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the merits of an RBE in order to begin the transition. And this, of course, is the big scary question that
has yet to be answered: How do we transition from our current system into an RBE? We can certainly
speculate about how a transition might occur, but it's essentially impossible to plan a transition without
having a concrete idea of the political and economic climate the coming decades will bring.
Nonetheless, some general speculations can still be made. Perhaps one or more RBE micronations will
form and thrive on the ocean, attracting new residents and inspiring the citizens of other countries to
rise up against their current system; the wave of global protests which began in 2011 against the
corruption and greed of contemporary society may very well be the beginning of such uprisings (9,10).
Regardless of the scenario we find ourselves thrust into, we will inevitably face the same final
task: Convincing essentially the whole population of Earth to abandon the way of life that has
dominated our planet for centuries, and change to a system that is totally alien and strange to the
majority of people. As difficult as this sounds, there is evidence that points to its plausibility. A recent
study suggests that once an idea becomes a strong belief in approximately 10% of a population, that
idea suddenly begins to spread rapidly to the majority (11). It seems that few people are comfortable
holding an unpopular idea, but once an idea is touted by a decent proportion of the population, it
becomes much more socially acceptable, and so begins to grow in popularity very quickly. In other
words, the notion of the RBE concept becoming a 'popular' idea is not impossible; it merely needs to
gain enough acceptance to hit the threshold of social acceptability, much like the popping of one's
collar. So, how do we go about ensuring that this happens?
As I have stated a few times now, one of the best ways to convince people that they would
benefit from a new idea is to show them concrete evidence of that idea's effectiveness. Displaying
evidence has been one of the focal points of this transition plan; the constant stream of scientific
information, the public tours, and the lives of the residents themselves are all ways to display to the
public the qualities of life in an RBE. The information necessary to encourage the spread of this idea is
very much present in this testing protocol, and so it is no stretch to predict that successful RBE
experiments will encourage the public to adopt this idea. Remember, there is no need to directly
convince every single individual in the world to support this idea; once a reasonable minority offers
their support for it, acceptance of the idea should begin to spread very quickly, all with the constant
stream of evidence from the RBE experiments to provide support.
However, even if we do reach a point where the RBE idea becomes very popular amongst the
people of Earth, there is still the issue of overcoming the power structure that is already in place.
Ideally, this would require nothing more than petitioning governments and organizations such as the
UN to begin enacting reforms that will push us closer and closer to an RBE, until a complete transition
was completed. However, the notion that groups in power will so willingly give that power up is not
very likely. Instead, resistance to change will almost certainly need to be met with resistance in turn.
This is where actions such as boycotts, mass bank withdrawals, protests, occupations of public spaces,
and other disruptive forms of non-violent resistance could be used to influence stubborn governments.
Although I cannot give any explicit instructions as to how these tactics could be used to encourage the
adoption of this idea, the combination of an established RBE micronation, scientific evidence
supporting the benefits of living in an RBE, and the civil disobedience of an indignant population
should be enough to encourage a (very) gradual transition to a Resource Based Economy. As I pointed
out in the previous section, it is critical that this transition be gradual; we cannot expect that the human
species as it is will be able to adapt to a sudden transition of this magnitude, due to the drastic change
in values that will need to accompany this societal evolution.
Based on the amount of time I have allotted to preparing for the experiment (5 years), running
the production facility (2-5 years), establishing and testing the village (5 years), and establishing and
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testing the full-scale colony (2 years or more), the short term goal of creating a successful RBE colony [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]