One Community
Maxfield Hust-Barber Civic Intelligence
One Community
The organization I have chosen to research is called “One Community”. It is a non-profit organization with a goal of, well, civic intelligence. The organization allows people all over the world to connect, learn from, and live with each other in small communities. One Community is part of a larger project called the Venus Project. The Venus Project is a project to move the world towards a resource based economy, and sustainable living. The Project believes that using the resources we already have and working together are the only ways we will all raise our sanders of living and help insure our survival; this is clearly illustrated by their slogan: “Beyond Politics, Poverty, and War”. The man behind this organization is Jacque Fresco, he came up with the resource based economy system that the project uses, he is also the founder and director. He has worked as an industrial design teacher and he created the Revel Plastics Company. One Community seems to be a cross between communism and civic intelligence. It is a worldwide organization that uses not only the people in the immediate community to further the civic intelligence, but also the communities it has made. So that a person living in such a community would not only learn information and skills from the other individuals living in his or her community, but from individuals in any “One Community” community. This is accomplished through the use of the Internet. In a “One Community” community duties are divided up so that each individual does his or her fair share; every member has a say in the workings of the system and is expected to participate. The community members educate each other, so that each community can reach its maximum capacity. The rules of each community are made by, and can be changed by, the community itself. Also the resources each community has are different, for example people in different areas will have different skills, but because One Community supports the use and implementation of technology it is easy for any community to get in contact with any other community. The system One Community has set up appears to work, but it is hard to say since data on its implementations is scarce and it is mostly put out by them. If the data can be believed then One Community is a well working, and running civically intelligent community that needs to expand to incorporate all of us. It appears to be well organized and hold all the parts of a successful movement.
