Ahead of the ETH Localism general forum from October 13-16, in Portland OR, where I’ve been invited to share about ecoweaving and ecocoins for local, bioregional sovereignty, I sat with Amber Case and Jake Hartnell to talk about the use of DAOs in hyper-local contexts for social and economic resilience, Case’s experiences in Portland, and how existing pods, networks and communities of mutual-aid could be a crucial pathway for the next stage in the evolution of our coordination potential, as localities and bioregions founded upon genuine trust networks and value flows.
A lovely excerpt from the conversation at about 4:40, is where Case is talking specifically about the role of mutual aid groups:
“When we think about how DAOs could actually work at the local level, for something like earthquake relief or systems of local decentralized care, I think of that model [where] the people are used to distributing those kinds of necessary equipment. Routing the information through, and distributing the money, are the same kinds of people that have the kind of anarchist co-op experience that you might need for another type of emergency.”
“And there’s two other aspects I’ve seen that I’ve been really interested in. One was a local neighborhood organization called “Ice cream, so you don’t scream”. A very cute little flyer was dropped off around maybe 60 houses in the neighborhood. And it was this one woman who lived just in this kind of alleyway, this big, beautiful house, and she just gave everyone in the neighborhood ice cream, if they would come by, and learn about how to be safe during the earthquake, and said, “When the earthquake happens, I will be here with this radio and all this stuff, please outfit yourself with water and all these things. And then we’ll provide a unit for ourselves to be okay, including first aid and ham radio and all sorts of other things you can meet here and you can feel safe,” – that was organized by somebody with a lot of skill in understanding that they could be a vital node.
“The second one that I saw was the ham radio enthusiasts, which provide a really great decentralized network as is, by your call signs. And you have all sorts of interesting people in basements learning about ham radio, and they’re talking to each other. And when disasters strike, they can still talk to each other. And so the ham radio people in Portland have a ham radio certification course, specifically so that they can be heroes during a disaster. And there are specific locations that you meet in parks during the earthquake. And if you’re a ham radio enthusiast, you can basically have this wonderful analog social network, where there’s almost a sense of delight when the disaster happens, because you’re you get to save people, you get to help people out, you get to have a little bit of a miniature paramedic support.”
“And this is so much different than the Red Cross, which goes into cities and may or may not help and then charges, people a lot of money. There’s been a lot of complaints about this. There’s also been a lot of complaints about what looks like some decentralized support with places like Haiti that I talked with someone who raised I think it was like $250k for Haiti. And I talked to him five years later. And I said, How much of that actually went to the ground in Haiti? And he said, ‘Well, it took like one or two years to get that stuff to people on the ground, and more of a mutual aid group would have been a better place, cecause they already have the community network.'”
“So I think there’s interesting ways to do it. But I think it must be done from people who are already used to doing it. Not a new special way for us to do this thing guided by technologies point like, ‘Hey, how’s it already done? How can some digital ledger help people do this,’ but it’s really about helping people already do things that they’re trying to do.”
“And I think there’s there’s another risk of complicating things and making a system that’s harder for people to use like for, for people to really adopt something, it should be like 10 times easier than it was to do it the analog way. And I really want to see what these mutual aid groups in Portland had for organization and routing, especially since when you look at ESRI technology, there’s drive time polygons that are expensive to query or how do you rent resources around that’s like proprietary expensive polygon, geodesic-type math, that’s very, very hard to do.”
“And yet these people had figured it out in their little zones where they could go to. So it’s really about how that worked really well with signal and probably a couple maps and a bunch of different centralized nodes at people’s houses. I think the other reason why it worked is that there were very few people kind of like Wikipedia-style Editor level that really wanted to be, you know, the house parents that were really good at the organization coordination prided themselves in that.”
— Thanks for listening in!
Summary
Using decentralized networks for disaster relief and care. 0:00
Case shares her experience living in Portland, Oregon, where she studied geology and worked for a geographic information system software company.
Case discusses the potential risks and resources in Portland, including earthquakes, landslides, and flooding, and how the city could coordinate to sense and act together in the event of a disaster.
Case highlights the resilience of San Francisco during earthquakes, despite lacking systems of care, and notes that the same anarchist cybernetic network that helped during forest fires could be repurposed for earthquake relief.
In Portland, Oregon, a decentralized network of mutual aid using Signal for communication and money distribution helped people during forest fires, and could be adapted for local earthquake relief efforts.
Mutual aid groups and technology. 5:17
Case highlights the efforts of local neighborhood organizations, such as “ice cream, so you don’t scream,” which provide vital support during disasters.
Ham radio enthusiasts in Portland have a certification course to become “heroes” during disasters, with a decentralized network of support.
Case highlights the importance of making digital systems easier to use than their analog counterparts, with a focus on scaling up communities of care.
Tony suggests providing specific care and coordination support for individuals who are skilled at organization and coordination, similar to how Wikipedia Style Editors contribute to the platform.
Case highlights the importance of understanding the social infrastructure and technology’s role in coordinating mutual aid groups, rather than just relying on technology solutions.
Jack Dangermond’s experience with Azeri shows how building software alongside foresters led to successful adoption and the need for a larger organization.
Decentralized mutual aid and trust networks. 13:17
Tony and Case discuss decentralized mutual aid groups with transparent financial management.
Case discusses the idea of “onion skinning” in organizing groups, where only a select few are initially invited to participate and grow over time.
Tony references mutual aid frameworks and anarchic Gladbach networks as existing models for coordination in the event of disaster.
Creativity, technology, and mindfulness. 19:11
Tony and Jake discuss the joys of using tape for music production, with Jake preferring the mindfulness and creativity it brings.
Case shares how using physical tape for video editing can be a special and savory process, with the potential for more diligence and respect for the final product.
Case argues that digital technology can lead to a loss of embodied sensitivity and intuition in creative work, as well as a tendency to overbuild and disconnect from reality.
Tony adds that the switch to digital interfaces can result in a loss of deliberation and anxiety, as well as a narrowing of potentialities and a disconnection from the analog patterns and sensitivities that are essential for embodied cognition.
Case discusses the concept of “Kairos time” vs. “Chronos time,” highlighting the difference between meaningful, in-the-moment experiences vs. throwaway, industrialized time.
Case studies mutual aid groups in Portland, Oregon, focusing on the importance of small, in-person connections and the use of pseudonyms and blocks to maintain privacy and safety.
Community-driven innovation and problem-solving. 28:25
Tony and Case discuss the importance of collective imagining and pre-cognition in shaping a more resilient and beautiful present reality.
Tony and Case discuss the importance of small groups and collective heroism in times of crisis, citing examples from Nigeria and India.
Case highlights the innovative solutions that emerge when there is no safety net, such as the creation of mobile ambulance services and electric car charging stations.
Case discusses the importance of innovation in the face of constraints, citing the example of Square’s point of sale system and how it helped small businesses during the recession.
Case and Tony discuss the concept of “ambulance entrepreneurship,” where entrepreneurs identify a problem and find a solution without waiting for funding or resources.
Collective efforts, governance, and transparency. 35:57
Jake emphasizes the importance of collective efforts for disaster preparedness, governance, and decision-making, advocating for open-source and decentralized solutions to ensure transparency and control.
Decentralized decision-making and community funding. 37:45
Local initiative and trust can lead to successful community-driven projects.
Case and Tony discuss the challenges of managing large amounts of money in decentralized communities, with a focus on the potential for corruption and the importance of transparency and accountability.
They highlight the need for new frameworks and mechanisms to prevent bad actors from taking advantage of these communities, and the importance of publicly sense-making together to address these issues.
Decentralized decision-making and collective ownership. 42:23
Tony and Jake discuss the importance of decentralized decision-making and collective ownership in political organizations.
Case highlights the corrupting influence of money in nonprofit and collective contexts, citing examples of artists receiving grants and acting in an inauthentic manner.
Case and Tony discuss the issue of organizations prioritizing aesthetics over innovation, using examples from MIT, Pixar, and other institutions.
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAs) and their potential to govern software and avoid AI dystopia. 49:05
Jake and Case discuss the concept of a DAO in the context of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), with Jake suggesting that communities should have power to enforce their own rules and Case inquiring about the most successful and sustainable DAOs.
Jake and Case debate the definition of a DAO, with Jake arguing that it can be interpreted in different ways and Case seeking a more concrete understanding of what makes a DAO successful and resilient in the long term.
Jake and Case discuss the dynamics of a decentralized organization, including the importance of shared purpose and experimentation.
Tony and Case discuss the potential for AI to govern society, with Jake adding his thoughts on the importance of digital native species.