Chapter 38: More on Infrastructure in Post-Transition Communities

In crafting the new paradigm, we’ll need to expand and adapt certain infrastructures to provide access to all members of the society to the means to live and fulfill their lives.

We must come up with a workable understanding of what is truly needed to live a happy and fulfilling life. Some of this is obvious. Some, however, varies greatly from place to place, culture to culture, and time period to time period. It is also constantly changing. This will need to be determined by consensus, not by imposition from “above.” We can all agree on food, water, and shelter. In modern times, access to communications media qualifies for most people. On the other hand, nobody needs a private jet, luxury yacht, multiple properties, or servants. Caregivers, yes; servants, no. Between those two poles are a lot of gray areas, which we’ll need to work through in a humane, realistic, sensitive, flexible, and creative way.

There are variations depending on climate, culture, geography, historical context, abundant and scarce natural resources. The necessities of life will vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, from city to rural areas, from family to family, and from individual to individual. There may be no absolute definition of the necessities of life that will perfectly apply to everyone. That acknowledged, we can come to consensus on what constitute most of the necessities of life for most of us, while maintaining flexibility to accommodate the inevitable variations. Our infrastructure will need to expand and adjust to ensure access to all resources for all who need or desire them.

No one will be compelled to use all resources available to them. If a person doesn’t want to use electricity, they don’t have to. If a person wants to live in a tent instead of a house, that right will be respected.

Each of us will have free direct access to living space, food, water, electricity, communication, transportation, education and training, tools, clothing, recreation, entertainment, healthcare and dental care, clothing, professional and skilled services, and more.

We will take full advantage of current and future technology to coordinate with one another and between various sectors. The Internet offers an unprecedented possibility of setting up a universally accessible database and web site(s) that will act in a society much as the central nervous system does in an organism: mediating, coordinating and choreographing the interactions between people in different sectors, and among individuals. Production will adjust to need through direct communication and collaboration. The longer the program runs, the more data and experience is accumulated, the more accurate its heuristic algorithms will become at anticipating fluctuations in need and availability.

This same web space will also be a forum for discussion, suggestions, dialog, feedback, and discourse on practical, technological, scientific, philosophical, artistic, and matters involving just about every area of human endeavor and interest. It will encourage creative, productive interaction between lay people and scientists or professionals, and between all people and sectors, many of whom rarely interact under the current paradigm. An underlying thread will be what’s working, what isn’t, and how to make things work better.

Designers, planners, legislators, engineers, doctors, and producers of all kinds will find this forum useful in gauging what’s needed in their respective areas of expertise, how best to respond to the needs of the people and the society, how to guide the evolution of the new paradigm so that it serves us better, what kind of tweaks or adjustments might improve areas that need improving. This ongoing societal self-examination and responsiveness will make it much less prone to degenerate into rigid, dogmatic, inflexible rules that become oppressive, working counter to the initial good intentions that prompted them.

While this technology is powerfully useful, it is also vulnerable to natural disasters, ion storms, war, sabotage, and other unforeseeable factors. Therefore, we’ll need to make multiple redundant, parallel systems constantly updated from the active system, as well as a low-tech fallback system that could provide similar functionality if needed. The architecture of the high-tech systems should be distributed rather than centralized, to further increase robustness and fault-tolerance.

Much current infrastructure software can be integrated into the new system with some adaptations. Inventory, logistics, medical databases and such will remain mostly as is with only changes to enhance interoperability. All financial functionality will be removed, which will greatly reduce complexity, increase efficiency, and reduce errors. Advertising and marketing applications will be scrapped or modified into apps for education, motivation, public service and information.

With all levels of education and skills training open for all who want and are able to learn, we should anticipate increased demand for colleges, universities, conservatories, and trade schools. This can be done by expanding existing institutions, repurposing abandoned (former) for-profit institutions, and forming new ones where need is greatest.

As discussed elsewhere, power generation, transportation and food production will shift towards decentralized, widely distributed small to mid-sized production. In order to diversify transportation options while reducing congestion and environmental impact, we will build an extensive network of roads and trails for foot, bike and other human and animal powered vehicles, complete with rest stops, food and drink stops, hostels, supply depots, and other amenities. Public transportation will be augmented, both within and between urban centers.

We’ll launch extensive projects to reclaim, restore and reforest land ravaged by mining, clear-cutting, industrial pollution, toxic waste dumping, landfills and other currently common destructive processes. As much as possible, waste processing will be decentralized, with promotion of widespread adoption of self-composting toilets, which will provide ongoing sources of fertilizer for home and neighborhood gardening, and reduce the need for central processing centers.

We will create more small hospitals, clinics and mobile medical and dental operations to extend accessibility to currently underserved areas and those far from existing facilities.

What are currently manufacturing facilities of competing corporations, will be folded into unified development and production teams, oriented towards serving the needs of people as best the state the art allows. What are now malls, outlet stores, department stores, and the like will be repurposed as distribution centers for the same kinds of goods and services that they currently sell. New ones will be built where needed, and existing ones may be repurposed for other uses where there’s a surplus of distribution facilities.

Neglected, deteriorated infrastructure will receive priority attention to be repaired and upgraded. Housing and public buildings that are currently substandard will be fixed by residents and appropriate professionals in collaboration. It goes without saying that all materials will be directly and freely available.

As the new paradigm’s implementation matures, new technologies and social dynamics will develop, needs will change. Without the blocks and barriers of the current paradigm, new technologies and other innovations will quickly be distributed to all who want or need them.

All manner of musical instruments, sporting equipment, scientific apparatus, tools and more will be accessible in every neighborhood. We will greatly increase the number of parks and public performance, sports, and arts venues.

Freed from the chronic stress of having to constantly get money to ransom one’s existence that we currently experience, we will be able to turn our attention to true exploration, research, the quest for knowledge, creative and artistic expression and innovation, social and interpersonal mutual enrichment, and the fulfillment of dreams where the win of one benefits each and all. We will see a new Renaissance that will likely be able to continue for a very, very long time.