Monasteries of the 21st Century

Transcript

Okay. Welcome again. Day three of week two, right? Yes, I think so. It's been so long. Uh today we are going to have Lorenzo from HubS network, the most amazing sweetheart speak to us about his experience of building monasteries in the 21st century. So happy to have you. Lorenzo has been the biggest cheerleader of this place. He has given us so much love and uh he's one of the core pillars of the community that keeps this place afloat in many ways emotionally with all

the contributions and the woodshed work like if you think that the woodshed is functional right now that's because of Lorenzo and partly Elias. So yes [laughter] so he also cleaned the attic. So you see this he's a he's a good example of what this place needs in the archetype. Uh so very excited for your talk but before I give you the mic I do have to make announcements. Number one announcement we are going to have cleaning party today because the place is disgusting again.

>> So we have to clean so we don't drown in our own dirt. The cleaning party will start right after the keynote. We will eat lunch only after the cleaning is done. >> Right? So the more people join the faster will be done, the faster we can have food. It's a clear logic. Uh we will have hubs team that u will basically give you cleaning supplies. So what normally needs to be done is floors, vacuuming, kitchen, which is currently the most, you know, the place that requires the most clean up at the moment. Toilets and um yeah, just anything that you think is dirty or needs to be put back into shape. We are

going to spend let's say an hour trying to fix it. That's the plan. Let's see how it goes. Uh we still need people, I think, for ships. Uh so please take the board if you see that either for dinner prep or for dinner cleaning we don't have enough people please put your name there let's all contribute so that certain people in the community don't have to take extra shifts to accommodate right uh that was my announcements >> fits very well with the rules of monastery Um it's working. Yeah.

Okay. Deca I just sent you just a list of topics. I don't have a presentation. Uh there are very intense days in the hubs network. today we're going to talk about a bit about uh something like commonab uh something like a kasha hub or tdf what they have in common just to understand that this is not about uh having uh spiritual retreat this is not about uh monks it's about us and about the society and first of all Maybe we can maybe we can have a bigger

picture of what uh we've been through and we I mean humanity um in the last few thousand years. Just a brief recap to understand where we are at the moment uh in a macro perspective. So we are not looking at the last century. Um by the way I want this to be um first uh I will uh mention a bit what I see and then we can have a conversation about that.

so in the last uh let's say uh four billion years we've been the uh we we know that there is this uh planet and we know that uh we are coming from apes and we know that uh around 10,000 years ago 12,000 years ago we got uh uh to agriculture but before that something like in a scale of 1,00 uh one uh sorry 10 million years ago uh we started the change from apes to how many minute to standing up apes and

migration happens and migration started. We are coming from Africa and migrate all over the world trying to survive here and there uh various period uh ice age and drought. Uh we passed through a lot of stuff and just in the last uh 12,000 years actually we pass from uh surviving to thrive. Maybe um Michelle you can correct me if if you feel like I'm very open. I have a bare understanding. So this is something that to me is uh important to understand the perspective we are tackling this although I am not very um

um knowledgeable about all the details but I do keep this in consideration. I think it is important to keep it in consideration. Um so imagine that we are humans from the uh 10 million 10 million years ago which means in a scale of length maybe we can uh say 10 million years is 10 kilometers and the uh agricultural uh discovery application uh was 12,000 uh years ago which means the last in the 10 kilometers range the last 12 mters.

So from there uh we started actually to uh pass from surviving barely surviving to thriving to okay I can settle settle down I can uh start thinking about other stuff they are not uh survival they are not strictly needed I can actually start thinking about uh getting uh rituals maybe they were also before it was uh actually getting an organization, getting a civilization, what we call civilization, building monuments, building stuff that are not strictly um um needed

for survival. That was a key moment to me uh especially if we look at the at the impact that this had in our timeline. Suddenly uh we didn't invent much apart from maybe some tools to fight a bear or to fish and suddenly we are uh discovering a lot a lot of stuff including uh organiz organizational structure since uh from the uh beginning we were used to small groups 10 15 100 individuals when we get over 150 uh individuals or 200 which is uh around

there our numbers number we cannot coordinate with the trust I don't know you I don't know what you feel what you're like if I can trust you so we need to start delegating so have a group that takes care of something uh like uh defense uh a group that takes care of water a group that uh takes care of every single situation we have in our uh society. that leads to a bit of uh struggle in our collaboration um which is derived from the access to information. We cannot know what they

are deciding and they are deciding in on my behalf and your behalf. So we need to in some way trust or depend on some institution some uh decision that are made outside of my presence. Um and we need to start uh delegating things a lot of things most of the time. This created uh clusters of information where you get a lot of power suddenly and uh a lot of people don't know what the decision are. So suddenly you get uh more and more uh structures um centralization of information and they are more and more powerful. So we

started from small groups maybe 1,000 then 10,000 and then you get two empires. So all this was uh was made uh because of information access at least in my point of view. Um, again, feel free to if you have something to add, Michelle, uh, where >> Okay, perfect. >> Sack Yeah, the microphone.

>> Correct. Correct. That's a dumb number. It's about uh trust and uh over that limit you cannot have trust anymore basically very soon. Sorry. >> Yeah. And this is actually sorry the common goal is actually happening searching for the microphone as can't trust people over 150 people. It's really about the social brain that

enables us to trust people over 150 people. >> So, it's like at a village scale, yeah, it's like that's kind of about what you can hold before things start to decay and you have strangers and people you don't know. But the point is really about the the embodied cognitive apparatus of like cultural systems that do allow us to expand and trust more people. Like what he's saying here, if you have a common purpose and you have someone that has a signaling system, which is what a currency is essentially before like monetary trade based currencies, you have somebody that has this token, you have this wampam belt, you have this braid, you have this tattoo, you see somebody with that symbol, you say, "Ah, I can trust you because you're a part of the tribe."

Okay. It's a shared belief. Thank you for You can turn it off. so we we went through uh this uh big change in our human history and all the way to imper uh emperors and and a big uh central power and with that you had such a difference in between humans. You have some humans and some other humans and we before we were all in pretty much in the same level. The the the

difference was not so much. So we got um a long way uh in this uh situation and uh some other major changes uh happened mostly about communications. So I'm tackling more the communication part uh writing. So before you had words so we couldn't explain each other tell each other okay let's go fight let's go let's go cook and I'm doing this you're doing that so we we are have we have a quite an understanding of each other in

the moment uh with writing uh with symbols we get uh to an understanding over time or over generations so you write something on the on the wall and somebody from decades ago, thousand years ago uh later, sorry, can uh access that information. But you don't have a decisional power. Uh you don't have distribution of uh decisional power. uh while uh with writing you can actually transport information uh from one place to another but also through generation through time and that was uh mainly uh on stones or

pieces of paper. Then we got to uh a moment a special moment in history where uh we could actually uh make it faster, easier and more accessible to get access to knowledge through printing press. So suddenly you know what is happening over there or what this theory or these other things this other topic exist something that doesn't happen in your in your town but it happens somewhere else in some other century you have access to that suddenly and that is through uh printing press that causes a massive change in how our perspective our perception of uh society

Since there were uh you remember at this moment you still had uh very centralized power and and lack of understanding of the general situation. Suddenly with the press you have this uh they call it French revolution. It was just two minutes ago in the time scale. uh uh 300 years ago, 200 years ago actually at the end of 18th century uh people realized that uh the the king is not god and they realize that the the prince and the king and the other one they are like cousin and they are sharing the money and you get you gave the money here they go there that's why

they are so rich and so powerful and suddenly they get uh upset really upset about that uh it turns out in I think it's a 10 year uh war um in France and this became the first uh western uh uh fight uh against power at that scale and um took uh took us from emperors to republic.

This brought this big change where we feel we are part of a society again. We are pretty much in the same level. We can access to decision making. We can actually decide things together. That's big change. Um, of course there there there were a lot of stuff in the middle like Michelle said and the and also and in middle ages there were uh a lot of uh especially locally uh organized people with the commons and and and uh uh just taking decision locally but still at the at the big scale you you couldn't manage the word in between people normal people. Um

last century have been uh quite special. uh after French revolution uh we got towards uh distributed uh uh information generation distributed uh decision making kind of distributed always uh at the end it's it's also always uh uh channeled towards a systems of power and coordination but still everybody can say something everybody Everybody can access to this information and take some kind of decision. With the last century um talking about 20th century and the uh

generation of some tools, special tools that provide information a broader um or a faster uh distribution through radio first and television. uh you get access to a lot of information just instantly on the same day or same week at least. Uh newspaper were also predecessor that was also uh very uh common very used tool. Um but with that you get uh slowly actually not so slowly you have centralization also of the distribution of information. So you get

some uh very high interest on getting some kind of information over others. And then that created uh a bit of uh uncon inconsistency on the uh what uh uh actually uh what uh information has more value for society and what we generate the value for. We got uh big powers uh before in the printing, then the television, mass media and then and now we are in a situation where we have a few uh technocrats that are handling the

information for everybody. And this uh opens the possibilities for mass manipulation uh immediately instantaneously. um we're talking about obviously Google, Facebook, all this uh system of distribution information and this can drive into possibly the manipulation of cultures at scale. Um I can switch a button on the algorithm and I can change and say okay this country now is left or right and now there is a rebellion now there is acknowledgement about these

things. So some other people will fight against this just because I decide that this information uh should be out there and this is extremely delicate in our society because we think we are free but we are three in the uh is relative to the decision that to the access of information we have. uh we cannot talk about stuff we don't know and it depends all depends on uh if there is a possibility for this information to get to us.

So I'm talking about freedom of uh information and we have freedom quite much freedom access if we want but we need to know about stuff for willing to know about the that topic. So we need to know that that thing exist in order to search for that and that's a bit limiting for the huge uh biggest part of society. This is not uh an actual thing. We are uh eight hours per day working on something we probably don't want to and the rest of the day we are just struggling to to to uh stay alive basically in in some

situation in some other we are more comfortable but still very very distracted. uh resuming. We have uh we went through uh quite a steep curve of learning and innovation especially in the last few centuries and few decades. Uh we have huge potential. We went from the cave just before yesterday and and now we are in the in the moon and on Mars. Um we have a huge potential for doing anything and in this moment uh we are actually complaining on how we are managed well but we are not capable of coordinating

ourself. The biggest uh minds in our uh earth they are not connected or nor coordinated. There is not such a system. Um from here I want to maybe take uh take a step aside and and think um what are we missing? Uh the first thought uh that come to my mind is actually can we actually gather meet each other talk to each other u understand what what what is happening here who who is doing what um we are lacking these structures we

don't have a spaces generally for uh society to think about society to understand uh what's going on, which tool do we have in uh in order to repair this or to make the world a better place. There's not such a place except uh for uh maybe uh university um re research um some um company research uh lab.

Um we found in the last few decades we found internet a good home for this this thing still it's very limited very ghetto let's say it's a place for geeks to talk about uh academics to talk about theories and we are not uh really connecting to uh the theory with the hands on the on uh the actual work the construction of of society. We are struggling to get that in motion from the theory to the practical side.

And this uh made me think about something very meaningful that happened meanwhile like 1500 years ago then maybe 2,000 years ago. It all started probably in Egypt somewhere. Uh there were air mites people who was um consciously taking a space apart from society then felt like staying there and they started thinking and bonding and searching for their soul. So it was an internal search and this came out after 500 years maybe more uh we're talking about 500 uh

uh AD is it when we get the first monasteries in the western society I'm not sure maybe in other societies they went before but you get these gathering points where people likeminded people were willing to to find something more meaningful in life than just staying there and and eating and having kids. Uh they wanted something more meaningful and they gather in these places. They built the these places to stay there in mostly in isolation to think about that. Uh this place actually generated something very

meaningful which was uh some time they were so disciplined in doing their things and the survival uh surviving uh um affording food and having the basic uh needs uh covered also because the the neighbors were helping out. that they could have actually some time to manage um manage to study to learn to get information from outside and copy the manus manuscript so they could have access to migrants uh pilgrims uh with knowledge copy the knowledge and then the knowledge keep going. So there

are these copy or copies or copies of books that pass through these notes where you got information uh a lot of information in many different fields uh many times. So you can maybe have uh information from Egypt, from uh uh ancient uh Greece, from um many different fields from agriculture, philosophy, spirituality, a lot of things. And these were actually places where this knowledge could have a use as well.

Suddenly you get knowledge about agriculture and you know that you can actually get uh more crops uh with the same effort or you can get beer that they didn't know exist in that place through books of Egypt or some other places. You get access to these things. [snorts] Uh so these became like uh places at least in my uh understanding they became places of distribution of knowledge. It's a hub for knowledge in some way our libraries of of the 20th century uh what you can actually access to something that is you

cannot find locally but you can find there because it's connected globally and then that knowledge you can apply it locally and taking this to the current moment what does this represent what would it be for for for the present. I think I can put uh maybe a slide or two of a project that is very uh near to me. I've been spending nine years uh on that. I'm making it uh uh thing actually living organism. Sorry.

I'm going to connect a couple slides just to show a bit [snorts] what I'm talking about. Thank you.

>> Uh I just checked it uh your question. Uh so Buddhist monasteries are 1,000 year older than western monasteries. So they existed already 500 BC and also Jane monasteries but Nana is not here. She knows probably more about it. Uh so they're all older than the western model which is quite late actually. Possibly we are going to have internet here as well.

And what about other societies like China? Do do we have something similar the the same >> working? Yeah. Yeah. So they usually appear after crisis. Uh so the Han Empire and the Roman Empire collapsed more or less at the same time. Uh but then in China it came from Buddhism. So the the Buddhist uh text had arrived over the previous centuries and then the monasteries started thriving around the same time actually as but they pre-existed like in India and other places and u like 16th century uh Japan. So very similar everywhere when the society

is in crisis and the state kind of collapses more or less in the dark ages then the monasteries quickly uh come up and recreate order in in that society. Um yeah so it's a very familiar phenomenon. >> So is this a reaction to the society or is like a voluntarily >> well I have my own theory. I call it the pulsation of the commons. So basically when markets and states function well the commons kind of are less necessary and go down but when markets and states start disintegrating and collapsing common structures come back and monasteries are typical common structure because it's collective property and all the surplus goes in the infrastructure

and spreading the infrastructure. So they're, you know, they um they spread like swarms of bees. Whenever they reach a certain size, they split and they look for new territory and they recreate order. They reestablish agriculture and crafts. So they're like a healing mechanism for society. >> Maybe sometimes is voluntarily healing, sometimes is just um a consequence of what they are doing. Yeah, internet connection is very poor.

Extremely poor. I wanted to show something but it's not. if you have if you can. Yes. >> Yeah. Some of them. >> Um >> Okay.

Make the password public. space. Possibly. Yeah. Thank you, Deca. Okay.

Getting back to this getting there. Okay, this is a place that uh so I have to say um a while ago, 12 years ago, 2014 actually 13 uh started collaborating with the Ethereum Foundation at the beginning of its existence and there was this place called Holland0 which is which was turned out to be headquartered for Ethereum Foundation. It was a place where 13 people uh were living and working uh to improve society and we

were all filled mostly uh male and geek. So the the social relationship were a bit uh awkwardish. Uh but still it was a very meaningful place to be. Uh well there was a lot of thought uh very experienced people uh keen to to really keen to to make uh this place a better world. huge uh things came out of of there as you know and this inspired me to after a few years was starting this place in a place I was living in Barcelona

um resolution a bit okay still I think connection still limited um so I found a warehouse and that afterwards became two in Barcelona. There was looked like this thing. In real life, it's not so pixelated, but you can get a very good image of what it was was a bit uh dirt and and uh broken walls and and the roof was really rainy inside. We had to do a lot of stuff with a few people. uh we found on on the on the on this path.

Um so we refurbished by ourself. Uh we made the the floor actually a company made the floor and we did electricity plumbing um mezanine structures the roof. Um between these people we had uh uh carpenters uh architects, philosophers, uh journalists, teachers, um permaculturists, a lot of different skills, a lot of different people connected by uh what was at the moment the vision of getting a space for society, some kind of R&D for society, a space where you can to

stay together, share the space, share the cost of the space and actually building something that might be meaningful for outside. One of the roots was actually the the multi-disiplinarity. Society is made of a lot of different things, a lot of different disciplines from streets to education to laws to um metal working a lot of different topics. So if we want to propose solution, we need to consider all the complexity of society which is extremely difficult still worth trying.

This was the first event IPFS second event um December 16 or December 2017. This was the first event that uh gave us the like just a date to remember in Akasha hub in Barcelona. And eight years later we got to this um quite a big community. We have more than 70 residents.

1,000 member uh registered. Actually this is uh outdated uh uh now we are almost 3,000 more than 500 I would say more like 600 events we don't have a real number on that just a lot of things happening uh especially the first uh few months when we wanted to actually activate this thing um we did 50 events in three months which was like one every four events per week, five events per week. Um, it was very intense.

Uh, but this got us uh, uh, some interesting people around. At the beginning, I have to say this was my part of it was my house and all the rest. So, it was all my house. I built my house inside the h the the warehouse and then started inviting uh meetup groups on topics that I I felt connected to and suddenly more and more interesting people were coming. We started co-working together. Uh we started proposing a project for the neighbors uh which was uh now it's uh the community garden and we gather lot of different uh very interesting people including people from

the government. They are part of the hub and they saw the potential. They never saw something like this. In one week we presented a project that probably is worth 20,000 euros for the planning urban planning of the uh location. And this was actually a project that uh connected very well with the government because they didn't expect uh something like this something disorganized uh organized this well and with such a level of details and care for disciplines different things a wheelchair for the uh accessibility for education uh tokens a lot of stuff they didn't couldn't even imagine. So this this was

a very uh meaningful project inside all what happened. Nowadays we have getting back to this uh more than seven res 70 residency residents um meaning co-working people working there people that are selected because they are working on some specific topic that is meaningful for us. So uh in order to access the co-working you have to uh yeah be selected in a uh yeah be are very aligned with us let's say um co-workers are paying for the space where two warehouses

uh we have a place of co-working we have a place of uh gathering as a big space for uh events and multi-purpose those uh uh activities. We have a a cultural program when we have uh kids of from one week to eight weeks they're coming there age in between 15 and 18. So it's a very nice age uh um to teach them about decentralization teach uh design thinking also permaculture Arduino electronics uh CNC uh fabl in general. So 3D printing, CNC, carpentry, a lot of different skills

that they they acquire and they acquire it through uh the commitment of members of these 70 people that knows a bit of each one knows their own their own uh stuff and they are willing to explain these kits. So basically it's a gathering place of uh people who co-work and project who who who are which are improving society at least trying to improve society and environment and the sharing of this knowledge of these people to externals to uh people from around from the neighbors uh from the neighborhood but also from all over Europe they're coming

uh through school agreement and stuff. We also have a fabl carpentry. We have a space for uh electronics and robotics. A space for uh more yeah more detailed machinery like 3D printing laser cut. Uh we have a space for uh gardening and generally there is there is always a lot of open space where you can just uh improvise uh tables and and set up uh chairs to watch a movie to have a dinner together to cook together and yeah it's a multi-purpose space let's say uh here you can see you cannot see but

you can perceive Uh there is a lot of people around. Uh not sure what >> sorry. >> Yeah, maybe. >> Yeah, probably. So, I'm going to charge again. >> No. Okay. This is a uh urban environment. Uh so the square meter is not very affordable. We cannot uh get to there but there are neighbors or people from the city coming there to work mainly. We are still looking to have a more uh

established place also for living but at the moment is not even required. Um it's required for something that uh I think is will be very meaningful since the beginning. We are looking for that to have people coming and going. So people staying from one week to three months max and coming uh bringing uh new ideas, new topics coming and going all the time. So with that you you guarantee this semi-permeable membrane uh uh effectiveness when you get new idea doesn't it's not uh uh how do you call

it when it uh um anyway it's not closed mentality it's actually open and it breathe the society situation but also new project new ideas can come and go It's a cross crosspollination in some way. Okay, now you you see much better. So this is a biomaterial I believe. Yeah, bio material and and um food creation.

There are we have a lot of communities as you see the 20 plus projects are um about urban gardening, permaculture, bioarchchitecture biioaterials uh maker uh so makers electronics and and and related uh we have uh uh groups and communities of people uh around food a couple projects about that and so you have quite a quite a few topics. We also have perma computing there. We have uh yeah Ethereum developers mostly related to

the values of technology and tools very specific tools and not much about profit or startup mostly geekland. And you can see here a few activities we did with uh mostly with the students with our cultural program more activities with the neighbors with presentation of books uh some cultural exchange or some we tackle some topic about uh society struggles. So we have let's say another point another way of

seeing this is uh we are based locally so we know the struggle local struggles and through us personally or through the neighbors that are coming we understand what's the current situation we are connected globally so we know that in other places they solved it like this like that we had presentation about that we have access to tools and actually we have a room full of people that are interested in the topic and they can be interested they can be connected to the solution or the problem but they are communicating to each other there. So it's a moment it's a situation

you're creating where it's full of potential for solving things. you have text and the text stack and the text stack or the knowledge stack and and then the the issue on the on the on the ground. Sorry, I'm repeating myself but I think this is crucial. So now this is the space we have two warehouses like this one is uh you can see uh in this part you can see the co-working all this is co-working. We have a kitchen, toilet, meeting room and other small uh calling booths. Uh all all made by ourself.

So no company involved except for the glasses there on the floor. >> thank you. uh this is Barcelona uh Spain. So this makes uh this is our community a part of that many many is like difficult to to maintain a uh onetoone relationship especially if you're traveling uh but this is actually us we are self-managed uh self uh funded with the salaries sorry with the renting of the

of the space we are actually paying for the whole space and This permits us to have free space to do other stuff except for co-working other stuff. So we have uh projectors, we have speakers, we have uh uh cameras and microphones and stuff like this. Uh we have uh drills and all the machinery you can imagine like I wish I have a photo. I don't have a photo to show you about the the the carpentry.

Uh it's basically a playground for adults with values to so you can do whatever you you feel like because tools are a common uh the infrastructure is a common I can buy a drill. You don't need to buy a drill. Nobody has to buy a drill because there is already a drill. there is a ladder and that the neighbor donate one another one and suddenly we have nine ladders and we don't know what to do with that but if somebody want to buy a ladder uh [laughter] maybe they can finance us um the most important part is uh well there are three important the three of

them are important the collaboriveness open uh for conversation all the time there is a kitchen which is open without walls and doors and anything There's people uh get a coffee and somebody coming from the door. You're talking suddenly with the neighbor or with the um some delegate from the institutions just randomness happening. The door is always and this is something that uh generates a lot of uh activity.

yes. As I mentioned uh so the the events and the one sec the events are generated by by the members and coordinated by by uh few people two three people we try to do socracy but it's very difficult to get people commitment especially in Barcelona that you have a lot of activities and and suddenly you have a meeting and people don't come because they are in the beach on the birthday and yeah you have to deal with that and so we get tired of that and suddenly we say okay let's do it the way we can and it's it's us two three five people now we are 10

and so it's speeding up again from the centralization trying to get more more people like that really committed with the with the topic with the initiative >> [snorts] >> Yeah. Um, so I have some questions. Uh, like ownership, is it the co-op? What's the legal form? Uh, maybe also do people get paid or is it all all voluntary? So these kinds of questions like really practical institutional questions. How how do you manage to exist in time?

>> Yeah. So since the beginning this was a struggle uh to figure out a business model. We have a potential to have a income but there's no people taking care of that. We don't have so much energy to to put on that. So we are based on volunteers at the moment. Uh we could generate more income but we're not. And that's okay. We are running with the volunteers at the moment. We have some extra money coming from the rent of the spaces and event or space rent from outsiders with that money maybe we pay sometimes the cleaning the cleaning person to come when we see that just it's unbearable

it's too much then we we ask for help from outside because uh just volunteering is not enough. people have their struggle especially in the city where the cost of life is so high. Uh salary median salary is equal to the medium rent. Uh so you cannot uh basically afford anything. Um so we are working like that. Every person is struggling with their own life. So we don't have extra money but they they are um some people are keen to put some hours into the project for the sake of it because they really feel alive. We don't own we are renting out for very cheap because it was pretty

much destroyed but uh we have to look for another place since in we are part of a urban plan of a park will be there few months few years to decades we don't know Spain able to attract. So we didn't want to depend on anybody except for we wanted to demonstrate uh to search a way to to make ourself independent and figure out business model internal business model just if

the neighborhood can guarantee there is a space there that doesn't depend on the government doesn't depend on third parties just people collaborating getting a space paying the rent whatever is needed we have the case. Um that was the the goal. Uh it's bit it's been uh quite learning process and now we are setting some funds for uh projects inside. Let's do maybe a hackathon. Let's do the urban garden. So the project themsself can search found search for founds and stuff ourself. We are

let's say sometimes we are thinking about that but we are actually not getting any funds from outside it's a to answer your question sorry uh it's an association it's still not a cooperative that would be nice and yeah we're just running as we can just the legal format we found but the most basic most important part is uh the community >> other microphone. >> Yes.

>> Um you you're renting but you transformed this like warehouse into you added all this value with this like beautiful indoor space. I'm wondering if there's what's your arrangement with the owners and like is there some way you can benefit from the fact that you probably the value of the place has [snorts] gone uh are they going to get all that value or is there some way you can get rewarded for it? >> No. Yeah, it just uh either we stay like it was or take advantage of the situation and make it better for the for the moment we are staying there. So we're just taking the

risk maybe tomorrow will come and say you have to go. We unmount everything. Everything is amount is uh can be amounted uh by design. Uh yeah we cannot do much basically [laughter] just we we pack everything and move to the next place the it was a kamikas a bit situation let's go for that and let's see what happened and we don't want to wait more time just let's go so we are in this situation now things are working we've been lucky enough to stay there now nine years 10 years most um let's see how long it goes and and

next step will be probably to have a property something like that. I'm not sure about if in Barcelona center since it's very high cost a place like this can cost around maybe three millions and it's something that uh 100 people cannot deal with. But maybe a neighbor a neighborhood where 30,000 people 10 each you can get something. um still it's difficult to to get there. So we have to maybe look for other solutions. Maybe the help of other uh experts from worldwide other situation like this that maybe I have solved it in a different

way or maybe some donors that just have a spare place a building empty building we can just make use of that suck microphone. It seems to me like the model itself of being able to bring together 70 people into a big space and build this kind of thing is actually perhaps the most valuable aspect. So many people are craving community right now and don't know what to do and don't know how to do it. So, if you could really step outside the frame and see how you did it and what you did and create a playbook, a protocol, um, and a a way to invite people in, you know, to experience it,

you know, even just people in the city who want to come and experience community for a day. Seems like that'd be a great gift to others to to really show what you've done. >> Yeah. That's >> Sorry, >> you're doing that, right? >> Yeah. Now, yeah, I was mentioning this. Uh, now this was the first step. This is Aasha Hub in Barcelona, the web page if you want to check it out. Accasha.B Barcelona. you can see project some project have been maybe afterwards

I I will uh mention some uh what you mentioned suck uh about having maybe a blueprint or something. It's been an idea since the beginning. Let's uh monitor what we are doing the errors we are making uh document uh the best practices internally. So in the future that we don't do the same errors but also to share with others and that was one of the reasons why after a while we could actually uh dedicate some time to generate this uh uh documentation and this willingness to uh connect with more entities or more people that want to open spaces like this.

Um, Habs network as you know it's a project started actually was an idea of 10 years ago with Roberto with other people um in the last year we've been moving a bit the things and try to get to gather this information but also to connect with other places that uh meanwhile they started so they there are actually similar places at least aligned places. They already started around Europe for now. Uh mostly and shared knowledge and shared tips, best practices, learn from each other, but also uh generating this

cooperation possibly apply to grants together. Uh possibly generate events or sharing resources in between each other. also having this cross-pollination um projects that uh uh um comes up like the residency program we we are we are starting now we are generating a platform uh you can go search at apphabsnetwork.org or this one uh stealing uh still being developed. So we are not ready yet. We're still uh finishing the last things. There are

some hubs uh there you can apply to be a resident in their uh programs. basically a hub need to the classical uh example need to repair a roof and then they need some help and so they're calling for help. Pilgrims which are we call it like that at the moment there are people that are willing to help and to move in that place help out for that specific task. Um and each pilgrim can carry a passport. Um we call it passport for now. Let's see what uh uh how it comes out. Basically, it's recording all the

action happened and if a person is uh has a lot of experience in this or that helping out hub or the other have maybe get some points or whatever it is or just document that it's been helping a lot the community and how it goes well. yeah just monitor what's happening between hubs but also uh generating this crosspollination so you learn from a space you go in another space you say hey you can apply actually this NFC for books or you can manage better the the kitchen with this roles and stuff we are learning from each other since we are

all in the same situation pretty much we're struggling with money struggling with organization coordination but also with the bureaucracy. So if we can if we can solve a a topic in one space possibly we can solve it in all the place. >> Just a quick one. Is it the same as the new Camino that you're describing or something else? >> Uh just two different entities. uh new Camino made from uh Richard Nati uh from Kazatilo in Barcelona and Microsarity Network uh we're starting from one hub so it's a different situation let's say

it I mean it's just just a a different uh um organization but the the the value proposal is is there connecting connecting this uh these uh local spaces that are generating value uh and connecting hub stewards. So not sure I will open now maybe uh more questions maybe I can mention first one of the project just to understand the complexity of these things and how this project can this uh species can generate value. This is Joe Yung to me is a quite meaningful project.

It was done by um one of our residents in the the hub, an artist, a multi-disiplinary art artist. Uh she made uh let's see if there is more photos possibly. No, no. Okay. Um she was in touch with the at least she researched a bit of biology and she realized she realized there are some bacterias capable of generating energy electricity. So she researched uh into that field and suddenly come out that uh some researcher from Madrid were doing

something in that direction in the laboratory. So she thought what if we can apply this to the garden to the urban garden and basically what came out was a collaboration between biologist uh electronics 3D printing a uh an artist sculpturing sculpture artist uh biomeaterials um yeah uh and uh bronze fusion. So you have all of that in the same place.

Suddenly you can talk to each other. Hey can you help me? I have this thing in mind. Uh would be like this like that. And basically this concept is actually you have some bacteria they are decontaminating the soil some part of that and while doing that they generate electricity as a byproduct very little electricity but if you can make it a scale there all these fingers in the in the in the soil has to be human soil for it for the bacteria to reproduce and and uh operate.

You can gather all this electricity and use it at as a light that turns on if somebody passes. So you can actually apply that in a new garden of the city. Decontaminating the soil and you have public illumination, public lighting in the parking for free while the contaminating. You know, it's a win-winwin situation that only occurs when you talk to each other. you generate this um uninterest uh project I mean uninterested in meaning there is not a company behind so I are not willing to I don't have to pay this and that and that and that because we are all keen to collaborate for for

for cur out of curiosity out of willing to to figure out something and this project are uh more and more are happening more and more so you had that with that would uh receive uh an award of uh digital arts in the tier uh European award of the best uh digital art project and and project like this I think they are like a lighthouse for us. Hey this is possible. We can actually solve things.

We can generate a better governance. We have a better business model. Uh, >> that's the blue picture. This one, if you want to check it out, the name is that one. Jun >> microphone. >> What are we looking at in the blue? It's It looks like a underwater or something. >> Not sure we can see the details, but it was basically Okay, maybe I have more a lot of photos on on the phone. Let's see if we can Okay, this was a sculpture. Okay, this was the

sculpture. >> So, you get a better understanding here. Okay. So, you have biomaterials there. You have a state-of-the-art LED like very uh efficient LED >> low consumption. >> This fungi like shape uh are gathering water >> through these tubes through sorry through these tubes that before they were 3D uh 3D printed and then it's a fusion metal fusion >> and they gather all the water into this sink. Then from the sink got distributed

into every single cell. There are a part I I if I remember right it was a ceramic shell. Uh inside you have carbon and outside titanium uh um piece of titanium to to make the the other electrod. >> And this was actually gathering electricity. If you see the the cables there. >> Mhm. >> Red and blue c red and uh black cable. And you get to an accumulator.

And in this case, we had the uh manual uh switch. You can actually apply a sensor. >> Uhhuh. >> This was just a test. It's being exposed in different museums >> and yeah was working like this. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, since we mentioned before, can we stay at Kasha Hub? We don't have space.

There were residency at the beginning, but uh we cannot get people inside the office basically to sleep in the office. So we uh partnered with the give house which is another place in Barcelona uh very aligned as you know give it project and they have very affordable uh rooms and and beds. So in case you want to visit Akashahav in Barcelona and you want to stay there, help out, reach out and you can stay give a house and help uh Akasha.

>> Giveth is a it's a project give ETH. So it's related to Ethereum. It's a it's a funding uh uh project for >> [laughter] >> Uh oh, Cosmo. Okay. No, he was a steward of the house for the for a bit. That's why he mentioned it. It was in Barcelona. Anyway, >> giveth house house.

Gi v. Um I was mentioning about Akashahab actually the the desire was to mention this as one case or many another case is liinal village. You have a very uh long history as well of uh getting a space running uh having a business model having generating impact is a different project. It's not a co-working stable co-working for pe local people. is actually gathering people from all around the world during a a short period of time during one month actually one lunation from new moon to new moon and

they're generating uh activities along this uh monthl long four weeks maybe Roberto you can mention a bit I prefer >> well you covered the basis uh it's like a pop-up city popup community that keeps happening for eight years. Sometimes many people, sometimes just a few people. The moon always does it cycle. So you always uh um we always we time the arrival around the new moon if you're arriving and then if there is energy we do something together. And yeah, in a way it is a little bit of a a monastery, regenerative monastery where

we really try to experiment with is a living lab, right? experiment with like how to be together, how to coordinate, to take care of the space in a way like a five-star resort where the clients are also the staff, right? Right. And in the process figure out know how this to be together to how to relate to each other. Uh what technologies do we need, what technology we don't need. Um but the question is also applicable at the higher level.

Sometimes you don't need technology in the in the immediate vicinity is you run it like a family. But as you're dealing and relating to other places and as you're passing through these places then you need to use technologies to be able to track what it is that is needed and who's contributing to do that to do that at the higher level and that's uh the technology we're developing. Can you do some examples of projects you've been doing locally? >> Uh we have a a three-way of looking which is uh personal which included inside and you know something that is both physical

but also spiritual uh personal local global. So every person should be uh contributing in a way at these three three different layers. So um you know when you do a local project it's about building something uh helping in the garden um we have now a local network that is attempting to um yeah to bring in the municipalities to to actually coordinate with each other in terms of like communication of what's happening what's needed. So these are kind of local software project you can see local and global. Everybody should have his own personal intention when uh when they

come and uh sent they can work on. Um again my personal kind of attitude is on the on the development of the technologies for across the hubs. So that is yeah you know it's a personal project a local project and a global project at the same time right um >> the kindergarten is uh >> sure yeah of course [laughter] >> so we have a a few different projects ongoing one is a kindergarten this is not necessarily our project because it's for every project you always you do it

with a group right >> so it's not you it's always the people that come together. So it's like a hollow that forms around the need. These kids the need for the kindergarten was like no growing our kids in nature and with a specific mindset that is not necessarily like it was also the time of COVID. So having a a children in a kindergarten that couldn't that needed to be taught on not to touch not to wearing a mask and everything. So we kind of used that need to create also to to catalyze a um yeah a a new location where we could actually together as people decide how to spend our time. Um and um yeah so we crowdfunded a yurt

together and that created the space to actually run this. It was hosted at one of the parents houses. we're paying uh a professional uh is an educator uh Steiner Waldorf educator and and some some apprentices and so then 20 families basically every day is bringing their kids to the earth and then picking them back up and that creates actually the opportunity for uh not only bringing your kid but you know communicate what else do you need and so when I bring my kid and somebody knows what it is that they need they might actually bring it.

So we also use it to exchange tools. Uh we actually taking uh our veggies from there. So I bring my kid there and uh somebody's brought uh organic vegetable crate which I take put in my car and bring it back. So you see how simple and much more effective it could be rather than having to go to the store um where we actually looking at what is the need, how do we get together and what else can we do based on that. Super uh I think over there you mentioned the software which is actually a social infrastructure um project you're developing not only for you but also for other hubs. So in this sense is uh uh one of the things

that come up from these spaces they're willing to collaborate and uh to make it more efficient for these spaces to run. Uh we also have another well quite a few examples. Another one it's uh uh common subing in Brussels and yeah maybe you can mention a bit uh what is this what you are doing? >> Yeah so like it's also in the urban environment so people cannot sleep there. Uh we started that two years ago.

We started with um organizing a pop-up village called the region village which was alongside EFCC when 8,000 people came to Brussels from around the world for the crypto conference and um the idea was to do a side event where we will basically bring people from the crypto space who are also interested in regeneration. Um we have two floors in front of the central station so it's super easy to get to. Brussels is really well connected in Belgium in Europe. So, there was a direct train to Paris, London, and Amsterdam. Um, and then a night train to come here to Vienna and to Berlin. I recommend it's actually fun. I don't know if you ever done it.

Um, and we also, it's also I love what you said, a playground for grown-ups with with values that try to experiment with what else is possible because we all understand that capitalism and the current way we organize oursel and allocate resources is just not working anymore. So we need something else. And the main experiment we've been running is this idea of embracing um multiple currencies. So we have the euros because we need to pay the rent, but we also have the common sub token that can only be minted uh with proof of work, proof of contribution to the community. And then people can redeem those tokens for making use of common resources. uh typically booking the space for whatever

meetup they want to organize or sponsor um or activity workshop. And so it's interesting because we've been talking a lot about how do we and actually that's one of the topic of this week. How do we actually val uh value accounting, right? How do we uh the current capitalistic system we have only have one currency and so one way to reward your contribution to society which is linked to your contribution to the GDP and that's a very masculine currency. Uh it's something that can be that fits into a spreadsheet. Uh and so we introduce a yin currency like we call lit um to make sure that when you contribute to the space there is a token of gratitude and it's acknowledged and it is and it can be used for you or for

somebody or a project that you love so that eventually the people who make use of the space are people who are um yeah who've been contributing to the space in some form or another. Super just to close up a couple more uh minutes that we have. So I would just like to well before all there is another hub I don't know if you know that is a common sub um in Vienna and this is also another node of the network we are trying to build up. uh definitely a very strong collaborator of the network and definitely a very good example of what it can be uh especially looking

forward to the value of the commons what this can be this working can you hear me >> okay perfect um I would like to synthesize overall what is needed for this basis so we we've been talking at the beginning of uh humankind what we all have been through and at what situation situation we are we have we are full of uh information everywhere. We are a lot a lot of experts and people all around the world. We have a lack of coordination also we have a lack of understanding uh the world in a uh objective way. We don't really we are

not really sure of everything we read and we had to search a lot in in order to understand really what's happening kind of uh at least trying to be more objective pos as possible there is a lot of work to do there and in general for this society to be uh coherent. So we are uh doing going in a lot of different direction but can we actually coordinate and get to somewhere together knowing uh who we are what we want where do we want to go what are we managing what are our resources

so when we know that as a collective consciousness we can actually get to a collective actions in the same way that small kid learn to walk first is like what is this? Okay, it's my feet and then I move it like this like that and suddenly I can walk oh now I can walk and jump and I can run. So before you need to know yourself and then you have an action. The same way the collective um sphere a collective uh perspective um we have to know who we are, what we want and then act. If not we are just

fighting with each other. One is like one kid is like one leg want to jump the other one to sleep. We are in the same situation. We are not really aware of what we are. So this is a place for that to get uh coherent to get conscious about who we are and to um align in collective actions and solve actually this the thing we have to solve because we have the tools and we have the people and we have the resources.

just a brief understanding of what uh would a 21st century monastery would be like. Um in monastery in general you have value alignment and devotion which is something that maybe we maybe lack. Um clear rules and discipline. You have knowledge from outside, knowledge from inside. You have uh clarity of our resources. You have multi-disiplinarity which we saw that's very very important.

We have a a semi-permeable membrane towards outside. So it's us but it's outside as well. And it's the relationship we have with outside either locally or globally. This is valid for people, ideas and information in general but also technologies. Um then we have uh the mission we want what we want to uh or what we can achieve or bring to the outside uh to the local what can we do for the locals or [snorts] for the world.

And then finally we have this pilgrim that we mentioned is the connecting tissue between one place and the other and the software or the overall coordination between spaces of similar characteristic and people. Um maybe what will be next would be to have uh research and innovation inside as well which is something that is more or less happening since you get the information suddenly you can maybe elaborate beer or do uh 3D printing with biioaterials or other stuff. So you're kind of gathering information and make it your own. So in some way you are uh realaborating

innovating in the things you you can have access to. Uh we now have a worldwide connection to institution to to spaces. We have state-of-the-art innovation and we have local application available uh some other places that have applied that and I can copy reproduce it here make it better publish again. We know this peer-to-peer culture in general and this is to finish a bit.

uh we have as humanity we have a lot a lot a lot of potential there there is a lot of knowledge we have the tools as mentioned we have the resources we are just a lack of coordination between all of us so it's a matter of getting together and be disciplined and be there and make the effort to understand where we are where we are the value of this also the value that is here in between the people and what we can bring outside and yeah and basically that's it. It's very simple.

[applause] I would there remind me that there is something that we prepared he prepared. It's the time to play. >> This will take five minutes. Oh, you want me to read them out loud?

>> You want to read them out loud? I don't know. >> We are now seven people in the room. Did you >> Did you scan the QR? >> Sorry, Marcel. We're still finishing here. >> Two minutes. Five minutes probably. >> Can you raise your hand if you want to play and have not yet entered the room? One second. >> Okay. Nine people.

Are you ready? Okay, we're starting. >> I'm not going to read them out.