 3/4 to be upvoted. Then they must attract 3 sponsors one in each discipline, permaculture, business, and social economics. Those sponsors must accept the bounty contract for that project. Then they must also show proof of insurance on the funds, and once they meet those three criteria and enter the proper documents onto the blockchain then the wallet automatically opens for them.
The permaculture standards would be upheld at the council person/ sponsorship level. The vetting is done there by the three council members who volunteer to sponsor a given project.
Though only three sponsors are needed per project, the pool of council members who can sponsor projects can be quite large and is voted in by the community. But the projects they can choose from are first upvoted by the whole community.
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I guess despite your video and explanation, I am still left wondering if this is genuinely permaculture or if it is just the permaculture label slapped on it to sell it. Without fulfilling all three ethics, you are inviting more of the same old.
Indeed. But frankly I don't need to sell anything. The projects who are seeking funding are displaying themselves and marketing themselves. I believe the need for sponsors to vet each project and ensure that they are meeting the standards we all decide upon is one way we ensure what I believe you to be reaching for and that's quality control. Please correct me if I am wrong.
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The more I study permaculture the more I see relationships and all of their infinite dynamics. What kind of characteristics of relationships can we expect, either good or ill, between contributors, receivers, sponsors, the projects, project resources, the community of contributors, internet community, permaculture community, the community at large, the local community, Bitcoin, Permacredits, any fiat currency...
That's a tough question. It's quite broad. What I see is a gift economy based on good will and genuine trust in a better way.
For me it is a way to have stake in an ethos. For me it is a way I can actively support that ethos, the projects exemplifying that ethos, and the people who live that ethos....people I would honor and respect as relatives.
I believe in the ethos of permaculture, the people involved, and the projects I see everyday on Facebook and through friends and associates. I believe that I can support that way of being and doing and mutually benefit from its expansion. The expansion of the idea, the permeating way of living that is in balance with the systems we find ourselves a part of. That is permaculture. This is the permaculture of finance and vested interest.
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I have concerns about the measuring criteria as well. For each different permaculture designer you will have a distinct and different design however, your contributors only measurement of success is returns of value on Permacredits based on comparisons of production of one project from another.
No, the value is credits as a currency with companies who wish to support our ethos and accept them, and also a token that as projects in the ecosystem gift network surplus back into the system it gets spread across all credits. The idea is that as network surplus is created it is split among all credits such that bitcoins show up in your wallet when any project tips back into the ecosystem. The value of each credit will be decided by the market, and if people are getting bitcoins regularly they aren't going to sell cheap.
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Permaculture designers today even rename or abandon the label of permacultue partially due to pressure from others practicing and designing permaculte projects that have differing opinions of the details of their work. Sepp Holzer comes to mind with his Sepp Holzer Permaculture.
I appreciate the distinctions you are making here, however I would refer back to what I said earlier. If gentleman one says his way is permaculture and gentleman two says his way is permaculture and they both achieve the same goals, then why bother with semantics.
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Questions of Permacredits sustainability come to mind as well. An intangible digital fiat currency, an algorithm, expectations, and cultural norms modeled after an affluent industrial consumerism predecessor, mob rule with vague and almost contrary reference to a key permaculture ethic, and distributed and controlled over a global rather than local medium and community. I don't think it is impossible but there are a lot of tough questions that need to be addressed before Permacredits should be labled permaculture.
I don't understand the question here.
Fundamentally this is a gift economy based vending machine where you put bitcoins in a slot and get credits in return. You can use those credits as currency at any location that accepts them. The bitcoins you put in the vending machine go directly to projects you choose. No one touches the bitcoin except those projects. As those projects succeed they tip network surplus back into wallets that automatically split them up among all credits. Again no one touches them but you.
The projects are picked by you, the people who vet the projects after you pick them are chosen by you, and the amount of projects (therefore the inflation or deflation of the amount of credits) is chosen by you. No trusted third party, no bank, no shenanigans.
Its money for the people, by the people, and it's based on regenerative permaculture triple bottom line principles. Make the planet healthier.
I hope this all helps!
I love the questions and consideration!
-X
