THC 70: Jae Sabol | One Community: Blueprint For A Self Sustaining Society

00:04 In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the Fireside Chats. His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times but we're far from 1930 and I deal with a different kind of fire For a new era of worldly frustration We offer a fresh conversation! I'm Greg Carlwood These are The Hireside Chats Welcome to the show, people. I'm drinking my drink and smoking my smoke and today is going to be a great show! I talk about life after capitalism, the enslavement of the monetary system, how we can break this spell...and my personal favorite of these new models is the resource-based economy

00:48 My guest today, Jay Sable is the head of an organization called One Community which focuses on creating small scale sustainable models and test cities rather than just talking and waiting for the entire globe to get onboard. Which I think is the way to go so I'm psyched that Jay's here and he's doing it right and willing to come on my Stupid Stoner show and talk about it it. I'm also pleased as fuck to introduce my co-host today, Michael Nelson! He's the bona fide pimp behind Midwest Real that's another podcast out there Mike was kind enough to have me on as a guest last month on his show and i knew i had this show coming up so i thought Mr Nelson here would be a great choice to keep me company Mike how you doing? Good man mr nelson that makes me think of my dad well i'm glad you're here because i know that

01:35 You had seen this post I made last week, and as a fellow podcaster, I wanted to talk to you about it and see what you thought. Because...I'm talking about that donations giveaway thing. So for anyone who is not clued in, I've been trying to think of creative ways to monetize the show And I've had this idea that at the end of every month I take a good chunk of the donations I get maybe half? And gift that to a listener What do you think of that? Is that too close to a raffle or lottery? Am i dealing with legal grounds here I don't know, man. Um, I think I mentioned to you in the little stream of comments that I know there are... You might have to watch out tax-wise with that. I'm not really sure exactly what the rules are. I'm sure somebody out there can answer that a lot better than I can but it's a creative idea for sure and it also gives back to your listeners a little bit in a way that most—I don't think any podcast I know does that so... Right! I mean, I'd like to instead

02:31 Instead of just talking about conspiracies and what's shitty, like... I would really enjoy making a positive contribution to individual lives, but I don't have the resources. And I mean, I don't get a ton of donations now, but with this huge audience we're working with at this point, maybe it would prompt more donations to have something like this going on because right now I get maybe $100 bucks a month and then it's not good. But if just a fraction of the audience say 1,000 people donated five bucks in a month, not always the same thousand people, but an average If I gave away half of that, that's $2500. That's great and that's also the amount that I make at my day job so I could quit that and be able to go down a list of PayPal donators and randomly pick someone and send them $2500. That'd be awesome! I like quitting your day jobs always good man. Yeah yeah...I know you had Matt Skaggs on from Disinfo recently? Yep yep

03:28 bit of an inspiration in that department. Although he seems to be, he's very modest and maybe a little just worried about his situation but he seems way further along the path than I am and I'm willing to quit. Yeah, he's pretty well established. He's been kind of doing this thing online for awhile now. I asked him about his background on our most recent podcast and you know he kinda just went through how he eventually hooked up with Disinfo, the Disinfo cast. How he was able to finally quit his day job and it wasn't something that came quickly for him I mean it was just you know as you know you just make connection after connection doing something like this and you know something... An opportunity cropped up that he went after and um you know he knew the guys that ran Disinfo and it just worked out for him

04:16 So, between that and his relationship with the Joe Rogan experience and all the other people he knows it was just kind of one of those things that eventually materialized for him. Lewis Yeah, I mean David Seaman's another one of those guys. I don't know if you're familiar with him? Right on! Well he's been on my show talking about Bitcoin and has his own David Seaman Hour. He's a little more of a conventional journalist in a good way. You know, he is definitely in between where I am and the mainstream is which is anywhere in that spectrum I'm happy with but It's

05:06 and now this is his new reality, waking up doing this morning show that streams live on the internet and living in LA. That's pretty fucking cool! I mean i've talked to him a couple times...I'm probably going to be taking trips up to LA to do that show once in awhile. But um yeah it's sick there's a lot of stuff happening in this podcasting space and I'm happy to be a part of it even if one of the most fringe people involved. I actually think that's a good thing, and i take pride in that Yeah, it's all you know. It's really all about doing something going after it and then meeting other people that are doing the same thing because eventually something is gonna work out for somebody you know? And if you've already established a relationship with that person they're gonna want to help you out if they know your legit and they know what your'e doing is really coming from your heart and coming from standpoint of wanting to influence positive change

06:03 That's really what it is all about. article about the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's Department of Neuroscience. I clearly just recalled that off the top my head, but they used data from a US National Health Survey of 2200 people to see what association there was if any between psychedelic drug use and mental health problems. They found no links to mental health problems addiction or negative effects on long-term health so

06:40 I guess, you know when people take too many mushrooms it just feels like you're gonna die. Don't worry! You're alright!" I've even seen too... ummm.. I just shared something this morning about psilocybin actually regrowing brain cells i believe which was you know that's that's like another step which I never foresaw, you know. It's pretty crazy like it just seems like more and more data keeps coming out in favor of some kind of responsible psychedelic use or inner exploration via psychedelics. Yeah! It is really shocking Well as much as i love the psychedelics the mind expanding drugs I really love ecstasy and I don't know that its necessarily mine expanding but it definitely

07:26 can help couples. I mean, in my own experience not that me and my girlfriend have problems but you take ecstasy and just start unloading all this stuff like all that...you just go into such detail And it's always positive It's always with a positive atmosphere around it It's a really awesome drug There are also physical effects that feel very euphoric and great Do you have any experience with ecstasy? I don't personally, but I did do some research about MDMA which is the main ingredient in ecstasy. There's all these clinical trials now that like maps have been doing and they've shown that it literally can cure PTSD and if not cure it treat it and everybody involved in their clinical trials

08:17 Whether they were, I think it was something ridiculous like 80 some percent of people were actually cured of PTSD and everybody who wasn't cured said that it had a positive influence on their condition. So I found that to be unbelievably enlightening I believe that it could treat PTSD because it forces you to open up your emotions. Like, I find myself saying strings of words that I'm like yeah, I do think this! I never thought I would say it... You know? It's not a big deal but here you go and uh..I can imagine that someone who is dealing with some traumatic shit they did overseas is-it just pours out of them and its'a great feeling That alone feels great And then you top it with

09:02 I'm going to be doing a podcast called, The Biggest Mistake in Life. and you're sober, they look like they're doing damage to themselves. You know? You look at them and you're like there's no way this person is coming back 100%. 99.9% sure it just looks off-putting to the sober mind...to the sober eye

09:37 But I guess we're finding that it's not as damaging as people once thought, which is great because if there was really insight to be gained from it. If you're in the Terence McKenna camp who thinks that these spores might be communication a form of communication biologically from another species or another multi-dimensional being There'd have to be...if there's really all this positivity to be gained from it It couldn't really be doing harm You know? Or it shouldn't be doing harm Yeah, and I kind of have a theory on that because I remember learning awhile back that the way it actually interacts with your brain is kind of by shutting filters down or dampening filters are parts of the brain. So you're actually getting into a more basic mode of operation cognitively so it may seem like the person has kind of,

10:26 shutting down or really augmenting their consciousness in a way that could be damaging, but it's all just a function of how it's interacting with the brain temporarily. So, and it seems like all the data about cannabis and you know like we mentioned with MDMA and psilocybin. It seems like they all psychedelics kind of act in a similar manner on the brain as far as doing that. And it seems to be something that's temporary not long term. Yeah I mean I can get behind them because its a cliche of the stoner You're talking to him and they just look over and say what? That's a huge cliche but

11:05 Internally, and I can't speak for everyone but internally a lot of times if i'm in that state there are thoughts coursing through my mind like fucking greyhounds on a racetrack. And it's because of that that I am not paying attention to what is going on externally so... That hazy what? Is really just.. That you've distracted me from my own train of thought that I wasn't gonna be on without this chemical help Yeah, for sure. And I mean too much of anything is going to influence you in a way that kind of inhibits your ability to function You know? I could go in my kitchen and eat too much spinach and I would like...I'd have a tummy ache! You know like- I have a friend who was trying to pass the drug test and he overdosed on water

11:51 That's insane, man. Yeah he got water poisoning Yes I mean it just goes to show you you know it's just because something can kind of inhibit you or can maybe not inhibit but limit your ability to express yourself and function that does not mean you're doing any type of long-term damage to yourself for any damage that is going to like affect you down the road Agreed man. And it's good to find people that have that thought process because growing up they just were few and far between But the internet's a great thing, connects people. And we're about to get connected with Jay right now because I'm about to call him it is about that time he's probably waiting but before i do dial him in I have to throw out this short ad for Conspiratees It's my conspiracy clothing brand and how I bring in the dollars from doing this show and its good fun! And I've never had anyone not like what they bought so check them out help me keep the lights on will be talking positive things on the other side with Jay Sable

14:33 Greg, thanks Mike. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, sure. Well I mean a resource-based economy is just one aspect of one community so if we were just to focus on the resource based economy as maybe a metaphor for the project as a whole you know concept is the idea that we are more successful and more effective when we work together when we share and when we collaborate cooperate versus when we compete with each other

15:20 And so using that as a metaphor for the whole model, one community is a macrocosm of that microcosm. The idea is to apply that concept to all aspects of living everything from food energy housing to social architecture recreation educational models and put that all out there as open source and free shared blueprints and content so that people can duplicate it and we can create a global Archive and a global think-tank and collaborative of people working together to create a better world for everybody I mean it sounds like a no-brainer. It's a shame that we've gone so many thousands of years without Working on this type of society For people who I guess are familiar with the Venus project And in the resource based economy said it's only a part of it, so where does one community differ from that? I think that

16:15 I don't know if anybody's ever asked me that question. Looking at the Venus Project, so the Venus Project... my perspective on the Venus Project is this complete overhaul and revolution of the way that we think about living and so one community is definitely that you know this we consider ourselves a stepping stone towards The Venus Project and so I guess maybe there's not really a difference it's more focusing on that stepping stone like what's necessary to gain the mainstream support and interest in what it is that we're doing, and to provide enough value to an individual. To take what they're doing right now which in most cases really isn't working for a lot of people but they don't have another alternative And in the case of The Venus Project It's such a grand vision and such an amazing thing that people don't really know where even start

17:03 And so one community is that we see ourselves as that path, as a viable option that average people with average means can apply in their life right now and start putting these concepts to use and moving in the direction they want to move. You know? On the smallest scale being all of the individual components food energy housing things normal people can apply in their life maybe building a natural swimming pool or maybe just building a guest house all the way up to the larger vision, the idea of building complete self-sufficient, self sustainable and self replicating teacher demonstration villages communities and cities as that stepping stone to the much larger vision of okay let's revolutionize the world. What does that look like? And so I'm not sure if that answers your question but I think that's kind of a distinguishing feature where we see ourselves right now and the ultimate grand vision of where we is a species believe we can go what's capable what were capable

18:02 Absolutely, man. Because one of the biggest criticisms of The Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement is that it is so grand in scale that you just have to wait like they focus so much on education and marketing and meanwhile I'm going into a 9-5 job every day wondering, you know. No one I speak with an entire day even knows what the Venus Project is so in my lifetime would we ever see progress in this direction? So I love that you're working on a much smaller scale and building... Like I heard an interview with you on another show and you were just about to buy some land have you done that yet

18:45 We're still seeking funding for the land. You know, we put two and a half years into it and that would be the next huge step for our project acquiring the land because that would allow us to take the open source blueprinting and all the projects and everything that we're doing to the next level. So yeah let's talk about how it's grown because I know you've done years and years of research, trying to find the most efficient and cost-effective ways of doing the things we need to do in our daily lives. Let's bring us up to speed on how these organization is formed and the part of the process you're in right now? Yeah sure

19:21 Well, for me personally it's been now a 17-18 year process. This became a full time job for me – not really a job because I'm not paid but it became a full time endeavor for me and quit my job and sold my business and basically said okay this is what I'm going to do until I succeed until we set it up then this is the lifestyle that I want to live for the rest of my life about two and half years ago and that was in identifying the property. We looked forward 2 years for the perfect property And because our organization is all about sharing and really inviting the world to participate, that created a unique set of criteria for identifying the perfect location. We need a location that's close to major airport we need easy access it needs to be location that's beautiful so people want actually come and visit it while were building not waiting five years for the infrastructure to be in place

20:11 like an eco resort or something like that. And so when we finally identified that property after looking over four or five different states, just a multitude of different properties thatís when I left and went okay itís time to do this full-time. So we put together our website and everything all the research in the work had been done behind the scenes and finally said okay letís create public face for this then we started calling in And that's another one of those things that really distinguishes our project from what I've seen from the other projects that are out there, is nobody on our team other than my wife knew each other before this project was launched. And interestingly enough, everybody on the team has pretty much the same story as everybody else which is man we've wanted this. We've talked to our friends and you know everybody thinks it's a really great idea but finding people that are really taking action is a whole other story and so then when we all ran into each other like oh my god! We're creating this you know? So that's what we've been doing for last two-and-a-half years is becoming shovel ready You know its huge... It's immense amount of work there's I

21:14 My experience is that there's this dreamy notion of, you know, okay let's just build sustainable cities. And it's like wait a minute there are counties to deal with and code to deal with. You need 3D renderings, CAD, engineering, electrical plumbing all this different stuff so the idea is the first step but now creating open source blueprints and actually really creating the infrastructure and the details necessary before you can even build, I mean that's the bulk of it. And that is why we believe in our whole intent of our non-profit organization to provide that for people because if we can provide that for people, we really believe something like this is just humanity is primed for exponential growth of this concept

21:56 of jumping on board and going, man let's launch these things all over the world but we got to define it. I mean that is my perspective on it is that our goal was to define how much it costs what your time investment is gonna be and what its gonna look like when you're done so you have a clear idea of expectations so people are motivated to achieve that and they know their investment is gonna be and then people can jump onboard and so thats where were all about and thats what were focused on So speaking of jumping on board, that's actually kind of what I wanted to ask you. If somebody isn't local to your physical project and what you guys are actually doing with your hands on a day-to-day basis... What can just a normal person that wants to help you guys out actually do at this point?

22:39 Yeah, that's a great question because the way we're organizing is virtually. Our team members are spread out all over the country and in a couple cases outside of the country so on top of that for people who might not be interested in moving onto property we have a satellite member option which is for people who really want to participate in every aspect of one community with the idea they'll start their own version somewhere else and they can call that whatever they want, but they wanna be in the nitty gritty and participating in our weekly calls. And our whole back office and all the Google Docs and everything that we use to collaborate and create everything that we're creating. So we have that and then same thing for international folks that might have visa issues. We have a new visa possibility that we've explored that might open up an educational visa for people as well

23:30 And so, the short answer is where everything that we do we're organizing virtually. The time when we get together is for our consensus trainings but other than that anybody can participate in one community from anywhere in the world Lewis. That's awesome, man! I want to back up a bit because you mentioned ... I know you don't want to disclose exactly where the property is if you haven't bought it yet that makes total sense but you mentioned which state it was in so I assume we're talking about something in the United States. Aren't there huge roadblocks and regulations you have to deal with when creating a structure like this from within the US? Totally, which is and you know so silver lining to the reality of that situation is that's a big part of our open source purpose. You know we spent the last couple years building relationship with our county and really getting clear with them that our goal is to expand international building code. We're not trying to circumvent it were trying to really understand why those rules were put in place because they were there to protect people

24:28 mostly from themselves in our opinion, and then to say okay if we understand your criteria for creating the code then if we can meet those criteria at a new and sustainable way will you help us rewrite it essentially and be a demonstration county that supports these ideas and helps us spread this to other counties. The good news about all of that is this what We think that it's essential that mainstream money get behind this idea. And mainstream money is in developed nations predominantly, I think most people would agree with that and developed nations are using the international building code so it would be way easier for us to build something like this in Brazil or Haiti or anywhere else that doesn't have those codes which is great for the idea spreading but for the concept of sharing what it is we're doing

25:19 and open sourcing everything so that it's maximally duplicable, it really makes sense to operate within those confines. And I'll take it even a step further we're doing everything we can one community won't be located in California but were doing everything we can build the California commercial code because that will create maximum duplicability Lewis and Nye. I was doing some research for this interview and I was listening to another show you did, and you were talking about kind of similar systemic and logistical issues. And how you have to deal with funding and how you have to deal with different bureaucratic roadblocks and whatever... The irony kind of struck me that you guys are actually trying to eventually transcend that and transcend the system but right now you're totally beholden to the system and you have to operate within it

26:28 So do you see a point where you're going to have to kind of break away from that and be like, look for us to get where we want to go? We're gonna have to actually start operating outside the box a little more and not rely on those traditional power structures. Or do you think it's gonna have to be kinda long term give-and-take for you guys to get where you wanna go?" Yeah, probably a little bit of both. You know from an internal perspective we're all about transcending that and creating something new but from an external and collaborative cooperative perspective the reality is that we want to work as closely with our local counties and state officials as we possibly can because if we can get those folks on board then we can start really educating and opening their eyes then that makes it easier for everybody

27:17 And the big quote that we have on our website is the Buckminster Fuller quote. It says, in order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model but you create a new model and make the old one obsolete that in essence is this higher service which were all being called. That's our real focus like hey we want to demonstrate a better way and at the same time we're not interested in pushing against anybody you know where it's not a battle for us were not struggling against anybody we're all on the same team here and so you know when we look at county officials and and code in regulation we just look at that as part of the process like okay understand its been put in place for reason how can we work with that how can we expand it there we believe there's a win for everybody you know and so our goal is to really embrace the process and you know we've learned through experience said

28:04 That's what we're here to do. Right on, man! I mean it all sounds awesome... We've been a bit vague so far about the actual community can you give the listeners a bit of an overview about what you project for this community? Why is this better why is this worth working towards instead of what we have now? The general overview of the concept, the idea of why it would be better just for the average Joe that might be working a 9 to 5 is that when you build sustainable infrastructure, you reduce the predominant cost in most people's life. You can eliminate your housing bills and you can eliminate your electricity bills and you can eliminate your food bills and we're building an education program too so you can eliminate your education bills as well.

28:49 Do you get rid of those things? That frees up a lot of resources. As a species, we're moving into more of a virtual world where labor-based jobs are going away and home based jobs are opening up. Our entire model is designed to function as a community model where the community itself is the revenue producing stream until we reach some point like Scott Fresco envisions where we no longer need money. The reality of it is that we still need money and so for people who want to get out of debt, for people who want to buy the things they want to buy but can't create themselves which is a lot almost everything there's a revenue stream built into everything that we're doing which is sharing the model itself

29:34 And the more you share the model, the more successful you are and the more people can duplicate the model because everything necessary to duplicate it from a blueprint standpoint is for free. So the idea is by teaching people how to build this sustainable infrastructure and setting up the infrastructure to create this self-sufficiency or near self-sufficiency with a business model that goes along with it, people have more free time to do things that they want to do and they'll have more money to do the things that they want to do. You know, they've eliminated their commute. They're working in more of a collaborative cooperative environment that is a model it's already working in large families and already working in less civilized quote unquote a

30:26 Then how do you do this and what are the individual benefits? Those are the predominant benefits, more time to do things that you want to do surrounded by people that are on the same page with you and more money to do the things we want to because your overhead is so dramatically low. And then applying the idea of working together in collaborating, you can create an environment that is also superior from a tangible perspective That's where it gets to the resource-based economy and the idea that if we're all working together, we're in close proximity. We don't need a car. We just need access to a car whenever we want one. We don't all need a boat. We just need access to a boat whenever we want one. We don't need a power drill or microwave or individual refrigerator as long as you have access to all of that stuff. You don't have to invest your resources in owning 100 of them for 100 people

31:16 We can identify exactly how many we need so we're never short on what we need and apply those resources then to expanding the things that we have access too. It just works, it works! That kind of brings me back to something that I mentioned before we were rolling about how right now everything is relative to the system that we're in. And what I mean by that is, we've all existed in this capitalistic system where we own everything like I have my own car, I have my own TV, I have my own this or that And I kind of think that we're really going to need, to break away from that. We're really gonna need a generation at least to kind of purge ourselves of those ideas because how can you take a person from the system that were in right now where everybody owns their own thing and have them go into something that's communal where they don't own their own thing without holding on to a vestige of wanting to have ownership over something?

32:19 Well said. Yeah, yeah well and that's so we you know we talked about our organization as a bridge between pragmatism and idealism You know that were building that bridge And the pragmatic aspect is people have debt People want to own things And so we've built our model to address that and say, okay we've got an entrepreneurial model a lot of opportunities to really capitalize on the existing system. And the benefits that it offers while simultaneously transcending the negative aspects of it, the debtor society and things that really put people under a thumb they can't get out from underneath them. The whole model solves that issue

32:55 But I completely agree with you. And so we would like to believe that this is the stepping stone to what you're describing, is A going to create that generation of people that have grown up in this environment, in these sustainable and self-sufficient communities? And simultaneously for the folks that are already in this capital system to provide an environment that allows them to live for the highest good of all. That's a big tagline and a big part of our project and our guiding philosophy is how do we make decisions for the highest good of all. And our belief is that the number one barrier to people making decisions for the highest good of all because we believe that humanity as a whole are more good people, we want to do things to help other people but it's hard to do that when you can't meet your own needs

33:41 When you can't meet your own needs of food and shelter, and you're just trying to survive. How the hell do you think about other people? Our goal is to create a solution that say okay well let's create environment where we don't have to worry about those things in a very specific path helping other people now that you don't have to worry about those things and you've got an easy path to do something different sweet high five all around lets do it It's funny because it's so empowering, but people are conditioned to want to have possessions. So they worry about what they're going to lose or oh well if I have a community car I might not get it when I need it blah blah blah and they start crying socialism and they get really scared and that's just all a conditioned response and it's so sad because the

34:26 This wouldn't be happening if it wasn't empowering and enriching the lives of other people. So for those very people to be afraid, Of what they're going to lose how about you worry about what you'd gain from this? Exactly Yeah well And there's that that's probably the switch That I think will be the difference between A generation raised with this idea Versus Those of us That have gotten To the point where we're at right now Which is THAT won't exist That idea that the focus will be constantly on the highest good of all and the idea will be about constant expansion, and that life is abundant. And you don't have to worry about these things because they won't have decades of living in debt as their experience than it's anything else. They won't have decades of watching the news or horror stories instead they'll be constantly focused on positive what we can get back how we contribute and all the good things I mean imagine the effects

35:19 Well, something I took away from Jacque Fresco that i really liked was you know people ask him he says there'll be no police and he's like uh I think the best thing to solve crime would be to make sure everybody has everything they need because most crimes like robberies and thefts they come out of a necessity to feed themselves. And if everybody has that there's not going to be that necessity, but also there is something to lose. A lot of people who are on the street don't mind going to jail because now they have a house and food which they don't have. But if you had your own house and food, you'd have something to lose to de-incentivize yourself from stealing say an iPhone or something of a higher level because you don't want to lose everything you got so we really need to make sure people

36:04 food, clothing and housing. And as a society we should only think of ourselves as strong as our weakest link and make sure that everybody's got what they need so they don't have to resort to taking from one another Beautifully said. Totally agree, yeah Something else I wanted to bring up my good friend Kyle who appears on the show a lot He actually quit his job along with his wife about a year ago And they really wanted to live in off-the-grid community But the ones they visited They found a lot of issues with whether it be The level of resources or the comfort or problems with the communities policies and hierarchy It couldn't bring their dog or whatever

36:41 What is one community doing to make things comfortable and appealing for people that are fed up with our political and economic system, but also don't want to shit in a bucket not have the internet? I mean where's the middle ground. Yeah, well so from a foundational standpoint two things. Number one is really clearly defining exactly what it is that we're creating you know when you start talking about dogs and kids child care and all those kinds of things there's a lot of individual issues drug use you name it. You know living policy for one person could be an oppressive policy for another person you know? So we've learned as an organization to really really clearly and and

37:46 different, you know using everything that we have take it use it start from right where we are right now and started a different direction because we need as many of these successful models as we possibly can. And the more diversity that's out there the more that benefits humanity as a whole that really is positive even if it's a completely different mindset maybe doesn't have anything to do with world change Maybe it's just a survivalist community or who cares, it doesn't really matter. The idea is moving in this direction and creating self-sufficiency and self sustainability on a grand scale is a really positive thing." And then the second part of your question was when you talk about internet and things like that, it's really recognizing that for us as an organization not returning to the Stone Age and recognizing

38:28 we have as far as technology is concerned and really, really sharing a lifestyle that the mainstream would generally agree is superior includes technology in these kinds of things. And so the business model that is one community, the for-profit and nonprofit existence and the foundations that allow us to create what it is that were creating will provide those things And we think that's important, too. That's a big part of the blueprints as well and why we've already open sourced our complete nonprofit application how he became a nonprofit organization and we will be open sourcing or continuing to develop in Open Sourcing all of the for profit aspects of one community two so people can duplicate this.

39:11 I think that philosophy is definitely the right one because if you just look at what's been going on in the last couple of years, there's a growing amount of distrust and centralized power. Large corporations are having a harder and harder time existing. You start to see even corporations like Apple are starting to lose their grip on technology and having this monopoly on smartphones, and whatever. And the reason I bring that up is because I truly believe that we're going to see the paradigm of centralized power dispersing into the hands of local

39:50 groups, and it seems like that's exactly what you're encouraging. And we're eventually going to get there through the growth of technology and the spreading of power anyway. I really believe there needs to be some kind of guidelines for that type of future society where everything is going to be made locally. You know? 3D printing and fabrication labs in every major city in the next 10 years, I truly believe. And we're not going to need the apples of the world and the Exxon mobiles of the world to bring it together for us. We're going to need local communities that are motivated and have the right philosophy and the right guidelines

40:28 Yeah, yeah. Well and if we demonstrate as a you know this truly is a better model than I'd like to believe that the apples of the world and you know the exons of the world will get on board because it makes sense for their bottom line too until the point until kind of ridiculousness of the system as a whole It's like, hey we can just let go of this and you know we don't have to give up our mansions. We can just live in a happy populace on planet earth and everything can run smoothly. We've just got to get close enough to that tipping point. Let's look at the next three to five years. Let's say you got the funding today, and you were going to hit the ground. You got this piece of property. How would the building start? When would you start bringing people in? What would the first test city, the model city look like? I've heard you say tourism would be a big part of income generation which is an awesome idea but let's get into those details a bit

41:23 If you really want to get into the details, you can read this stuff on the website. For instance our projections for the first EarthBag Village we've got them broken down if you wanted to do it with one team of 10, two teams at ten and three teams attend or what were going to do is four teams of 10 working concurrently and the details are exactly how you choose leadership within those environments and how that works out for the first 2 years I mean it's an amazing amount of detail. So to kind of give you an overview what that looks like, if we were going to get the funding today the number one thing that would help us most would be to get property off market Getting the property off the market would allow us to expand our team exponentially because right now everybody that's on this team is joined without having any idea of where their location was until they got to their second interview and then going, okay. So there is a certain level commitment just to join one community if we could share the location and market those details man it would help us complete the team lot faster

42:18 Then we're just working on everything to become shovel ready. If we could take the property off the market today, I believe that we can move onto the property this coming spring and then the time it would take to build the first village model which is maximally affordable sustainability, earthbag village model which is housing for 100 people and will cost not counting energy infrastructure under $300-400 thousand dollars The time to build that is about two years. That's pretty much how the whole thing would unfold and then our goal is to become the number one provider of open source and free shared information in the world within six months, so concurrent with building the EarthBag Village we'll also be building our food infrastructure and all the details on how much time and how many labor hours are going to contribute to that are all on the website. And then running a social architecture aspect as well

43:11 So, based on our projections we would land on the property with 50 people because we've got infrastructure in the property to support that. Then within six months we would start bringing in our first people working as volunteers and a scholarship program where we provide food housing and obviously recreational environment while everybody helps build and learns all of this technology. And so essentially those people would become the ambassadors to the next generation of communities because they would have the hands-on experience to be able to take that information out. From that group we would be selecting the next group of pioneers or the people who come on to one community and grow the resonance of our organization, so that we have a necessary labor force to build the second village which is maximally expandable sustainability, some modular sustainability and that's the Straw Bale Village

44:03 By year two, we would be ready to do that. We would have our food infrastructure in place and there's details of how that food infrastructure rolls out on the website too and by the end of the first year, we would have enough units that we could actually start hosting our first tourists in where they would have a place to stay as opposed to hey if you just want to come out, we've got an open weekend right now and will feed you and you can camp on the property and check out what were doing it's kind like an open house By the second year, we could actually start really hosting people where it's like just come and visit and see this lifestyle. You know? And recognize that the lifestyle is building and growing every single day. If you want to participate in that here's a broad variety of different things are happening on this property right now. And you can get your hands dirty with us if you're interested

44:51 Man, it's so inspiring. From what I've seen on the website, I really liked the housing models specifically. You've got seven different building models for housing. They all seem to be... they seem to have taken inspiration from The Seven Chakras which is pretty awesome and it has a nice little subtext but I really love the Subterranean and Treehouse models. How long before you're going to get into some of these other models of building and how do they differ? Well, our really ambitious goal would be to be building the seventh village within five years. To do that we have to hit all of our first village and second village model timelines because that creates the infrastructure

45:37 for us to have a sufficient revenue stream to expand indefinitely and enough infrastructure for us to bring in the labor force that would need to be pretty huge, to be able to pull that off. Once we do that, we could operate with anywhere from 300 full-time residents is our first benchmark that were shooting for and then another you know hundred fifty constant visitors of thirty percent of the community is designed for visitors uh... the primary differences between the different models as i already said was there a big deal to be the first one that we're building because it is maximally affordable the second one is the straw bale village model because its its maximally um... expandable the idea on that one is that you could build several units so you could build up a mini village model for a group of twenty people

46:27 And then as they went through the interview process and realized that they wanted to bring on another five or ten people, they could just add additional units to the straw bale model that they have which is like a in our case it's a torus or circular model but it can be designed as more of a snake-like model. As that snake-like model expanded actually creates a wind buffer for food production and growing an orchard and that kind of stuff Then after that we go into the Cobb Village and then the Earth Block Village, then subterranean like Hobbit Homes where you're building them totally underground with living roofs and things like that. And Earthship and then the treehouses are last just because permitting... We'll need to take everything that we learn in one through six

47:08 to build number seven. So we really put a lot of thought into how are we rolling this out? The earth bag is really, really simple. Straw bale is a big step up from that from complexity standpoint, but not such a big step as far as permitting and engineering and that kind of stuff goes. Same thing with the Cobb Village model which we use all the remaining straw and everything from the Straw Bale village you know And then we start getting into earth block and from that point on now You're getting into way more complex models But will have the established relationship with which we already have We'll really have the nuts and bolts of working with the county and what to expect from them, how to make them happy, how to make everybody's life as easy and smooth as possible to keep moving forward. And revenue streams to support it all so that if we make mistakes we can afford to go okay, we made a mistake let's fix that. Let's do it differently. I'm not sure did that answer your question?

48:04 Speaking of which, from a level of more of a sociological standpoint. We've been talking a lot about logistical stuff but it seems like what always crops up within civilizations of any size when they're around long enough is some sort of discord or instability like I would imagine there's got to be somebody in kind of a leadership role which inevitably kind of creates an opposite side of the coin of people who disagree with where the leader wants to take them. And I know you guys are really all about having open source communities so you can create your own town or place of dwelling if you choose to, but how would you deal with that in your society if there was some kind of dissension?

48:57 Yeah, so the model as a whole. So the governing system which also you can read about on the website is modeled after Jack Reed's book The Next Evolution which talks about consensus for groups of 200 plus and it's real different from what you would see say in consensus for the Occupy Movement or something like that. First and foremost there's this screening process of consciousness for the highest good It only takes one person in a consensus organization that has an agenda and isn't really thinking big picture, is only thinking about individual wants and needs to really change that environment. To make it very difficult to get anything done so we have an organization culture

49:42 of focusing on what is for the highest good of all and we really demonstrate that in every decision that we make, it becomes pretty obvious when we just take ourselves out of the equation and just ask what really is the best for humanity. By maintaining that culture, thatís the first way of addressing that. The second way is maintaining a consensus organization where we have groups that work together and then they come together so every voice is heard in small groups and then representatives of those groups come to another group and everything rotates. You can see details on how that works on the website. We have trainings and things like that, that are a big part of our screening process and part of our educational process. So every person on the property is trained in this. In addition to that, part of the big culture is part of our education model thatís built into this and weíre modeling that off of The Four Agreements. Iím not sure if you guys are familiar with The Four Agreements? Iím guessing you are. Then Eckhart Tolleís A New EarthÖ As a group ñ and this is just our culture, itís

50:42 you know, we're ideological about or pushing on other people. But from our group we really see embracing consciousness in this concept of transcending the ego and really looking at our place in the bigger picture and how we can help humanity and how we can best cooperate and collaborate as a foundational culture and as a way of life and holding each other specifically accountable to that So that the idea is that we can really, really communicate about the things as they come up and avoid it becoming what historically I feel you're describing.

51:18 Something else I wanted to ask you about. We've covered housing, of course food production is going to be a huge thing, hydroponics and aquaponics I'm sure you're gonna be using but You talked about on the website this central hub this community center this three domed building in the middle Tell us about that a little bit what would go on there? Yeah, so that's the Sago Center City Hub and what it is is a duplicable recreation center that replaces I guess an easy way to describe that was is that would be the epitome of a resource-based economy In my opinion And the idea is that by putting your resources into a central hub where it hosts your dining facilities It has laundry for 300 people. It has a recreational space where you know 200 people could gather

52:08 at one time by putting your resources into that instead of individual spaces in people's homes, it saves a ridiculous amount of money and it creates the space that most people would consider opulent. I mean really just like oh my god this is amazingly beautiful. And it's like well yeah that costs about the cost of a couple homes you know but the difference is, saved us building all these individual kitchens and all of these individual laundry rooms and all these individuals so the idea of the duplicable city hub is twofold number one to create a LEED platinum certified building that can be built anywhere in the world and can function as a revenue stream if people wanted to invest

52:49 a sizable amount of money and basically live in a really beautiful space, and then build a village model around it. The Sago Center Dupli-Google City Hub is the way to do that." It's basically saying hey you could put up a bunch of money, you could pay somebody to build this for you Haiti and then you could move there and you could build your village model around that, expand it and create a sustainable city around that. You would never have to do what everybody in our organization has to do which is living in shared accommodations with cramped very little space building from scratch So that's the first purpose of that. The second purpose of that, which is equal or maybe even more important is that idea of saving resources and so in the case of one community, the living arrangements that we have, the city model that we've designed

53:42 There are small living arrangements, small living accommodations more like hotel rooms because the social spaces and the common spaces are where we put our resources. So the idea is that in the environment, it's a social environment that were creating you're not spending time sitting in your living room watching TV You're constantly proactive and so we're redefining what a person's home looks like. What is the purpose of that? What is really your private space, you know and for anybody that lives in a large family it's your bedroom and so when we looked at it we just said okay well what if we really built it more like that instead okay why don't we just create these homes to be really small 200 square foot private spaces they are really purposed for sleeping intimacy and maybe reading a book or something then put all our resources into really beautiful spaces that are common spaces

54:31 that can also be big social spaces or private spaces if people want to get away. That's why those spaces are built into our food infrastructure and everything else that we're doing, we're always saying okay how can we create a place where if somebody just wanted to get away from it this would be the place to go. It would so much more beautiful than sitting in even the nicest living room you could imagine. Let's create that because its 15 minute walk through the forest anyway so why don't we do that instead? It just makes more sense and then process saves massive amounts of resources." Yeah man, it's so inspiring. It sounds great! Walk us through the energy infrastructure we haven't talked much about that I assume solar geothermal wind

55:11 Yeah, so initially you know originally we were looking at a whole bunch of diversity of different things and then We ended up settling after a lot of consulting and talk about it on solar. And So we're starting with solar. We've got a couple partners that have some really revolutionary energy Revolutionary energy ideas but as most people know You know I got to see that proven before Iím going to get super excited about it. So, Iím kind of skeptical and simultaneously extremely hopeful. For our energy infrastructure we started with tried-and-true and from that point once our initial infrastructure is set up and the energy infrastructure is part of that, weíll have the revenue that we need to explore other options and expand as much as we want to with geothermal and looking at

55:59 wind and then some of these other emerging technologies that I personally haven't seen proven yet in a way where it's like, okay. I'm going to invest in that. That's what we're going to do but we have a lot of these organizations that are contacting us and saying hey when you guys... We want to come out! You know? We want to demonstrate this at one community and so we're super open to that if you can prove it. We just don't have the team to effectively evaluate those things right now And so we're sticking with tried and true. And when we're on the property, we have 50 people to look at this technology and have somebody come out show it to us then we can make a decision if you want expand in other ways if they are proven. That sounds great! Something else I wanted ask you because I know you've been looking at building materials and all these things for many years... Yup. ...and I noticed there's also couple building organizations partnered with you on this

56:46 Yeah, you know something I'm interested in my own life is trying to improve my financial situation. I'm sure a lot of the listeners are also paying rent like I am it's a huge waste of money and I stress over when I'll ever be able to own a home in this type of economic situation. It seems far outside of my means right now, but you know if I bought an acre of land and wanted to build a house myself that was cheap efficient structurally sound comfortable place to live but probably using unconventional materials with all the knowledge you've gained how would you advise someone to do something like that? Well where we stand right now

57:26 Without what we're creating you'd probably need to circumvent the system, you know And that's a big part of what we're trying to solve right? Hey You know here's permitted blueprints and that's what were If you don't want to permit things, you don�t mind the distinct possibility that you might have to tear it all down or have it bulldozed then there's a broad diversity of different things out there that you can do with tiny homes, earthbag homes, cob, all these things. You could build a very nice home for $15-20 thousand dollars but the tricky part about You're probably gonna run into problems with the county and what most people Run into is they're so afraid to even start the process Because if you told no then you're dead in the water, and now they're looking at you

58:18 And so that's what we want to fix. We want to show, hey here is a county that said it works. It's permitted and everything engineering and everything that's necessary is right here now take this with confidence in before you buy a piece of land and talk to your county and say I wanna build something like this are you guys hip to this idea? Here has been done here's the full blueprints and spread This is what I'm thinking and then you'll know ahead of time whether or not you can do that and then people can make those decisions with confidence and start spreading these ideas. Touche, yeah that does seem to be the challenge is there's just so much regulation under the guise of safety and I'm sure some it is safety but also limits your ability to take care of your own damn self you know? It's so frustrating! I think about maybe moving into a lesser established place more tropical isolated area but that comes with a whole host of other problems

59:13 It just seems like a lose-lose, but you guys are doing a pretty good job of trying to integrate those things and participate and also transcend which is really inspiring. Thank you! Yeah, that's the key that we see is getting this model to spread very quickly. Once the blueprints and everything are set up you kind of answer your own question if you're okay not living in United States and you want to live sustainably then there are a lot different ideas out there that you could take and go and live in another country and build without without permits and see what you can do but I think the majority of people probably want to stay close to their families and things like that. So we really want to address that, but then once the city models in the village models are completely designed now we've created an option where a person could take their family and friends with them and go build in another country and that addresses the bulk

1:00:04 of the issues that most people would have for moving out of the country and really establishing themselves somewhere else where this would be considerably easier. And we're working on establishing relationships with providers of technology, then providers of materials and things like that so we can streamline the process as much as possible for people who want to build anywhere on planet Lewis Let me ask you about your process of getting people involved with this first community. Are there paid positions that you have at this stage in the game? If people are motivated to walk away from their day job, can they come and say hey I've got five grand in assets I will put towards the purchase of this property? What's your process for really getting that first stage going?

1:00:54 We're a 100% group of unpaid volunteers, so self-included. Right now I'm funding this whole thing myself and From a fairness point, it doesnít cost anything to join One Community. Itís just an investment of time and energy. In the example that you were talking about, One Community is designed to be a solution to exactly what youíre asking for which is if somebody applies to be part of one community and they move on to the property and they work for 18 months in helping us build and create one community at the end of 18 months, you would own the home that you helped build And then at that point, those people could either sell that home which will appreciate as the community continues to expand and improve itself or they could live in that home obviously and stay with one community. And as they do that, they would upgrade that home as we build a second village model, third village model et cetera. Or they could travel the world or go buy house somewhere else and maintain that home as...and we would maintain that home is an income property for the individual

1:01:56 So, in the short term how we're gathering people right now is to say hey if you want to be a part of world change it doesn't cost any money. We've had people who said I have money and would like to contribute but were not even open to that because $30k or 100k or 200k contribution to our project doesn't really change anything We're looking for somebody to buy the property and to be fully funded. And so from a fairness standpoint, we're really looking for outside revenue so that everybody is equally invested in their time and their energy and there's no hierarchy."

1:02:34 That's my perspective as a person who is funding it right now. I'm not attached to any of that and so we can keep our intent and our goals pure and focused on highest good of all thinking, and that's another reason why the model is designed so that nobody should ever have to pay to become part of one community. It's just investment of time and energy. Then there's the great equalizer and this comes back to the resource-based economy is if we make time our only currency, and now it's not a matter of well you have this education or whatever. That's really what we want to focus on is like okay we're all equal here and we're all contributing because we believe in what we are creating and then now its totally fair I guess is the easiest way to describe

1:03:18 We touched on this a bit, but on the subject of technology that we were talking about before and how it seems to me that you guys are kind of embracing like an older tribal style of living in smaller communities. But you're trying to include technology into that equation. But in the long term, do you see any equations or any technologies that are on the horizon that are really going to help this movement and really going to help its spread at all? Yeah, we have a ... That touches on it. We actually dedicated a page in our website to this idea because when you really start thinking about the options for technology for instance most people know that iPads are not really created super ethically. You know what's going on? How Apple's products are created is really not ideal and yet they provide in a lot of people's opinions a superior product that provides what we need to function

1:04:15 And so we started as a group, we've talked about this and said well how do we create a way to influence Apple to produce a better product or how do we create an engine for the global collaborative to work together to create technological solutions to all of these different things that we really don't have the time and energy to focus on right now. So, our approach to that is the highest good of all philosophy. We basically made a list of things where we just said okay these are areas this will be growing list of various where we know that we would like a better solution and we've already got the global population saying hey have you thought about this or what about this? It's like man it's a great idea but we're stretched thin our plate is already full and so we created this we're creating infrastructure to basically address those questions and then almost

1:05:05 I think the best analogy would be like crowdfunding a crowd thought process. So instead of monetary crowd funding process, it's more an idea of building momentum of people saying hey these are issues that are interesting and important to us and here is the global collaborative thought process on solutions and if we had a company that wanted to take this solution and run with it, we can build the market for that so then the company could crowd fund or whatever it is And so the idea is what if we took this concept and we created like i said the mind trust a global mind trust where we go hey as one community were ice good for all organization and we know that this is not ideal so we're putting it out to the world population say what are your ideas on how to fix this and we would love.

1:05:53 collaborative to work on this issue and if there's any companies that would like to address this issue specifically, we are interested in talking to you because we're creating an engine for promoting this idea. If you can do it for the highest good of all globally." And by doing that, we believe that we can influence just the same way that Walmart has arguably influenced it in a negative way. We believe that we can influence it in a very empowering and super positive way, and get Walmart on board in the process because it benefits them too. And that kind of ties it all together then because you have the local communities, but then you have this kinda global online think tank that keeps the dialogue going among all these different communities. I feel like that's really the missing piece that you had in the past rather than having all these isolated communities that viewed all these other societies as outside of them. There is really something tying them together then?

1:06:47 Yep, and we've actually been in the process of developing software to facilitate that process. You can read about that it's called the ACE app on our website as well for coordinating those decisions and then also really gaining objective data on everything from the social architecture and how people utilize their time as a sociological experiment as well as exactly what the materials were used to build this exactly with the tools or use to build EarthBang Village exactly how many labor hours went into that because we see the gathering of that data and then sharing that with a global collaborative. And as more and more communities pop up, that are interested in collaborating on this thing because the idea is that hey your needs are met now.

1:07:27 Now that your needs are met, you have an opportunity to take your free time and apply it to helping more people. It doesn't take everybody doing that to create a global shift or really create a global network. The idea is just spread that network and make it bigger and bigger and then more information's being fed in our lobbying, our buying power all of those details go up and then the natural shifted market will be guided because we really are demonstrating a new paradigm that is better And we're not fighting against anybody. It's all positive and forward thinking. You've definitely done your homework and a lot of research, and I do appreciate you sharing all that with us. It's about time we wrap this up. It has been great talking to you. Is there anything else you want to leave the people with? Maybe your website? Yeah our website is onecommunityglobal.org

1:08:19 I guess the closing thought is what we're doing is open to everybody. There's lots of ways to participate in what we're creating, if you have talent and any area and your interest in what were doing get involved with what were doing. If there's any aspect of our project that has helped or useful for other projects or somebody who has been thinking about something like this would like to take it into completely different direction Copy our entire website and start from there. Take everything we have or whatever pieces work for you, and there's your foundation We've got thousands and thousands of hours of work that's done And we're giving it away, and there's no greater compliment than to see it taken in use You don't have to credit one community you just use it use it Let's spread these ideas and get out there powerful well Jay thanks again That was awesome

1:09:07 Thanks, Craig. Thanks Mike I really appreciate it's been a pleasure All right man good luck and have a good day Thank you you guys too You know Michael Nelson my man how did you like that? You know what's on your mind now It was really cool. I like that, like I said, these guys are actually bringing it down to earth and doing something on a local level and having that internet infrastructure in order to mobilize a larger movement. That's where its lost. Either people are doing something locally or they're doing something online and talking big game but its almost

1:09:48 Never never the tween shall meet, you know It's like it's like one or the other but the new paradigm is definitely in having that You know harmony between those two aspects. I think yeah, you know Jacques Fresco is 97 98 years old and When people approach him with questions about small cities and stuff like that he's he almost says look if we can't get this Thane running for maximum efficiency with maximum global energy infrastructure, it's not gonna work. And it's like I see your point but dude you're 98 years old you've been doing this your whole goddamn life don't you want to live in an area yourself with a community of people that at least have your ideals and mine that you can kind of maybe within your little world feel like its everywhere? Jesus Christ! You're going to die soon

1:10:40 And you're just talking, you know. You're talking a lot about it doing a lot of interviews and I don't know...I wish there was more happening so i'm glad JN1 Community is doing that Yeah for sure and you know I think- I couldn't agree with you more than the change is definitely going to have to start locally and maybe like minded people from different parts in the country kind of doing the same thing on their own Is really what its gonna take It's nice to sit here talk conjecture about stuff like Hyperloop and all these huge scale projects that are going to cost billions and billions of dollars. But I really think before we get funding for anything crazy like that, we're going to need to start demonstrating things on a local level with local money and local work

1:11:28 I think it's just about breaking people out of that mindset. They can watch the Venus Project documentary, but they have all these negative things to say about it. What about this? Or what about that? How are you going to do this? Am I gonna be able to watch Breaking Bad and get wasted at Dave & Buster's within this society?! You know, can I have an iPhone? Am I only gonna be able to wear one type of shoe. People are... they worry too much about that shit and if they could see it you know that's why you need that test city. You see it and then as the population of that city grows it just expands outward until it is the whole fucking state of Montana. I think it'd be awesome but before we go man what's new for you what's next with Midwest Reel how's that going

1:12:11 It's going pretty well, man. I've been really busy with my band actually we recorded over the summer so i've been focusing a lot of my energy on that and we just finished recording and that's gonna be coming out on a label out of St Louis Oh! That's my hometown oh really? Yeah What label? They're new label they are called Easy Killer it's run by guy who used to be He played music in bands and he's been a promoter for years, and booked shows for years. His name is Mike Judy. He's about our age. He's really good guy. What's the name of the band? City Of Ghosts. It's kind of like progressive indie rock heavy thing... I don't know that's always hard question to try to answer

1:12:59 to try to answer like what type of music is it. But that's kind of what I always say, nice man and as far as the podcast world is concerned, man, it is a crazy place and I'm glad that it's connected the both of us. Yeah sure this has been fun. I appreciated being on Midwest Real you know me too man! I started my show because the people that I wanted to hear from the topics I wanted to know about they weren't getting a fair shake or they had to appear on shows with a certain slant that I didn't like And now people are asking me to come on their shows and it's really come full circle. It's a little off-putting, even though I did recently get kicked off of couple of podcast networks because of the Sandy Hook episode and the complaints they got but that's part of what we're doing you know? I'm talking about things people aren't talking about and sometimes it's extremely depressing and sometimes its inspiring like today

1:13:50 Yeah, man. I mean that's what...I really like doing more positive subjects because I get in that same little loop on my show where it just kind of seems like we're headed for some kind of disaster or some kind of breakdown and its inevitable but I don't think that's necessarily true. I think there are routes we can definitely go that are going to be small steps that will eventually lead to some kind of systemic change thats significant you know? Agreed! Well, I mean on that note you know, I loved having you here Stay man best with everything. You're doing thanks so much And if people do want to check it out check out Midwest real net That's where we post all of our podcasts and articles that we write follow us on twitter at Midwest real like us on Facebook It's just facebook.com slash Midwest real

1:14:42 So, yeah that's about it. Right on! Cool man I appreciate it enjoy the rest of your day and we'll see you again YouTube brother take care to be