Side Gig: Save the World
Rewrite the Future
Would you like to help Rewrite the Future and maybe help us avoid some of the worst Polycrisis outcomes? Are you looking for a side gig or passion project? Do you have a few hours a week? Perhaps you are unemployed, under-employed, in between projects, or simply like to try your hand at something new. Our project may be exactly what you are looking for!!
Open Source Digital Space
Drawing inspiration from open source software, we want to build a community driven social platform.
- Social media connections with minimal advertising, no algorithm, and no data harvesting
- A digital marketplace prioritizing creators and relationships
- A web of mutual-aid pods bridging the digital and real worlds
- Person to person payment with no on platform fees
- Community owned
- Democratically governed
- Support the Common Good rather than shareholders
- A crowd-sourced policy platform
How could a social platform save the world?
Sadly, it is clear that US and world governments are incapable or unwilling to address the problem we face. As a complement to the above, we will build a forum and tools for coordinating action across organizations to create systemic change and address the Polycrisis. Inside our community we will build a model for a cooperative post-consumption economy through a consensus based democracy.
The First Open Source People Powered Corporation
Like it or not, corporations, their executives, and their shareholders exert more influence over our government, economy, and society than we do. Forty years of deregulation imbued them with super-powers to flout taxes and corporate law. Citizens United gave them a megaphone with no max volume. Social media algorithms gave them the ability to brainwash citizens with misinformation. The only way for individuals to combat such power is to build our own space.
On the inside, we will use shared ownership to enable individual to have a stake in building for success. Through consensus decision making, we will empower every individual to lend their voice to shaping our collective future. Through a private trading system, we shield ourselves from extractive capitalism.
On the outside, we will use the powers of a corporation, directed through consensus, to equal other corporations in money and political influence. At first, to shield ourselves from further abusive in the exploitative reality of today’s social media by removing eyes from their influence.
Introducing Together Foundation
We, progressive citizens, need a unified platform to organize and rally around. A north star. Specific organizations will continue to focus on their missions. Individuals might have a specific focus or passions, but we all want our LGBTQIA+ friends to be seen and loved for who they are. We all know it is wrong to disenfranchise another human because of, their skin, gender, nationality, accent, or well, anything. We all recognize the need for a healthy environment. We all recognize that greed is stealing the future from next generation. It makes sense for us to bring our priorities together as a unified platform. When it counts the most — Let’s speak with one voice!
Together Foundation represents an innovative fusion of open source software, community building, social activism bridging the real-world and digital space. It is organized as a corporation with a shared profit model working to build a sustainable society rooted in direct democracy, social and environmental renewal, and true equality. The end goal must be lofty enough, yet attainable, to convince individuals it is worth the effort.
We must protest, and…
We must support one and other, and …
We must connect our organizations, coordinate, and act together.
https://togetherfdn.us/about-together-foundation/
What are we up to?
We are regular people building tools to rebuilding the world. We want to build a community owned technology platform for civic action.
- A community to support each other in these difficult times.
- A Vision of the Future to rally around.
- Music, art, and literature to stir hearts and souls
- Marketing message and campaigns to capture the imagination.
- A market place designed to build relationships between creators and customers.
- A platform to crowd source policy ideas, build prototype language and converge using a consensus decision making model. The future should be build in the open like open source software, not in backrooms by lobbyists.
- Tools to coordinate concrete actions to oppose authoritarianism and reinforce democratic principles.
Why this project matters (besides it is the right thing to do)?
- Resilience and support for those at risk and impacted by the consequences of corrupt authoritarianism
- Truly win a nation for the people
- Deny Facebook, X, and their advertisers our eye balls
- Create a counter balance to anti-democratic gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter intimidation, and judicial activism
- Restore science based policy
- Mount a transformative economy wide response to the climate crisis, ecosystem collapse, systemic injustices, and extreme selfish libertarianism.
No Matter Your Passion… We Need Your Help!
We are looking for passionate volunteers to help build small interconnected communities with a robust national network. We are strongest when we act together.
Here are some examples
Outreach, Lead creation, and Coordination
Passionate about people. Passionate about the project.
You connect our community with the wider world and help us grow. Create a cluster with people working together and supporting each other. Help individuals establish and plug into local and region groups.
Writers, Creators, and Influencers
Whether you specialize in History, Policy, Opinion, Art, Music, or Storytelling we need your help to across mediums (lowercase ;-) ). We want the average American hearing our message in songs, seeing it social advertising, themes on television, and advertisements on their local Fox affiliate. Utilize your voice as on established Social Media platforms. Part evangelist, part influencer. We must also work together to socialize new concepts for a post-consumption economy.
Organization Builders
Accounting, Finance, Recruiting, Software tools, IT, Security and Legal supports to create and maintain the operations infrastructure of Together Foundation and ensure its continued health and finance project in the real world.
Scholars
Scientists, engineers, social scientists, economic, political, legal, and constitutional scholars and hobbyists. We need to prioritize actions, validate arguments, remove bias, avoid previous mistakes, and test messaging. We must adapt learnings from history, science, and sociology rather than shoehorning modernity into 400 year old social and governing structures.
Builders
The core of Together Foundation is people. Software engineers pioneered the concept of Open Source Software and we are going to take it to the next level. For people use tools to create, communicate, and organize they need accessible tools. We need User Experience designers, Software architects, and Software engineers building the tools we need and want to use. Whether your contribution is a summer project, a side-gig, or passion project, we need your help.
Interest, passion, or experience with Python, JavaScript, Web Design, Database Management, Cryptography, and Security are at the top of the list.
Perhaps you use some of these skills in your day job, a previous career, in school, or have a passion with an unmet focus.
Why now?
You know the answer. You probably feel it in your heart or your stomach. This year brought us more insanity than many of us though we could ever handle. Many of us have never felt this level of hatred leveled against us. For so many others, this continuous trauma is far from new. For others, it is a painful wake up call.
It is past time for Action
We are in ‘Hail Mary’ territory. In short, the odds are against us. We are on the verge of collapse. Earth’s failing health becomes more evident every day. Our government, economic, and social structures are no better off.
Time is Vanishingly Short
I was 8 when James Hansen testified to congress about atmospheric CO2. By the time I entered college, climate change seemed like to topic on everyone’s mind. I certainly never thought 40 years would go by without world leaders taking serious action.
A concerted effort to roll back the New Deal, civil rights, democracy itself, any possibility of a stable climate, and so much more is reaching it’s final crescendo. It isn’t enough to just keep your head down. Left unchecked, this isn’t going away and is going to get worse.
So You’re Saying There’s a Chance
Never the less, there is opportunity. Bold and creative collective action has a chance to win the day. There are so many thoughtful perspectives on Medium, Substack, and others. There is a collective energy — a burning desire for something different. We know what we ‘should’ do. We must channel and amplify that energy. We must bust out of the silo. Why? Because there is just as much energy in other silos. They are nearby and when we work together our efforts compound and multiply.
Perhaps you think this is silly, there is no chance, or just hyperbole… I ask you to spend a few moments contemplating the possibility before you click away. Maybe mention this crazy post to a few friends. Talk it through, game it out. We don’t have all the answers, but this is a place to start.
The costs and risks at an individual level are low. Even if it comes to nothing, you will meet some new people, honed or learned a skill, or build something you are proud of. If we succeed, it is likely you helped make the most positive change in the course of humanity, ever.
Together, we can turn the tide, Rewrite the Future, and Rescue Democracy!
We need to build, and build quickly at scale!
