Talk:Hugapaloosa

The goal of Open Source Ecology is to develop an ecology of appropriate technology products and services that promote right livelihoods.

The philosophy is right livelihood. The means is appropriate and open technology, deployed via flexible and digital fabrication. The outcome is responsible, creative, globally-linked, independent communities.

Right Livelihood
Although the exact words "right livelihood" may not expressedly be used, every world religion addresses this concept. How do we live Right? How do we live Justfully? How do we live Peacefully? How do we live in Harmony with all life on Earth?

As such, "Livelihood" is more than bringing 'home the bacon'. Rather, livelihood is synomous to your life purpose. Your livelihood is everything you give to the world. It includes what you do for a living as well as what you pursue outside of work.

Unfortunatly, for many people these tasks are disconnected. Good people, trying to live wholesome lives are working in jobs that are unjust, support war, and destroy the balance between life on earth. Many jobs seem innocuous on the surface, but when they are examined on a deeper level, they are not right livelihoods. One could argue that nearly every mainstream job fails to support peace, justice, and world harmony on a deep level.

So, how do we bridge this disconnect? What tools are needed to create livelihoods that are "right"?

Open Technology
We believe that appropriate technology, openly developed and shared is a key component to creating right livelihoods. It is our goal at Open Source Ecology to provide a rigorous framework for the development of such technologies.

What makes a technology "appropriate"?


 * 1) It helps people meet their basic needs
 * 2) It uses local resources
 * 3) It is created from local resources
 * 4) It promotes decentralized production
 * 5) It can be maintained on a community-scale
 * 6) Its design is open source and therefore is readibly fixable.
 * 7) It's designed for dissasembly and made to last a lifetime
 * 8) It is flexible and widely applicable.
 * 9) It is made from/ produces goods from abundant resources.

All of these features will be described in more detail later.

Participate in Creating Thriving communities
A seemingly endless number of technologies would be needed to create thriving, independent communities. But we need to start somewhere. Therefore, we have created a list of technologies that we believe with minimal time and resources will have the most impact. (see below)

Review these. What would you add? What would you take out? And Why. Your input will help focus our work. With focus comes impact. With impact comes change.

And while review is critical, even more potent is action. We believe a serious research and development effort is needed on each of these key technologies. Although details are listed under each item below, the following questions are common to nearly all projects. Does the technology work effiently and effectively? Are there working models? Can you build a prototype? Can the design be refind and integrated into other pieces of the puzzle? Are there open designs of the technology? Could a high school grad build one? Can you write clear plans if none exist?