distribution

There is enough to go around. Watch.

Who We Are

n includes everyone who practices generosity in the spirit that there is enough to go around, if only we would circulate resources responsibly and without self-interest. These resources include information, love, and good energy, among other material and immaterial resources.

dis·tri·bu·tion (n.)

  1. the action of sharing something out among a number of recipients.
  2. the way in which something is shared out among a group or spread over an area.
  3. the action or process of supplying goods to stores and other businesses that sell to consumers.
  4. + the decentralized networks of people who circulate resources without self-interest.

The forces of self-interest (including our own) would have us believe that business is itself a form of distribution. In fact, buying and selling are methods of accumulation, characterized by everyone trying to get the best deal. In business, distribution happens reluctantly, almost as a concession rather than the primary objective.

n is the antithesis of business, and has no respect for the practices and values of business.

n is primarily accomplished by sharing and giving, especially to whom through which your efforts will benefit the most people.

What We Do

n combats the psychology of artificial scarcity by giving and sharing without asking or expecting anything in return.

n negates the value of money by recognizing that it's inherently destructive mechanism renders it worthless, and by being careful not to encourage it's use.

n is a simple guidline to how we can form decentralized lines of distribution here and now that can replace the mechanism of capitalism to provide us with resources.


n is like the mycelium that connects all the living things through the forest floor, and makes sure the nutrients get to where they need to go for the vitality of the forest as a whole.

How We Do It

n starts with forgiving all debts, whether monetary, emotional, spiritual, or otherwise. A debt is a grudge, and like all grudges it takes much more energy to hold onto than it does to let go.

n works by envisioning that all resources have an almost pre-ordained perfect trajectory on which they will be put to best use and benefit the most people. That means prioritizing giving to those who are most generous, through which your efforts will touch the most people - especially those who understand and embody these distribution principles. Working for distribution means making it our constant practice to hone our ability to find that trajectory for all our gifts.

n acknowledges that the monetary system and it's consequences are but the externalization of our internal fears and desires, so to be working for distribution includes working on overcoming our own fears and desires that keep us turning to money.

n honors gifts and things found or favors received for free as sacred, to be respected and preserved (if not improved upon) and shared or passed on in the same spirit with which they were received. This way they're allowed to circulate, sending out a ripple of inter-connectedness and interdependant well-being.

n is the recognition that the people are in position, and the resources are available, to live in a gift economy. The only limiting factor left is the ability of the individual to rapidly alter relationships with the people around them to honor the values of distribution rather than those of business.

n works best when you've got no plans. Seriously. Like, completely clear your calendar forever, and start living in the moment.

"Your past is a prison with an open door. You can walk out whenever you like..."

Connect. Network.



Warnings

n cultivates an enchanted worldview, where there are no coincidences, and everything happens for a reason. These reasons help paint a picture of the connections between people and between needs and resources.

n is a process of mind that may lead to stealing from the rich to give to the poor. I recommend doing this only as long as it is a matter of meeting basic needs, or significantly helping the cause of increasing access to resources for all. For the most part, this means taking from corporations but not from people.

Try not to let your actions be guided by pity, as your efforts can become endlessly sunk into the neediest of people in a needy world. By focusing on rewarding those who are most generous, the wealth is destined to spread out regardless.

philosophy

There is enough to go around. Watch.

Emergent Behavior

An emergent behavior or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective.

Each molecule in a body of water acts identically with the world around it, yet together that behavior many times over has powerful cumulative affects on the body of water as a whole. Take water tension, for instance. While one drop of water could never hurt you, if you fell from high in the sky onto a body of water it wouldn't be unlike smacking into a slab of concrete.

Emergent behavior is a good organization principle. It focuses on the health of every part, and the relationships between them. It avoids developing co-dependant relationships, and leans toward each individual part working to improve itself rather than any part trying to impose their idea of order onto others.

"The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts."

Artificial Scarcity

"The technological capacity to produce enough to satisfy everyone's needs already exists globally and has for many decades. Yet needs continue to remain unmet on a massive scale. Why?

Quite simply because scarcity is a functional requirement of capitalism itself."

It's not a mistake or an accident that abundance is destroyed. Increasing supply to the point of meeting demand would dramatically undercut the maximum profit margin available. So, since profit-motivated institutions depend on scarcity, wherever it doesn't come naturally they'll go about manufacturing it.

Thus, there are more empty houses than homeless people - many of them held off the market just to keep prices up. There is a great excess of food, clothing, and other necessities which go to waste not because they're broken or spoiled but because they're actively destroyed by producers and retailers (since making them available to people would undercut the scarcity on which the producers and retailers depend to turn a profit).

It's a fundamental contradiction of late-stage capitalism. The market has succeeded in creating a huge overabundance such that everyone could have as much as they need, but this abundance undermines the success of the players in the market. So they have to do additional work just to re-create an artificial scarcity in order to continue profiting from an outdated model.

Slippery Slope

"What about using money to end money? We could run an ad campaign to persuade people to turn away from capitalism. Or buy land to start a commune."

The problem with using money "just a little more" is that it's a slippery slope with no end in sight. Money has always been a matter of convenience, and there will always be something that is easier to get with money than without. But it is convenience at the cost of other's comfort or even survival. What's harder is making the connections, cultivating the community, and pooling the resources to make it all happen for free. But necessity is the mother of invention, and if you're still using money then you're likely making little or no progress in learning to live without it.

We would be wiser to focus on distribution, which is good for everyone, everywhere. Such a force will inevitably draw in more and more people, and with them more knowledge of living free, as well as more resources with which to build from.

Gift Economy

Capitalism is simply the emergent behavior of individuals believing that things can be bought and sold, and then acting on that belief. It's the self-fulfilling prophecy of the belief that there isn't enough to go around, and so we must hold onto what we have and leverage it against others to maintain a decent quality of life. Of course, it is this scarcity mentality that creates the felt experience of scarcity in the first place. And by depending on direct reciprocation and debt rather than trusting in the indirect reciprocation of a more altruistic attitude to get things where they need to go, wealth accumulates rather than circulating.

And as time has shown, by putting a price on anything, we've put a price on everything. Trees are now worth more once they're chopped down and sold as lumber. Patients are worth more alive than dead, but are best for the economy with one or more chronic illnesses. Water is worth more in a plastic bottle. And people are worth more to the Prison Gaurd Union for every day they're stuck in a jail cell.

Things can be outlawed, but markets can't be stopped - and since scarcity increases demand the black market is always booming. Sex can still be bought. And for $2,000 you can hire a corporate hit-man, if you know the right people. At some point we have to ask - is it worth it to put a price on anything?

Given the viral nature of capitalism in monetizing every last thing on Earth, it seems the only realistic alternative to capitalism would be to refuse to put a price tag on anything. This is the idea of the gift economy. We can only live harmoniously once we rid ourselves of this idea that everything can be bought and sold. By denying the value of money, we have the freedom to serve our community as best we can rather than feeling forced to serve whatever compromised cause promises profits.

Perhaps helping where help is needed, and learning to meet our needs for free, is our best hope. And as we ween ourselves off money, the only incentive left will be to do that which gives you purpose in working to improve the well-being of your community as a whole and enjoying the sense of belonging which that brings.

Take the Hooks Out

When something has a price tag, or expectations attached, those are hooks. Like the hooks in fish bait. And almost everything in this world has hooks in it. "No such thing as a free lunch". No love without expectations. No shelter without paying for it. Living in a world of such deficit, many feel they have no choice but to leave the hooks in and pass 'em on, in hopes of profitting a bit themselves.

But just because you paid for something, whether in money or pain or emotional trauma, doesn't mean you have to pass on the hooks. Someone needs to be the strong person who can bite the bullet, and take the hooks out. By refusing to pass on the same strings attached, and instead giving freely to those most likely to pass it on without putting the hooks back in, you can be the one to stop that cycle here and now.

Beware! If you get it in your head that even just a little money can help the cause, you become the infiltrator of capitalism pissing away all of our efforts to distribute resources. We would no longer be embodying the values of distribution were we to help you get a squat if you plan to rent out a room. Nor would we be helping distribution in getting you a free bike were you to sell it. If you're putting the hooks back into things, you've fallen out of line with the values of distribution.

Mass Media

The definitions of words in the minds of the people is a living thing, etremely dynamic, and highly affected by the ebb and flow of culture and historical significance. But most importantly, it is affected by the most recent uses of the word. In a sense, a word is redefined with every use.

Mass media, employing all the latest research in psychology and mass manipulation, has developed an incredibly strong influence on the worldview of an unprecedented number of humans over the past few decades. And because mass media is inherently motivated by profit, it is laced with the messaging of a multi-billion dollar advertising industry, which uses any and every word, phrase, or concept available to divert people's attention toward consumer products, consumer experiences, and a constricted consumer outlook on life.

With the battle over words and concepts growing fierce, the phrase "sharing economy" has arisen out of necessity as there was once again no commonly accepted way to refer to the idea of an economy of sharing that hadn't been somehow co-opted or slandered beyond recognition. It's a powerful phrase, and a powerful move by the people who use the phrase to choose to somewhat adopt the language of it's aggressor by using the word "economy". While economics has always downplayed, ignored, or obscured any form of sharing or giving because of the nature of most established economic formulas, and the immeasurable nature of love and gratitude, the phrase "sharing economy" strives to return the idea of sharing and giving to the arena of economics, by portraying it as an alternative economy rather than a non-economy. And by putting it in economic terms, one might have hoped the phrase could remain more resilient.

Unfortunately, even as new of a phrase as it is, businesses have already caught on and have been completely misusing the phrase in their ads to refer to their business, propagating it's misuse far and wide. This creates a huge obstacle for any new concept, movement, or community still trying to gain traction by eclipsing it's original meaning and obscuring it's existence. In this case, a phrase that was made to catch someone's eye, ignite their imagination, and lead them on a path of discovery to a world of people who believe in a more equitable world, might instead be ignored as a meaningless for-profit slogan that's been overplayed a million times.

That's why as fast as our concepts are being co-opted and commodified, we must be creating new words, new concepts, new meanings, and meanwhile fight to retain or return a sense of meaning to the words and concepts we already have. Here we've chosen the word "distribution" to try to return to the world a way of referring to the concept of altruistically circulating resources, giving to where it will be best received and most wisely put to use, and will ultimately help to conspire toward a world of greater abundance and access to resources for all.

Here and Now

Studies have shown that people instinctively help each other when there is no time to think. Yet, given time to think, we have a plethora of ways to justify not helping one another. Perhaps our only hope is in learning to turn off the mind, and turn on the heart. Our minds have become so cluttered with culture and mass media, our hearts have been shoved deep down under layers of baggage. We have arrived in Babylon. Language has become uprooted, co-opted beyond recognition. There are no more meetings or discussions that can help us, because we quite literally aren't speaking the same language, even as we use the same words. Perhaps our only hope is to live in the moment, act from the heart, and stop letting so many words and ideas distract us.

In this pursuit, learning to quiet the mind, if only for a few minutes every day, is indispensible.

inspiration

You are not alone.

Friends

Other volunteer-run (dis)organizations that work for distribution.

Something From Nothing
Volunteer research, asking the harder questions that profit-motivated researchers may never ask.

Dare Me Stupid
A "dare" engine, to help peer-pressure each other to be the fullest expression of ourselves.

NeoCities
The new geocities! Returning simple personalized websites to people for free.

What We're Up Against

Planned obsolescence
A policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, that is, unfashionable or no longer functional after a certain period of time.

Embrace, extend, extinguish
a leaked internal memo exposed Microsoft's company policy of purposefully derailing technological progress with proprietary red herrings.

We're Making Hobbit Holes Everywhere

No better way to tell the system to go fuck itself than by leaving it entirely and building your own nest.

Here is a hobbit hole that one person is working on which he is documenting the progress of pretty nicely.

Here's another hobbit hole where a man in Oregon lives for about $5,000 a year.

And then there's this hobbit hole, built by a young couple for them and their newborn baby, which was found out in nature and completely off the grid. Yet, despite setting a shining example of how we can once again live in harmony with nature, they've been told to leave and their home is planned for demolition.

It's a sad story, but thats just the tip of the iceburg. It's the nature of the underground to always look like it's ending, which leads to everyone assuming that it was only around "back in the old days". But that's just because the underground is always destroyed upon being found. However, that says nothing about what percent of it is still hidden, and well-functioning. And indeed, a well-executed underground spot would never be reported on. So take even these more destructive stories to mean that there are scores of people out there working toward the same free life.

Remember, there's plenty of space out there. Don't get stuck in one place!

Music

Learnalilgivinanlovin by Gotye
"Give away love... give it for free... no strings attached... just don't ask for it back..."

Together by Bob Sinclar
"One day we'll be together... we'll never be apart... One heart... One mind!"

World, Hold On by Bob Sinclar
"...if you ever meet your inner child, don't cry... Tell them everything is going to be alright..."

Love Generation by Bob Sinclar
"...be the love generation..."

Free by Ultra
"...if we gave more than we took, life would be so good...
Now's the time, cause we're free!"

We're Alive by Paul Van Dyk
"...we're aliiiiiive, take a deep breath..."

Video

Anonymous Man, The Unsung Hero

Oneness is Abundance

The Revolution is Love by Charles Eisenstein

New World Order by Rap News

V for Vendetta Speech

The Great Dictator Speech by Charlie Chaplin

collaboration

Don't just stand there... do something!

Methods

There are methods to our madness. Here are just a few.

Gift Tags

If you have something to give away but you don't know who it's meant for, tie a tag on it that says "pass it on (or keep it)" on one side and "do not sell" on the other side. Anyone who honors n will prioritize getting it to where it needs to go.

Gift Notes

On a piece of paper, write something you're offering to do or give away. Add some contact information, and write the instructions "contact me or pass it on". This will pass from hand to hand forming decentralized distribution lines which value generosity over greed. For extra fun, make them look like some kind of currency with a pretty border.

Gift Circles

Gather publicly or privately, with a group of friends or strangers, arranged by word of mouth or by flyers in coffee shops or posters on the street. Sit in a circle and take turns describing your needs. Then go around the circle speaking up if you can help meet someone else's need, and offering up whatever else you have.

Really Really Free Market

Set a reoccuring day like every first Sunday to gather for a potluck type event of sharing food and other things. Give things away. Help people fix their bikes. Whatever you can do to contribute and help out. And if anyone tries to sell anything, tell them they can't do it here, or your Really Really Free Market might not by free much longer.

Online Sharing Tools

Sharing is Caring

A simple website where people can make any offer or request they want. No bartering or buying - gifts only. It's been done, but this is a more small-scale community. That way we hope to avoid the vultures who grab up the best offers and flip them for profit. We even have backup plans for if that happens.

Street Bank

Share things with your neighbors. Why depend on money, and put ourselves at the mercy of the banks, when we can just depend on each other?

Free Section of Craigslist

A simple website where people can make any offer or request they want. No bartering or buying - gifts only. It's been done, but this is a more small-scale community. That way we hope to avoid the vultures who grab up the best offers and flip them for profit. We even have backup plans for if that happens.

title

Freecycle spends more time sueing people.