Sowing the Seeds of the Future
April 19, 2020- Le Caillou Farm in France
Dear Researcher,
We at our farm-node in France send our best from Le Caillou. Here we are busy building our garden, sowing seeds, and planting. We got enough seeds to be able to get us through the winter should we need the vegetables.
One aspect of our model is to always be in control of how we deliver the best education in the world, but also how our ecosystem functions that distributes resources easily and transparently. Our crypto-economy is growing, which now has over 100 participants who can earn our tokens “GCASY” and use them for tuition and eventually our store. The idea here is to grow ourselves into a more resilient college. Our new tech lab in Stuttgart is a wonderful partnership with Thingylabs. Here we’re developing and will soon launch the world’s first crypto-education eco-App. This allows us to grow and build human and earth centered value not just on what we teach but how we practice the verb of being a community together. In other words, unlike the traditional college or university in which what is taught is by economic necessity disjointed from the context in which education happens (i.e., debt, increased distrust, and suspicion).
It raises the question: to what degree can you even trust what professors are publishing if the very context for publishing their thoughts is itself compromised by debt — profit economic culture? And it’s not the professors’ fault, but is rather the unjust economic design of the university itself. In other words, the debt-economic model on which the traditional college is based is by definition already compromised owing to its economic substructure. By contrast, GCAS’ way of teaching and writing is inherent within our debt-free, co-ownership community ecosystem itself. In this way, you can trust what we publish, and what we think and write because how we do that is proffered by our economic ethos.
Too often young companies must go into debt to banks, and once debt enters the equation the relationships and pressures within the community shift because we become indebted (enslaved economically) to a 3rd party outside our community. So many folks don’t understand our model (self-sustaining, debt-free, and co-owned), and some even dismiss it as being too idealistic and “unworkable” within a capitalist context. But our good news is the capitalist dogma (debt, exploitation, profit) as it turns out is what doesn’t work if the matrix of success are focused on the health of the earth, the community (faculty, researcher, student, etc.) and bold and truthful published research findings. We don’t have to write research for a bank, nor do we have to play the game of publishing something with a “shock” value in order to gain attention, our research isn’t beholden to consumerism or the need to sell it (i.e., the publishing industry); on the contrary, we can step outside those pressures and let truth come to the fore.
This is why our ecosystem continues developing: from our GCASY tokens, to the Crypto App, to our Store such that our ecosystem is self-containing and grows through the labor powers (intellectual and physical) of each of us as individuals and yet each individual act grows the strength of the community as a whole. By writing and sharing knowledge you gain GCASY tokens. Checkout Andrew’s review of Helen Rollins’ recent film, for example. Andrew is also helping develop our garden for which he also earns GCASY. And if we end up selling our produce/ veggies etc. (either in FIAT $/€ or GCASY) we grow, literally. I really want our GCAS store to grow to the point that we can sell all the necessities for the intellectual life (post-capitalist life) such as food, books, computers, etc. And eventually our farm will be run on solar power, and then we can run our own servers and our entire ecosystem without burning fossil fuels. It’s a dream but we’re getting there each day. We grow into the creation of a better world — debt-free, fossil fuel free, and access to the best education without economic or geographical bias. We are already able to offer a place in our community for researchers who could never afford to even exist in the traditional debt-model from all over the world. We can do this via our GCASY ecosystem that doesn’t need banks, interests groups, or a nation-state — we just need each other, trust, and sharp thinking.
Let’s keep working on this together.
I recently read Steve Bujno’s final draft of his dissertation and to read this document, this rigorous philosophical argument, became for me an act of joy, growth, and connection to higher ideas that elevate existence.
This is GCAS… more than a college, a new green transnational ecosystem.
If you would like to become a member or a supporter of GCAS please let me know. Only by sharing our resources can we continue growing together.
GCAS Research Institute is a not-for-profit CLG incorporated in Ireland for the development of advanced technologies and research.
Steve Bujno PhDc, will have top expert readers of his dissertation including: John Milbank, Shaun Henson, and William Desmond. All of our dissertation committees have top external readers to ensure quality research. If and when Steve graduates he’ll be handed his diploma and his stock certificate in GCAS College (of the value of his tuition investment).
Prof. Claudia Cofré, PhD gave this amazing lecture in the GCAS LatinoAmérica seminar last Sunday.
GCAS LA is a semi-autonomous GCAS node that is growing throughout the global south.
Christoph Solstreif-Pirker, PhD discusses his extraordinary eco-feminist methodology for his GCAS MA Thesis working under the direction of Prof. Bracha Ettinger.
Here’s our Bio-Garden Video
Check out Helen Rollins work.
Julie Reshe, PhD (Director of the GCAS Institute of Psychoanalysis).
GCAS Researcher from Istanbul, Ömer Faruk Yidz designed this video for GCAS.
Congratulations to Keith Clougherty (BFA Tufts) for successfully defending his MA thesis, “ Foundational Eco-Mythos of the U.S. Empire: The Corporate Plantation at Plymouth” in front of his committee, Prof. Dr. Francisco “Pancho” González, Prof. Dr. Alexandra Gabbard and myself. Keith created an original methodological architecture in order to better explain the logic of the US Empire and the material and historical conditions within which human communities and subjectivity is articulated. He did this through art and his relationship to his late Aunt who recently passed away. Research like this that could never happen within the traditional academic “walls” and yet it’s so necessary for us at this time and context. I’ll be working with Keith to publish his work in book form.
Congratulations to Mark Stimson, PhDc for successfully defending his PhD Dissertation Proposal. The title of Mark’s dissertation is, “Hacking the Juggernaut: A Systematic Approach to Dismantling Hyper-capitalism and Realigning Civilization”. Tere Vadén, PhD, Rocco Gangle, PhD serve on his committee and we’ll be adding a top researcher in the field of “System Theory” as an external reader of his final dissertation draft.
Kim Miller completed our seminar “Theory of the Subject” and is focusing her research on performance studies and the creation of a new feminist subject. Miller along with Courtney Reynolds will be taking their Dissertation Comp Exams (DCEs) in the next few months. Reynolds is working within post-colonial theory focusing on Women Studies and Water. The next GCAS seminar, “Beyond the Subject” will start in May.
We are in the early stages of creating The Walter South Centre for Affordable Housing Studies, and we miss Walter who passed owing to COVID a few weeks ago in New York.
We are welcoming a few more PhD Researchers from Africa who could never be part of a college in the West (Europe/USA) owing to financial and geographical bias. Yet, these Researchers are top quality thinkers. In this way, GCAS remains committed to our mission to developing the best research in the world regardless of a person’s economic class or geography. We are breaking down the walls of Empire and building a different world entirely.
