Ishi Crew
Ishi Crew
Aug 27, 2017 · 2 min read

I wrote a proposal to a Templeton funded university based project for small grant to put together something like a culture design lab in my area. I called it a ‘knowledge co-op’ in analogy to ‘food co-ops’ , which as you likely know are sort of ‘funky’analogs of whole foods markets — — they sell same kinds of healthy and ecological food (or more so — -some cut back on meat, and also focus on locally grown things), but are cheaper , and run it more like a a cooperatively owned and democratically run business (no big salaries and big bosses), and use a ‘laid back’ ethic so hippy types, punks, poor and otherwise marginal people can work and feel more comfortable there than in a corporate environment. I called it a knowledge co-op because it might be a funky analog of say, the Santa Fe Institute — -smae types of ideas, but for marginal people, and more accessible — -not just for elites or lucky people.
It was also in principle a design lab — -since people in this area need to redesign their llives and community if they want to get out of being trapped in poverty, dead end jobs (including selling drugs), ill health, pollution, etc.

Of course it didnt get funded.

There is a divide between those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘out’. So far i’m ‘out’. I know some people who are ‘in’ (eg academia) but i dont really see any place for me there. Also many of the people i’m aquainted with are not particularily interested in helping others get ‘in’, nor into helping them do some analog ‘outside’. Most are happy working on their own projects with others ‘inside’. They may share MOOCs, books (sometimes free, sometimes for money), and maybe oneday that will turn out to be useful. But unless one has a ‘lab’ to serve as a nucleation center, many of these resources are equivalent to seeing one of those social medias saying something like ‘just say no’.
Also many people ‘inside’ assume people ‘outside’ dont know anything, haven’t read anything etc. I personally have an ivy league degree and studied alot of theoretical biology — -maybe not enough though to really make it through the ‘publish or perish’ world (but also i have some health and related problems which make me somewhat incompatible with alot of academic environments so i chose not to go there or my health chose that for me (eg i was basically being tracked into something like a computer science degree in which i could get some sort of technical job, but often a noninteresting one; i did a tiny bit of that applying theoretical biology to drug development — -not really my interest, though theoretically has some interesting parts). A fair amount of stuff in academic journals is like kind of stuff i have or could write. (If you dont have resources and a support group — -eg a lab — -its hard getting your product to market. But if you are ‘out’ you are ‘out’.

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