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Implementing Open Source Ecology in The Village on Sewanee Creek

Open Source Ecology, which aims to provide the blueprints and instructions to build the 50 most essential machines for civilization, promises to be one of the great industrial shifts in the coming decade. The promise of industrial manufacturing in garage and tool-shed not only permits low-cost solutions, but independence and security in the event of disaster.

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The 19th century industrial revolution eliminated the cottage industry through the development of assembly lines and division of labor. In the globalized economy, Western consumers have become dependent on imports to sustain our consumer lifestyle. Many products are no longer manufactured within the United States and other developed nations. While not an intrinsically bad system, the era of self-sustainability has gone by the wayside. Gone is the simple life, replaced by global supply chains and logistics solutions to get your toothbrush from the other side of the world.

The first taste of a return to the good life is exemplified by the excitement over the 3D printing revolution. For example, a company which aims to provide the next generation of manufacturing, 3D Systems, has had its stock price double due to investor expectations. The same excitement that surrounds the ability to manufacture your own custom plastics with 3D printers is magnified by Open Source Ecology, which provides the DIY designs to build everything from your own tractor to making construction bricks from compressed earth. The ability to have a plasma cutter, bioplastic extruder, and dimensional sawmill at your disposal offers the prospect of a rebirth of cottage industries. Manufacturing will only be limited by your imagination, not for the lack of tools or material. Your open source induction furnace will largely eliminate material constraints.

Sawmill
The open source movement is expanding into the physical realm but like the online sector, open source is only as strong as its community of contributors. The movement not only relies on its network of designers and prototypers, but communes and clubs to build and test the machines. One such community is the Village on Sewanee Creek, a sustainable community on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee.  The property development has weekly projects where villagers come together as a group to build chicken coops and biochar gasifiers to support a self sustaining community. Groups like these are part of the development and the success of Open Source Ecology

For example, the Village on Sewanee Creek recently ran into a hitch when their tractor began to malfunction.  Open Source Ecology now provides the designs and instructions to allow the village to build a tractor of their own. One that they can fix on site should problems arise and made from materials locally available. The village not only brings together likeminded people interested in tinkering, fabricating, and sustainability, but roots its community weekly projects such as building an open source tractor.  Open Source Ecology will succeed best in a permanent setting where the community is already project oriented and dedicated to self-sufficiency.

Find out more about the Village on Sewanee Creek here.

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Celebrating Tax Day with Atlas Shrugged

April 15 marks the release of Ayn Rand‘s landmark, Atlas Shrugged, in movie theaters.  Its release on tax day, is a symbol of freedom-loving patriot’s revolt against a government run amuck with socialism.  Rand’s protagonist is John Galt.  He throws off the chains of socialist leaches and creates his own community of creative, productive, freedom-lovers.  Galt’s gulch becomes the center of a movement that sucks the producers out of the system, depriving the less productive members of society from their source of support.

I have been accused of being a John Galt.  See my blog where I admitted that “in some respects, I’m galty as accused“. My Galtiness is in my philosophy of rights to property, personal accountability for productive work to produce one’s own life requirements and the pursuit of freedom from over-regulation that fosters such productive attitudes and results.

But I make a distinction.  I am only partly Galty.  I have great respect for many of Rand’s ideas, but I find some of them destructive, even heretical.

Listen carefully to Ayn Rand’s speech via the persona of John Galt and you will also hear an unyielding rant against “mysticism” which, in her view is any form of religious faith.  Her god is rational thought and the quest for wealth is unbridled materialism that is the product of one’s genius and labors.  There is no room for art, for love, or value of anything but wealth and its perks.  Hence, there is no room for charity.  It is ALL about the returns I deserve.  There is no room for gratitude to a supreme being or a debt of sacrifice for the well-being of anyone but myself.  It is all about looking out for #1.  Those who are not born gifted to be bright or creative, those who are disabled and are therefore less productive do not deserve to eat at the table of the deserving wealthy.  From Rand’s perspective, wealth is the proof of deserving productivity.  Taken to its ultimate extreme, Galtism becomes fascism.  Where fascism becomes tyranny, it is no different from the ultimate form of socialism, that is communism.  Both fascism and Communism are, in the end, just political labels for the same thing, tyranny and both are forms of slavery.

Anyone who has observed Wall Street’s theft of America‘s wealth, the corruption of Monsanto that strips the farmer of his ability to save seeds, or America’s subsidization of big business while ignoring the under-capitalized and politically out-gunned small business entrepreneur knows that wealth is not necessarily the ultimate sign of morality.

I accept Rand’s challenge, “I am, therefore I think”.  And I think she has it amazingly right SOME of the time, but equally and disastrously wrong at other times.

In my view and as Rand asserts, to be happy we all must be creative and work hard.  But we must also make a personal choice, un-compelled by government,  to love, sacrifice and be generous to our neighbors.  Rand decries the cowardice, the lack of principle and morality of the middle road.  Yet error of thought often lies in definitions.  The middle road can also be defined as balance.  In that sense, I seek a middle road and find joy there.

If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged or seen the movie yet, you owe it to yourself to stretch your mind with Ayn Rand’s deep and inspiring thinking.   You can listen to John Galt’s most famous speech here:

John Galt Speech FULL part 1 of 3

John Galt Speech FULL part 2 of 3

John Galt Speech FULL part 3 of 3

Atlas Shrugged – the documentary